Today, the columnist Thomas Frank of the Wall Street Journal wrote a column in which he basically says modern day conservatives are bizarrely paranoid. From reading his article, he’s talking about those conservatives who believe in capitalism, are against government propaganda, and are against government social engineering. Here’s a snippet of his piece.

Back in Hofstadter’s day this sort of thinking at least had something supremely rational going for it: The existence of the Soviet Union and its desire to bring the West to its knees.

But take that away and the theories become something far more remarkable. Consider, by contrast, the widespread belief that President Barack Obama’s birth certificate was forged. What could have been his parents’ motives for committing such a bizarre deed, or his home state’s motive for colluding in it, or the courts’ motives for overlooking it?

Or consider the widespread conservative conviction that we are being marched secretly into communism or fascism. Why would someone bother? It seems equally likely, given today’s circumstances, that conspirators would trick us into becoming a colony of Belgium or the imperial seat of the Bonaparte family.

The paranoid pattern persists regardless. It is impervious to world events; a blurting of the American subconscious that has not changed since Hofstadter analyzed it 45 years ago. Consider the recent wave of fear that the hypnotic Mr. Obama was planning to indoctrinate schoolchildren. In “The Paranoid Style,” Hofstadter wrote, “Very often the enemy is held to possess some especially effective source of power: he controls the press; . . . he has a new secret for influencing the mind; . . . he is gaining a stranglehold on the educational system.”

via Thomas Frank: From John Birchers to Birthers – WSJ.com.

Let me start off by saying, I agree to some extent on the birth certificate issue. I don’t know whether the issue is valid or not, so I don’t claim that it is. It’s a distraction, and it let’s people like Mr. Frank lump all conservatives together and say they are nuts.

With that said, I do have a problem with the remaining arguments in Mr. Frank’s article. To say that conservatives are claiming we are marching secretly to communism or fascism, and that somehow that is nuts, should highlight how the intellectuals among us are so blinded by their supposed brilliance. Apparently, the government take over of our largest financial, automotive, and soon to be newspaper institutions is of no concern to Mr. Frank. That is just silly talk. So what if the government controls them, and they say what is going to happen in the market place. How is that communism or fascism?

In addition, I think Mr. Frank doesn’t realize that this isn’t a new march. Surely the government permanently impoverishing a large population with welfare and using Medicare and Social Security to induce fear when needed on another large segment of our population could be considered something other than just crazy, paranoia.

I guess, Alexander Hamilton was paranoid when he wrote in the Federalist Papers, “.. that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of goverment. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants” What kind of crazy is Alexander Hamilton warning us about those tenderhearted politicians?

We all know Jefferson was a loony, paranoid, nut case when he said, “A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.” What a weirdo.

Don’t worry about the government trying to take over the 1/6th of our economy via health care. They would never use your health care to make you behave in a certain way. They would never hold it up at election time to scare people into voting for them. Why would you think that?

Surely, this “paranoia” that Mr. Frank so arrogantly puts down is nothing new. What most people would call skepticism has been with us since our founding. It is what led our country to revolution and then to form our union under a constitution.

As far as the school children, the media may have blew it out of proportion, but that was before the post speech exercise assignment was revised to not make it sound like the student had to do something that the President asked. I think it also went hand and hand with the video from Hollywood asking students to pledge allegiance to the President.  Surely, that’s just a little disturbing is it not? Surely, if this video and this homework assignment was from Bush, Democrats and the left would have rightfully went nuts. Oh wait, but that’s not paranoia. When Bush was in, he only purposefully let a couple thousand  New Orleanians die. Maybe I should go back and read Mr. Frank’s article on those crazy lefties.

Lastly, in part of the article that I don’t have sited here, you can read it at the Journal, Mr. Franks poo-poohs Glenn Beck as the master conspirator. Glenn Beck must be a lunatic questioning the Federal Reserve, oh along with all Austrian economists. Surely, the Federal Reserve had nothing to do with the tech bubble, followed by the housing bubble and who knows what bubble they are creating now.

Mr. Frank’s complete lack of historic and conceptional perspective is an embarrassment for my paper of choice. While, he’s entitled to his opinion, maybe he can keep his head in ground. We’ll pull him back out once we take our country back.

How do you get health care reform, which will harm doctors, patients, health related companies and all tax payers? Simple. You lie, cheat, steal, and if need be, you bang some heads. That is exactly what the Obama administration and congressional democrats are doing. Today’s Wall Street Journal highlights just one such scam being employed to get the support of the American Medical Association.

