FreedomWorks recently hosted a conference call for bloggers and reporters with the House Republican Doctors Caucus. The forum allowed caucus members to make statements regarding the third anniversary of the passage of Obamacare, and the murky future of this deeply flawed legislation. Bloggers and reporters were given the opportunity to ask questions of the caucus members, leading to a lively discussion on the future of health care under this onerous bill.
Read the full article at Freedom Works.
More health reform information on the Obamacare page.
Wednesday, April 03, 2013
Tuesday, April 02, 2013
Administration delays Obamacare small business provision
During the push for national health care, one of President Obama’s major selling points was that the legislation he supported would help small businesses struggling to provide health care to their employees.
Surprise! It's not quite working out as promised.
Read the full article by Philip Klein at The Washington Examiner
More health reform information on the Obamacare page.
Surprise! It's not quite working out as promised.
Read the full article by Philip Klein at The Washington Examiner
More health reform information on the Obamacare page.
Monday, April 01, 2013
California’s ObamaCare Exchange Costs 56 Times More to Launch than Facebook
Launching California’s ObamaCare “Exchange” is so far costing taxpayers 56 times as much as it cost to launch Facebook, while its marketing budget is 8 times what Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) spent on her reelection bid (adjusted for inflation)
Read the full article by Michael F. Cannon at The Cato Institute
More Health care reform resources on the Obamacare page.
Read the full article by Michael F. Cannon at The Cato Institute
More Health care reform resources on the Obamacare page.
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Dick Morris: Obamacare is just the begining
In a brief but very effective video commentary, Dick Morris lays out Obama's real plan to destroy free-market health insurance and completely take over with socialized medicine.
Watch it at www.DickMorris.com
More Health care reform resources on the Obamacare page.
Watch it at www.DickMorris.com
More Health care reform resources on the Obamacare page.
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Another brick falls off the Obamacare façade
A big political story this year is likely to be Democrats turning on their White House minders as the harmful and unpopular parts of the Affordable Care Act ramp up. On the heels of the recent 79-20 Senate uprising against the 2.3% medical device tax, now comes the surge of Democrats pleading on behalf of Medicare Advantage.
Read the full article at The Wall Street Journal
More Health care reform resources on the Obamacare page.
Read the full article at The Wall Street Journal
More Health care reform resources on the Obamacare page.
Friday, March 29, 2013
A Hypocratic Oath for Obamacare
The president's promises about the ACA saving money and allowing you to keep your existing health plan are proving false, as many predicted.
The Department of Health and Human Services maintains the law will make health care more affordable and accessible. The Wall Street Journal, reminding readers of that claim, reported last week that health insurers are privately warning brokers: "Premiums for many individuals and small businesses could increase sharply next year."
Read the full article by Cal Thomas at FoxNews.com
More health reform information on the Obamacare page.
The Department of Health and Human Services maintains the law will make health care more affordable and accessible. The Wall Street Journal, reminding readers of that claim, reported last week that health insurers are privately warning brokers: "Premiums for many individuals and small businesses could increase sharply next year."
Read the full article by Cal Thomas at FoxNews.com
More health reform information on the Obamacare page.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Thomas Sowell: 'Me Too' Republicans
Many ideas presented as "new" are just rehashes of old ideas that have been tried before -- and have failed before. So it is no surprise that the recent "Growth and Opportunity Project" report to the Republican National Committee is a classic example of what previous generations called "Me too" Republicanism.
Read the full article by Thomas Sowell at GOPUSA.com
Read the full article by Thomas Sowell at GOPUSA.com
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
People love Obamacare until they know what's in it
The Only Ones Who Misunderstand ObamaCare More than Its Detractors Are Its Supporters
If only more people knew about the good stuff in ObamaCare – you know, the subsidies to seniors and the provisions forcing insurers to cover the sick – more people would like it. But the polls showing public support for those provisions don’t ask respondents whether they think the benefits of those provisions are worth the costs. They only ask about the benefits. Since none of those provisions is a benefits-only proposition, those polls tell us essentially nothing.
Read the full article by Michael F. Cannon at unitedliberty.org
More health reform information on the Obamacare page.
If only more people knew about the good stuff in ObamaCare – you know, the subsidies to seniors and the provisions forcing insurers to cover the sick – more people would like it. But the polls showing public support for those provisions don’t ask respondents whether they think the benefits of those provisions are worth the costs. They only ask about the benefits. Since none of those provisions is a benefits-only proposition, those polls tell us essentially nothing.