President Obama has made serial promises that he will not sign a health-care bill that “adds one dime to our deficits, either now or in the future, period.” This was never plausible, but now we can begin to understand what he meant: Democrats plan to make ObamaCare “deficit-neutral” by moving nearly a quarter-trillion dollars off the books, in the fiscal deception of the century.

Later this week, or maybe next, Senate Democrats plan to vote on a stand-alone bill that strips a formula that automatically cuts Medicare physician payments out of “comprehensive” health reform. Rather than include the pricey $247 billion plan known on Capitol Hill as the “doc fix” as part of ObamaCare, they’ll instead make this a separate contribution to the deficit, without compensating tax increases or spending cuts. Majority Leader Harry Reid explained at a press conference last week that “All we’re doing is wiping the slate clean by adjusting the baseline to what is current policy. This is not new policy.”

Wiping the slate is right.

It’s true that Congress likes to pretend that the “sustainable growth rate,” or SGR, is real. Created in 1997, the SGR slashes Medicare reimbursements if costs rise too steeply, as they always do. In January, doctors fees are scheduled to fall by 21.5%, and 40% over the next five years. That would force many doctors to stop seeing Medicare patients, so Congress intervenes every year and temporarily overrides the cuts.

The American Medical Association’s asking price for supporting ObamaCare is scrapping the SGR. House Democrats did just that, but it pushed the total cost of their bill above $1 trillion, a political red line. The Senate Finance Committee chose the subterfuge of fixing the problem for only one year, which is how Chairman Max Baucus could claim he had done the miracle-work of designing an entitlement that reduces the deficit over 10 years. The AMA wasn’t pacified.

So now Democrats are simply going to “untether” this spending on doctors from ObamaCare, hiding even more of its true costs. At a meeting on the Hill last week, Mr. Reid and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel made the quid pro quo explicit, telling the AMA and about a dozen specialty societies that in return for this dispensation they expect them to back ObamaCare, no questions asked.

via Democrats Plan to Strip Sustainable Growth Rate Formula from Health-Care Reform – WSJ.com.

Already the Democrats are gathering support from horrible Big Pharma, Big Insurance, and now they are twisting arms to get Big Docs. We all know how evil these groups are, while the government is so virtuous and compassionate. Why would these groups that are going to be harmed by health care reform decide to back it? Is it because it’s what’s best for America? We are told that Big Pharma and Insurance are so evil and too many doctors would cut off  your left leg just to make a buck, but then when they back Obama all the sudden we are supposed to say, “Oh, well if they are backing it, it must be a fabulous idea.” Either they are evil, or they are not, Obama.

So to see who is evil, let’s just see who is pulling the fast one. In the article above, the government currently has a policy of slashing medicare payments to doctors if medicare costs rise too quickly. As we’ve discussed in previous posts, costs always rise “too quickly”, because government money floods the market driving up demand and third party payer hides price signals from the consumer. Also, “too quickly” is an arbitrary measure based on medicare budgeting. It has nothing to do with a what is really happening economically.

Anyways, in the end doctors are going to have their reimbursements cut yearly as costs exceed bureaucratic expectations. If you are a doctor, how many times are you going to let the government put the screws to you before you stop treating medicare patients? Then what happens when doctors begin dropping medicare patients? Well, we’ve already discussed that cost or price is effected by supply and demand. Even if demand stayed the same, which it won’t because this is a new expansion of medicare, supply is going to be cut. Doctors will be dropping out, leaving less doctors and choices for patients on the government’s dole. Oh, and guess what. With the decrease in supply, guess what happens. You guessed it, costs increase. Hmm, what did the government say they would do if costs increase above expectations? Oh yeah, they would cut reimbursement rates, leading to a circular decline of medical care.

“Hold up buddy. The article above says they are scrapping that.” Oh, that’s right. In a bargain with the devil, the AMA is going to support this if congress drops the SGR. Does dropping it fix the budgetary problems? No it doesn’t, and as soon as the budget ceiling explodes, you will hear how evil the doctors are again. Congress, like the decievers they are, will undoubtedly renege on their agreement with the AMA and re-instate the SGR.

There is nothing good about the government involvement in health care. It’s making a deal with the devil expecting him to uphold his end of the bargain. The problem is once the devil has gained control of your life, it takes an act of God to get him out.

Tony Blankley has column out today that talks about the insane notion that the government seems to have that it can continue spending with out regard to the debt. The debate on health care is so ridiculous when you think about where we are heading already without adding any new programs ever going forward. Here is a small piece of his column.

Don’t take my word for it. In June, the Congressional Budget Office published “The Long-Term Budget Outlook,” its summary reading in part: “The federal budget is on an unsustainable path — meaning that federal debt will continue to grow much faster than the economy over the long run. … Rising costs for health care and the aging of the U.S. population will cause federal spending to increase rapidly.”

And yet the same Congress and president who want to stop the banks from taking too much risk cannot stop themselves from expanding deficits.

The federal government is giving the “green light” for the country to drive to the poorhouse — and drive there, I would argue, by way of the lunatic asylum.

Before Sen. Max Baucus’ health bill is enacted, $9.3 trillion of newly created deficit already has been added to the national debt. The Baucus bill is considered a triumph of careful budgeting because it may cost only $829 billion

via Debt-driven madness – Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Now, I don’t think the American public is as crazy as the government, in particular the Democratic party. That is why the majority of the public does not support a public option. Also, this is partly why you see a mass movement against the government’s ever expanding welfare state. The future of our country looks extremely dire with the predictions of the CBO, and yet politicians keep pressing on for more spending. Could it be that the statists would love to see the downfall of the capitalist United States or at least a partial collapse, so that they can grab even more power from a frighten and impoverished citizenry?

As responsible Americans, we have to forget even the notion of any type of health care bill that leads to government expansion. Not only that, we need to start realizing the party is over, we’ve drank way too much, and the hang over is going to be nasty. It’s time for us to make drastic cuts in the welfare state. We can no longer hand out government dollars for today’s “me, me, me” population to the detriment of future generations.

Yesterday, the Senate finance committee passed the Baucus bill, well wasn’t a bill, but a set of ideas. One only need to look at the new $507 billion in new taxes to see why government should leave the reform to the private sector. This bill will not only drive up demand, thus driving up costs, but it will also drive down supply and stunt job creation. Obviously, if supply is driven down, cost also go up, and without job creation people can’t afford health insurance anyways. Ok, so let’s take a look at these new taxes and see how they will affect the market. Below is a list of new taxes from CNSNews.com.

(CNSNews.com) – The health-care bill that the Senate Finance Committee will vote on today will cost a total of $829 billion over 10 years, with $507 billion of that cost being covered by new federal taxes and fees, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

These new taxes and fees include:

– $201 billion in new taxes on high-premium health care plans.

– $83 billion in new taxes paid by workers who will receive less employer-sponsored coverage or lose that coverage altogether but will be compensated with higher wages or monetary benefits, which are taxable.

– $23 billion in penalty fees paid by employers who do not comply with the federal insurance mandate.

– $4 billion in penalty fees paid by individuals who don’t have health insurance.

– $16 billion in new income and Medicare payroll tax revenue due to changes in Medicare.

– $180 billion in other tax revenues items calculated by the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT).

According to the JCT, this $180 billion in new taxes would include: A new tax on prescription drug makers that would account for $22.2 billion over 10 years; a new tax on medical device manufacturers that would bring in $38.6 billion; and a new annual tax on insurance companies would net the government $60.4 billion.

Also, a provision that raises the threshold at which medical expenses become tax deductible, from 7.5 percent of income to 10 percent of income, would reportedly yield the government $15.2 billion in new revenue from sick and disabled Americans with high out-of-pocket medical costs.

via CNSNews.com – Finance Committee Health Bill Includes $507 Billion in New Taxes and Fees.

Now let’s take each one of these taxes and see the law of unintended (let’s hope they are unintended) consequences in action.

The first tax is $201 billion on high-premium health care plans. These are the Cadillac plans that many union guys get. You know, the blue collar guys that supposedly the Democrats love to help. So, one must ask why would you tax these plans and what is the effect of the tax. One only needs to look at the cigarette tax to see the purpose. You tax cigarettes because you want to make it more expensive to smoke and thus drive down the number of people that smoke. Similarly, taxing these high-premium plans will increase the over all cost of them and dissuade companies that offer them from continuing to do so. This is the first example of the socialist principle that if we can’t all have a candy bar, none of us will have one. Because we can’t all have Cadillac health care plans, none of us will. Who does this help? This surely doesn’t help the average Joe. Hmmm, wonder if this applies to Congress’s Cadillac plan?