Read the full article by Michael F. Cannon at unitedliberty.org
More health reform information on the Obamacare page.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Three years of Obamacare: $31 billion in regulation costs, 71.5 million hours in compliance
President Obama’s signature health-care law, which turned three over the weekend, has already accounted for $31.3 billion in regulatory costs and liabilities, as well as 71.5 million hours of paperwork, according to a study from the American Action Forum (AAF) released Monday.
Read the full article by Andrew Stiles at nationalreview.com
More health reform information on the Obamacare page.
Read the full article by Andrew Stiles at nationalreview.com
More health reform information on the Obamacare page.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Obamacare at three: Heading toward Failure?
The right can replace Obamacare if it fails. And thus far, it gives every indication of failing. It has contributed to growing premium costs. Its budget impacts have been revised only in a negative direction (indeed, the only positives have been from fewer states implementing the Medicaid expansion). It has already been stripped of one mathematically and actuarially unsound entitlement. Most Republican governors have no interest in helping implement a program they believe to be ill-thought from its inception, and even Democrats don’t want their fingerprints at the state level on exchanges and Medicaid expansions their systems can’t handle.
Read the full article by Ben Domenech at RealClearPolitics.com.
More health reform information on the Obamacare page.
Read the full article by Ben Domenech at RealClearPolitics.com.
More health reform information on the Obamacare page.
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Senate votes to remove a brick from Obamacare
Perhaps the best news in months about Obamacare is that just three months after it has started to go into effect, the Senate has voted overwhelmingly to repeal the medical device tax, all $29 billion of it, with 33 Democrats joining 45 Republicans and 1 independent. Someone must have figured out that we need more innovation, more medical devices at lower prices, not fewer at higher, and that the tax was counterproductive if the goal of reform is to make health care more affordable. Duh. If the House will follow suit in equal proportions, there can be no veto.
This could be the turning point we opponents of socialized medicine have been waiting for, right on schedule. As the law becomes not some abstraction affecting other people, but a reality of destruction for millions of Americans, the blowback will increase. As this blog has long maintained, it's not too late to repeal Obamacare, even if we have to do it brick by brick.
See also:
More Health care reform resources on the Obamacare page.
This could be the turning point we opponents of socialized medicine have been waiting for, right on schedule. As the law becomes not some abstraction affecting other people, but a reality of destruction for millions of Americans, the blowback will increase. As this blog has long maintained, it's not too late to repeal Obamacare, even if we have to do it brick by brick.
See also:
- Huffington Post: Senate Democrats Vote To Repeal Obamacare Tax
- Wall Street Journal: Their own devices
More Health care reform resources on the Obamacare page.
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Obamacare: Echoes From The Other Side
By Borek Volarik
I lived through the real Obamacare. In the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic all health care was free for everybody! Oh, what a paradise...
Well, until you actually experienced the “worker's paradise”, as the communists proudly called it, in real life. First, everybody contributed to the costs of the health care but, in a hidden way – through the income tax. There were no tax returns to be filed at the end of year. All taxes were automatically deducted from the gross pay. There were no write offs. The only difference was in marital status and number of children The young, single people, paid so called “ox' tax”. That was a bit alleviated by marriage and then every live born child lowered the tax and generated so called “child bonuses”. The state used the money from the taxes to cover all state's spending, health care being one of them. Well, you get what you pay for, right? Right! What do you expect from a dentist on a salary set by state's pay scales?
How about a really ugly crown and no anesthetics (Novocain was in short supply, distributed by the state to dentists by a system of rations on monthly basis); well, a small envelope with big money…casually left at the receptionist's desk, would make miracles. What do you expect from a doctor on a state's salary? Don't you worry; you always got your Aspirin! People were assigned to general practice health centers according their address. Nobody was allowed to veer out of his or her health care district. In the waiting rooms you would always see some elderly people, sitting on white painted benches, discussing their illnesses. The free doctor visits were welcomed opportunities for the pensioners to socialize and commiserate about life. The district doctors gave out Aspirins and recommended patients to specialists, generally located in hospitals.
The specialists did not have their own offices and practices. They were simply employed by hospitals on fixed salaries (the only extra pay would be generated by overtimes and shift bonuses for nights). Once hospitalized, you would not have “your doctor”. You would be completely under the control of the hospital's staff. The rooms were large, with six, eight, ten….beds. It was really busy during the visiting hours (Wednesday afternoon and Sundays) with visitors sitting or standing around their hospitalized family members, depending on how many chairs were scoured from halls and other rooms. Some visitors just carried a little folding stool with them and so they could always sit down. It still was not as bad as in, say, Cuba, where patients have to bring their own sheets to the hospital. However, if you had to stay in the hospital for a prolonged period of time, it was customary to drop every once a while an envelope with some money into the large pocket on the nurse's apron. That way you would make sure that your sheets were changed on a regular basis, the cup of tea would be on your night stand without a long waiting period…
There were actually two health care systems. One for the ordinary mortals, one for the elites like well positioned communists, top athletes (all athletes were pure amateurs, of course…ha ha ha). I had some problems with my lower jaw. I did not want to have a surgery in an ordinary hospital. It was a bit scary for me. So I waited till I was in the military (mandatory draft at age of nineteen, two years service). Then I started complaining about my problems and, exactly as I planned, I was sent from the small town where I was located to the Central Military Hospital in Prague. There I underwent the surgery, total success, everything was hunky-dory. They used a totally new procedure on me, at the time yet unknown in the ordinary hospitals. I spent about two months in that top notch hospital. Being bored, I volunteered to work as appointment clerk at the dentistry department. Folks, those machines they had there… I had never seen machines like that. All modern “painless” drills, luxurious seats... My duty was to pull patient's file from the file cabinet, mark his appointment time and time of arrival and then slip the file into a tray at the designated dentist's station. Of course, I was curious about the names on the tabs sticking out from the files in hanging folders. So I looked at those names. Ohmygosh….top communists, members of the government and the Central Committee, Politburo, famous athletes…. I just shivered by the excitement...
There was one funny episode. When my mother was leaving the hospital after visiting with me, she spotted the surgeon who performed the operation. He was digging foundations for a garage at the house where he lived. With a pick axe. My mother was totally thrown off kilt. I did not understand what made her so upset. She exclaimed: He will ruin his hands! You know, even at the Central Military Hospital the salaries were not that high… Later he was delegated by the state to set a plastic surgery center in Switzerland (that guy happened to be a real genius) so, I believe, he saved his surgeon's hands and made some real money. I mean “real” money as the communist Czech Crown was not accepted for international exchange. It was basically kind of “prison money”, usable only inside the country. Oh, by the way…after arrival to America, the American dentists re-did virtually all dental work that we brought with us inside our mouths. Some dentist just could not believe what they found in my wife's and my mouths...they threw it all to the garbage.
More Health care reform resources on the Obamacare page.
I lived through the real Obamacare. In the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic all health care was free for everybody! Oh, what a paradise...
Well, until you actually experienced the “worker's paradise”, as the communists proudly called it, in real life. First, everybody contributed to the costs of the health care but, in a hidden way – through the income tax. There were no tax returns to be filed at the end of year. All taxes were automatically deducted from the gross pay. There were no write offs. The only difference was in marital status and number of children The young, single people, paid so called “ox' tax”. That was a bit alleviated by marriage and then every live born child lowered the tax and generated so called “child bonuses”. The state used the money from the taxes to cover all state's spending, health care being one of them. Well, you get what you pay for, right? Right! What do you expect from a dentist on a salary set by state's pay scales?
How about a really ugly crown and no anesthetics (Novocain was in short supply, distributed by the state to dentists by a system of rations on monthly basis); well, a small envelope with big money…casually left at the receptionist's desk, would make miracles. What do you expect from a doctor on a state's salary? Don't you worry; you always got your Aspirin! People were assigned to general practice health centers according their address. Nobody was allowed to veer out of his or her health care district. In the waiting rooms you would always see some elderly people, sitting on white painted benches, discussing their illnesses. The free doctor visits were welcomed opportunities for the pensioners to socialize and commiserate about life. The district doctors gave out Aspirins and recommended patients to specialists, generally located in hospitals.