The second tax listed is $83 billion paid by workers who will receive less coverage from employers or lose coverage, but in turn will get paid more because the employer doesn’t have the insurance cost. Here we go again, with liberals looking out for the common man. The plan drives up the cost of insurance, which is likely to cause many companies, especially small businesses, to drop or reduce the health insurance plans for their employees. “No problem,” says the Baucus bill, “We’ll just tax you the worker.” These taxes are what they believe will be higher wages. The government is showing its hand here. It knows that all costs of an employee lowers the employees wages. Keep this in mind next time the government wants to tax the corporation more. Ok, back to this tax. So, when your employer drops your insurance, the government is betting you get a raise. You better hope they are right, because you’ll be mandated to buy your own insurance or pay a fine.

The third tax is $23 billion in fines paid by employers who don’t comply with the almighty state. OK, so now the government is back to raising the cost of your job to the employer. If you are the employer, is this going to increase your likely hood of hiring or decrease? Also, if you are an employer, you are going to compare the cost of the penalty compared to your current insurance costs. If the penalty is less, you are going to go with the penalty. The difference between fines and insurance costs is insurance costs grow ridiculous amounts every year, and fines will be a fixed cost. From a business planning stand point, that is a plus for going with the fines. So now, not only do you not have health insurance, but money that could be going to paying your more is being sent to the government with no benefit to you.

The fourth tax is $4 billion paid by YOU! That’s right, buy health insurance or pay the government. Isn’t freedom great? So, let’s wrap our heads around where we are right now. If you have awesome health insurance through your employer, the government is going to make it more expensive by taxing it. When you employer drops that, they are going to pay a penalty. Then you  have to hope you get a raise of which you’ll pay taxes on. If you deem you can’t afford to buy health insurance yourself, guess what, you will now pay a fine as well. There sure is a lot of spending going on here, with the end result being you still don’t have health insurance. If you are younger, you may still be better off paying these fines though and holding off on health insurance, because you can just wait till you are sick to buy into health insurance. What the heck, the government is preventing insurance companies from turning down anyone for any reason. Hey, they are just looking out for the common man. Thank your lucky stars!

How many more taxes do we have to go through. I’m starting to throw up a little in my mouth. OK, push through it! The next tax is $16 billion in new Medicare payroll tax due to changes in Medicare. I’ve tried to determine what the hell this means, but have been unable to find exactly what’s proposed here. It sounds like they would raise the payroll tax. If it’s raised on the portion you pay, you just got a tax increase. If it’s raised on the employer’s side, companies just got another reason not to hire or to pay you less.

The last part is a whopping $180 billion in other taxes. So what are these taxes? This is where you get some of the most ridiculous parts of the bill that will do the exact opposite of the the bill claims to do. So, $22.2 billion will be a new tax on drug makers, $38.6 billion on medical device manufactures, and $60.4 billion on insurance companies. So, let me guess, these companies are just going to swallow the crap the government just got shoved in their mouth. This is why politicians should stick to speeches and leave the market to the private sector. Companies don’t pay costs. Consumers pay costs. All of these taxes, drive up the cost of drugs, medical devices, and insurance. This is completely contradictory to what politicians say their goal is. Then again, maybe we just have their goals wrong. I’m guessing they know this, and in a few years they’ll come back and say, “See, the free market isn’t working. We now have to step in and take more control to bring these costs down.” If these taxes can’t be passed on to the consumer by some other legislation, the companies will not be able to meet their profit goals. If they cannot reach their profit goals, they will not make the products. Without the product, supply diminishes even more and drives up costs. So, you either have costs driven up by government induced cost burdens on the medical companies or you have costs driven up by a shrinkage in supply. Pick your poison!

The last one is just perfect. The government loves us so much that they want to make it more expensive if you have very high medical bills. If you have very high medical bills, chances are you are disabled or have a child that has a disability. Don’t worry the government is so compassionate, that is going to make you spend 10% of your income instead of 7.5% before you can get a tax deduction on it. Aww, they are so caring.

Hopefully, if you made it through this blog without vomiting, you see the that government is not trying to help people. They are setting up taxes and other penalties so later all the government zombies come back begging the government for more help. Of course, the government will gladly help out again until they get a nationalized health care system.