The specialists did not have their own offices and practices. They were simply employed by hospitals on fixed salaries (the only extra pay would be generated by overtimes and shift bonuses for nights). Once hospitalized, you would not have “your doctor”. You would be completely under the control of the hospital's staff. The rooms were large, with six, eight, ten….beds. It was really busy during the visiting hours (Wednesday afternoon and Sundays) with visitors sitting or standing around their hospitalized family members, depending on how many chairs were scoured from halls and other rooms. Some visitors just carried a little folding stool with them and so they could always sit down. It still was not as bad as in, say, Cuba, where patients have to bring their own sheets to the hospital. However, if you had to stay in the hospital for a prolonged period of time, it was customary to drop every once a while an envelope with some money into the large pocket on the nurse's apron. That way you would make sure that your sheets were changed on a regular basis, the cup of tea would be on your night stand without a long waiting period…
There were actually two health care systems. One for the ordinary mortals, one for the elites like well positioned communists, top athletes (all athletes were pure amateurs, of course…ha ha ha). I had some problems with my lower jaw. I did not want to have a surgery in an ordinary hospital. It was a bit scary for me. So I waited till I was in the military (mandatory draft at age of nineteen, two years service). Then I started complaining about my problems and, exactly as I planned, I was sent from the small town where I was located to the Central Military Hospital in Prague. There I underwent the surgery, total success, everything was hunky-dory. They used a totally new procedure on me, at the time yet unknown in the ordinary hospitals. I spent about two months in that top notch hospital. Being bored, I volunteered to work as appointment clerk at the dentistry department. Folks, those machines they had there… I had never seen machines like that. All modern “painless” drills, luxurious seats... My duty was to pull patient's file from the file cabinet, mark his appointment time and time of arrival and then slip the file into a tray at the designated dentist's station. Of course, I was curious about the names on the tabs sticking out from the files in hanging folders. So I looked at those names. Ohmygosh….top communists, members of the government and the Central Committee, Politburo, famous athletes…. I just shivered by the excitement...
There was one funny episode. When my mother was leaving the hospital after visiting with me, she spotted the surgeon who performed the operation. He was digging foundations for a garage at the house where he lived. With a pick axe. My mother was totally thrown off kilt. I did not understand what made her so upset. She exclaimed: He will ruin his hands! You know, even at the Central Military Hospital the salaries were not that high… Later he was delegated by the state to set a plastic surgery center in Switzerland (that guy happened to be a real genius) so, I believe, he saved his surgeon's hands and made some real money. I mean “real” money as the communist Czech Crown was not accepted for international exchange. It was basically kind of “prison money”, usable only inside the country. Oh, by the way…after arrival to America, the American dentists re-did virtually all dental work that we brought with us inside our mouths. Some dentist just could not believe what they found in my wife's and my mouths...they threw it all to the garbage.
More Health care reform resources on the Obamacare page.
Support HHCapitalism.com
If you believe that constitutional democracy, economic prosperity and international peace are under greater threat today than at any time in our lifetimes, then you owe it to yourself and your grandchildren to get involved, take responsibility and power away from the state, and support the leaders who are fighting on your behalf.
This site and the book Pull the Plug on Obamacare are not supported by any deep-pocketed university or foundation. It is made possible by hundreds of evenings, weekends, vacations and holidays every year sacrificed to research, writing, attending local grassroots organization meetings and traveling to major events like CPAC 2013. If you want to encourage this work, then please sell your house, your car and your children and send the proceeds to me. If you're not quite ready to go that far, then here's a plan that will take just eight dollars and an hour and ten minutes of your time, and may be the best investment in America's future that you make this year.
First, buy the book. It's only $7.95 for the paperback edition and $4.95 for the Kindle edition.
Next, READ the book. It's not hard, it will take about an hour and it will give you the complete picture of how we got into this mess, how Obamacare is wrecking the practice and delivery of medicine and our economy with it, and why it will never fulfill its promises. Most important, it will arm you to discuss these issues with your liberal friends who will become increasingly open to your arguments this year as the rising costs and deteriorating quality hit them where they live.
Then, write a customer review on Amazon.com. Let the world know that this book is an indispensible arm in the fight against socialized medicine. And finally, tell ten friends to do the same.
Then sell your house, your car and your children and send the proceeds to me.
Or, if you agree with me but you think I'm a moron and you don't want to give me a dime, then visit the Obamacare page and read the bibilography and list of resources to find someone else, like Betsy McCaughey, Sally Pipes or America’s Medical Society, to support. After all, this isn't about me, it's about you and it's about preserving America's liberty and prosperity. Whoever gets that done best deserves your support.
Today.
This site and the book Pull the Plug on Obamacare are not supported by any deep-pocketed university or foundation. It is made possible by hundreds of evenings, weekends, vacations and holidays every year sacrificed to research, writing, attending local grassroots organization meetings and traveling to major events like CPAC 2013. If you want to encourage this work, then please sell your house, your car and your children and send the proceeds to me. If you're not quite ready to go that far, then here's a plan that will take just eight dollars and an hour and ten minutes of your time, and may be the best investment in America's future that you make this year.
First, buy the book. It's only $7.95 for the paperback edition and $4.95 for the Kindle edition.
Next, READ the book. It's not hard, it will take about an hour and it will give you the complete picture of how we got into this mess, how Obamacare is wrecking the practice and delivery of medicine and our economy with it, and why it will never fulfill its promises. Most important, it will arm you to discuss these issues with your liberal friends who will become increasingly open to your arguments this year as the rising costs and deteriorating quality hit them where they live.
Then, write a customer review on Amazon.com. Let the world know that this book is an indispensible arm in the fight against socialized medicine. And finally, tell ten friends to do the same.
Then sell your house, your car and your children and send the proceeds to me.
Or, if you agree with me but you think I'm a moron and you don't want to give me a dime, then visit the Obamacare page and read the bibilography and list of resources to find someone else, like Betsy McCaughey, Sally Pipes or America’s Medical Society, to support. After all, this isn't about me, it's about you and it's about preserving America's liberty and prosperity. Whoever gets that done best deserves your support.
Today.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Congressional Report: Obamacare Leads to Skyrocketing Premiums, 200 Percent Possible
An exhaustive study by three congressional committees delivers startling news about the dire effects of Obamacare: President Barack Obama’s signature legislation could increase health insurance premiums by over 200 percent and render insurance coverage unaffordable for millions of Americans.
Read the full article By Jim Meyers at www.Newsmax.com
More Health care reform resources on the Obamacare page.
Read the full article By Jim Meyers at www.Newsmax.com
More Health care reform resources on the Obamacare page.
Nation Building in Iraq 10 years on
Pop quiz: What is the name of the oil minister of Iraq? Right: Abdul Karim Luaibi.
Pop quiz: What is the name of the oil minister of the United States? Right again, it’s Steven Chu.
On the tenth aniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom, folks on the Left and on the Right are musing on the mission’s successes and failures. The verdict is mixed, with the idea of nation-building in an Arab-Muslim nation of warring tribal factions receiving a fair helping of skepticism.
The hazards of excessive optimism regarding transforming nations in the Arab/Muslim world have been well-documented by Nonie Darwish and others. Unleashing popular democracy in cultures steeped in Islamic Sharia law and tribal blood feuds is not a path to western-style constitutional civil societies with effective bills of rights resembling our own. Our (or the Bush administration’s, if you prefer) emphasis on voting and blue-inked thumbs may seem quaintly naïve in this light.
But there’s another problem, which if it had been recognized, might at least have offered some hope of mitigating the worst effects of the unstable tendencies. And that is this: if America is going to go around building nations, it ought not to build socialist klepto-petro nations.
Arab/Muslim Iraq is not the only country with the curse of oil wealth. Russia, Nigeria and Venezuela have corrupt regimes run by obscenely wealthy oil barons pretending to embody and defend the national interest while keeping their people poor and oppressed. Of those three, only Nigeria is marginally Islamic, with a 50% muslim population. The corruption of oil wealth is not a problem unique to Arab or Islamic nations; it is endemic to socialism, which is what nationalized natural-resource enterprises are all about.
Recognizing that, if we are going into a resource-rich nation to rebuild it, then as important as democracy and voting rights are private property rights and economic freedom.
What if the Bush administration had pushed the following agenda: Grant every Iraqi citizen over the age of 18, men and women, Sunni and Shia, Kurd and Armenian, Christian and Jew, a thousand equal shares of common stock in a privatized, formerly-national oil company. Initially ownership of these shares would entitle the holder to periodic dividend payments from the enterprise. Over a reasonable transition period, say five years, the shareholders would have the full rights and responsibilities of common owners to buy, sell, vote and trade their shares just as is done on the NASDAQ or NYSE. And the enterprise itself would have full rights to act as for-profit enterprises do, contracting with domestic and foreign (i.e. ExxonMobil) companies, including selling shares of itself on the international financial markets.
Not only would the enterprise be more efficient and better run under free-market discipline, paradoxically, devolving power and ownership of resources from the state to individuals would have the effect of promoting national cohesion and the cooperation of groups and families that otherwise tend to remain in perpetual warfare with each other. With personal skin in the game, when the pipelines got sabotaged, there would be more incentive for cooperative citizen participation to defend the rule of law and private property.
To my knowledge the Bush administration never made such a proposal. If they did, it certainly didn’t make any headlines or spark any national debates about the virtues or vices of capitalism as a solution to problems faced by nations under (re-)construction. I can’t remember the catcalls and snide derision coming from MSNBC and CNN, so it must not have happened. That fact is an ironic reminder of how far the USA has come from its image as the icon of capitalism in the world; no one even thought of proposing it.
One Iraqi oil minister did in fact propose a similar plan in 2009 if not sooner, and published his proposal in The Wall Street Journal. So maybe they get it over there even if we don’t anymore. As it is, ExxonMobil is engaged in Iraq today, operating oil fields and participating in Iraqi deals with Indonesia. Looks like a form of business as usual. Is that bad?
The USA doesn’t have a national oil company with a minister (yet), although we do have a Department of Energy with a Secretary. Maybe we would do a better job of nation-building abroad if we didn’t have that department; we don’t seem to be worse off than other oil-rich nations for not having a national oil company.
But wouldn’t it be presumptuous at best and fascist hubris at worst to presume that we can dictate such outrages as private ownership of capital stock by women in a culture where gender equality is an abomination? Well, sometimes you need a strongman like Saddam Hussein to hold a lid over the sewer. I nominate Milton Friedman.
More on Iraq in Retrospect: The history the war's critics choose to ignore 10 years later. Read the full article at The Wall Street Journal
Pop quiz: What is the name of the oil minister of the United States? Right again, it’s Steven Chu.
On the tenth aniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom, folks on the Left and on the Right are musing on the mission’s successes and failures. The verdict is mixed, with the idea of nation-building in an Arab-Muslim nation of warring tribal factions receiving a fair helping of skepticism.
The hazards of excessive optimism regarding transforming nations in the Arab/Muslim world have been well-documented by Nonie Darwish and others. Unleashing popular democracy in cultures steeped in Islamic Sharia law and tribal blood feuds is not a path to western-style constitutional civil societies with effective bills of rights resembling our own. Our (or the Bush administration’s, if you prefer) emphasis on voting and blue-inked thumbs may seem quaintly naïve in this light.
But there’s another problem, which if it had been recognized, might at least have offered some hope of mitigating the worst effects of the unstable tendencies. And that is this: if America is going to go around building nations, it ought not to build socialist klepto-petro nations.
Arab/Muslim Iraq is not the only country with the curse of oil wealth. Russia, Nigeria and Venezuela have corrupt regimes run by obscenely wealthy oil barons pretending to embody and defend the national interest while keeping their people poor and oppressed. Of those three, only Nigeria is marginally Islamic, with a 50% muslim population. The corruption of oil wealth is not a problem unique to Arab or Islamic nations; it is endemic to socialism, which is what nationalized natural-resource enterprises are all about.
Recognizing that, if we are going into a resource-rich nation to rebuild it, then as important as democracy and voting rights are private property rights and economic freedom.
What if the Bush administration had pushed the following agenda: Grant every Iraqi citizen over the age of 18, men and women, Sunni and Shia, Kurd and Armenian, Christian and Jew, a thousand equal shares of common stock in a privatized, formerly-national oil company. Initially ownership of these shares would entitle the holder to periodic dividend payments from the enterprise. Over a reasonable transition period, say five years, the shareholders would have the full rights and responsibilities of common owners to buy, sell, vote and trade their shares just as is done on the NASDAQ or NYSE. And the enterprise itself would have full rights to act as for-profit enterprises do, contracting with domestic and foreign (i.e. ExxonMobil) companies, including selling shares of itself on the international financial markets.
Not only would the enterprise be more efficient and better run under free-market discipline, paradoxically, devolving power and ownership of resources from the state to individuals would have the effect of promoting national cohesion and the cooperation of groups and families that otherwise tend to remain in perpetual warfare with each other. With personal skin in the game, when the pipelines got sabotaged, there would be more incentive for cooperative citizen participation to defend the rule of law and private property.
To my knowledge the Bush administration never made such a proposal. If they did, it certainly didn’t make any headlines or spark any national debates about the virtues or vices of capitalism as a solution to problems faced by nations under (re-)construction. I can’t remember the catcalls and snide derision coming from MSNBC and CNN, so it must not have happened. That fact is an ironic reminder of how far the USA has come from its image as the icon of capitalism in the world; no one even thought of proposing it.
One Iraqi oil minister did in fact propose a similar plan in 2009 if not sooner, and published his proposal in The Wall Street Journal. So maybe they get it over there even if we don’t anymore. As it is, ExxonMobil is engaged in Iraq today, operating oil fields and participating in Iraqi deals with Indonesia. Looks like a form of business as usual. Is that bad?
The USA doesn’t have a national oil company with a minister (yet), although we do have a Department of Energy with a Secretary. Maybe we would do a better job of nation-building abroad if we didn’t have that department; we don’t seem to be worse off than other oil-rich nations for not having a national oil company.
But wouldn’t it be presumptuous at best and fascist hubris at worst to presume that we can dictate such outrages as private ownership of capital stock by women in a culture where gender equality is an abomination? Well, sometimes you need a strongman like Saddam Hussein to hold a lid over the sewer. I nominate Milton Friedman.
More on Iraq in Retrospect: The history the war's critics choose to ignore 10 years later. Read the full article at The Wall Street Journal
How Dare We Claim America is #1 in Health Care?
The World Health Organization (WHO) published a study ranking the USA 37th among 191 nations in Health Care. So how can conservatives and Republicans claim with a straight face that, at least prior to Obamacare, America was #1?
Read the full article by Howard Hyde at www.FrontPageMag.com
More Health care reform resources on the Obamacare page.
Read the full article by Howard Hyde at www.FrontPageMag.com
More Health care reform resources on the Obamacare page.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
AAPS continues to challenge Obamacare's constitutionality
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons filed an emergency motion for injunctive relief March 13 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
In upholding ObamaCare as outside Congress's power to regulate but within its power to tax, the Supreme Court acknowledged that "any tax must still comply with other requirements in the Constitution." The motion filed by AAPS is the first to ask an appellate court to rule on whether PPACA violated the Origination Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which requires that all "bills for raising revenue" originate in the House of Representatives. Read the full story at www.aapsonline.org
More Health care reform resources on the Obamacare page.
In upholding ObamaCare as outside Congress's power to regulate but within its power to tax, the Supreme Court acknowledged that "any tax must still comply with other requirements in the Constitution." The motion filed by AAPS is the first to ask an appellate court to rule on whether PPACA violated the Origination Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which requires that all "bills for raising revenue" originate in the House of Representatives. Read the full story at www.aapsonline.org
More Health care reform resources on the Obamacare page.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Report from CPAC 2013
CPAC 2013 was a blast! Great speeches, great breakout sessions. Not every speaker was everyone's cup of tea, and there were many passionate discussions of differences. But no one who attended could fail to be challenged to think more deeply about the critical issues we face today not just as conservatives, libertarians, Tea Partiers and/or Republicans, but as Americans; and to come away energized and determined to redouble our efforts to restore constitutional democracy, fiscal sanity, strength abroad, prosperity at home and the liberty that America has always stood for.
The rock stars of the show were very accessible. I got to shake the hands and in several cases exchange books with such heavyweights as: Ben Carson; Senator Ted Cruz; Senator Jim DeMint (new president of the Heritage Foundation); John Allison of the Cato Institute; Betsy McCaughey whose work fighting socialized medicine has been an inspiration for 20 years; Todd Cefaratti of TheTeaParty.net; C.L. Gray M.D., founder and president of Physicians for Reform Foundation, whose new film on socialized medicine The Determinators is a must-see; Charles Murray, author of Losing Ground, which exposed the failures of the welfare state in the eighties; Shawn Akers, Dean of the Helms School of Government at Liberty University in Lynchburg VA; Robert Spencer, Frank Gafney, Ann Coulter and many other leaders of the conservative and Tea Party movements.
A personal highlight was the public speaking seminar led by Ian Ivey, sponsored by The Leadership Institute. Not just a technical presentation on body language, breathing, eye contact, audience rapport etc., all of which was excellent; but also very entertaining demonstrations of what not ever EVER to even think about doing, and deep, incisive digressions on philosophy, religion and economics (upshot: read Human Action by Ludwig Von Mises).
There were also many opportunities to engage the media and get the message out beyond the Gaylord hotel. I did several radio and TV interviews including the John Justice's show on Tucson's KQTH 104.1, Sean Casey on Baltimore's AM680 WCBM, the Tea Party News Network (TPNN) and others.
The most heartening aspect of the conference was the presence of the young people: 54% of the attendees were under the age of 26. This was not a reunion of greying eminences reminiscing about glory days that will never return; it was an uplifting, energetic and long-range future-focused strategy session. These young people get it that their future has been mortgaged, that the prosperity of their parent's generation is being robbed from them and that their college education has by design kept them ignorant. I met second-year law students who have not read Bastiat, aren't even familiar with the name, when Batiat's The Law should be the fist text any student reads on day one if not sooner. I met economics majors who have not read Adam Smith, Thomas Sowell, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, George Reisman or Ludwig Von Mises.
But they will read them now. And they will spread the word. They are determined to remain ignorant no longer but to reclaim their future.
Thank you to all the wonderful new friends I made. It was well worth it. Have a safe flight home. And don't give up; together we will pull America back from the brink.
The rock stars of the show were very accessible. I got to shake the hands and in several cases exchange books with such heavyweights as: Ben Carson; Senator Ted Cruz; Senator Jim DeMint (new president of the Heritage Foundation); John Allison of the Cato Institute; Betsy McCaughey whose work fighting socialized medicine has been an inspiration for 20 years; Todd Cefaratti of TheTeaParty.net; C.L. Gray M.D., founder and president of Physicians for Reform Foundation, whose new film on socialized medicine The Determinators is a must-see; Charles Murray, author of Losing Ground, which exposed the failures of the welfare state in the eighties; Shawn Akers, Dean of the Helms School of Government at Liberty University in Lynchburg VA; Robert Spencer, Frank Gafney, Ann Coulter and many other leaders of the conservative and Tea Party movements.
A personal highlight was the public speaking seminar led by Ian Ivey, sponsored by The Leadership Institute. Not just a technical presentation on body language, breathing, eye contact, audience rapport etc., all of which was excellent; but also very entertaining demonstrations of what not ever EVER to even think about doing, and deep, incisive digressions on philosophy, religion and economics (upshot: read Human Action by Ludwig Von Mises).
There were also many opportunities to engage the media and get the message out beyond the Gaylord hotel. I did several radio and TV interviews including the John Justice's show on Tucson's KQTH 104.1, Sean Casey on Baltimore's AM680 WCBM, the Tea Party News Network (TPNN) and others.
The most heartening aspect of the conference was the presence of the young people: 54% of the attendees were under the age of 26. This was not a reunion of greying eminences reminiscing about glory days that will never return; it was an uplifting, energetic and long-range future-focused strategy session. These young people get it that their future has been mortgaged, that the prosperity of their parent's generation is being robbed from them and that their college education has by design kept them ignorant. I met second-year law students who have not read Bastiat, aren't even familiar with the name, when Batiat's The Law should be the fist text any student reads on day one if not sooner. I met economics majors who have not read Adam Smith, Thomas Sowell, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, George Reisman or Ludwig Von Mises.
But they will read them now. And they will spread the word. They are determined to remain ignorant no longer but to reclaim their future.
Thank you to all the wonderful new friends I made. It was well worth it. Have a safe flight home. And don't give up; together we will pull America back from the brink.
Friday, March 15, 2013
The doctor will not see you now.
The doctor will not see you now. He's clocked out.
Obamacare is pushing physicians into becoming hospital employees. The results aren't encouraging.
Read the full story by Scott Gottlieb at The Wall Street Journal
More health reform information on the Obamacare page.
Obamacare is pushing physicians into becoming hospital employees. The results aren't encouraging.
Read the full story by Scott Gottlieb at The Wall Street Journal
More health reform information on the Obamacare page.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Michael D. Tanner: Obama doesn't brag about Obamacare
During the State of the Union address, one item curiously went almost unmentioned. We heard all about President Obama’s past triumphs and future plans, but his health-care-reform law was strangely missing. Sure, there was one throwaway line about how Obamacare was reducing health-care costs, but the seminal achievement of the president’s first term was almost ignored.
Perhaps that is because the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has brought little good news of late.
Read the full story at The Cato Institute.
More health reform information on the Obamacare page.
Perhaps that is because the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has brought little good news of late.
Read the full story at The Cato Institute.
More health reform information on the Obamacare page.
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