Planned Parenthood's Cecile Richards Convinces Jake That He's Pro-Choice

Cecile Richards article at the Huffington Post shocked me. I agree with her so much.

She's talking about the abortion-related compromise made with Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska:

Under this new language, anyone -- men and women of all ages -- who participates in an insurance plan that includes abortion coverage is required to write two separate premium checks each month: one for abortion care and one for everything else. I'm just trying to picture my son writing out his health insurance payment, and then writing another check for his part of the "abortion coverage."

Damned right! Why on earth is your son being forced to pay for coverage he doesn't need?

This new "extra" payment for abortion coverage is akin to an abortion rider -- as if women would take these extra steps to pay for insurance, with a separate check, that included abortion coverage. Women don't plan an unplanned or problem pregnancy any more than they plan for a heart attack. But they expect that they have coverage nonetheless.

Also right! This is coverage that many women wouldn't take, including my mother, my mother-in-law, my wife, my sisters-in-law, and, I hope and pray for the future, my daughters. Not just because the term "insurance" doesn't apply -- Do you buy "insurance" for something that's physically impossible? Do you buy insurance the only purpose of which is to destroy something that you want? -- but because they find it morally reprehensible. So yes, it's a rider, for women who want this kind of coverage.

But that's not all: Cecile and I also agree that people need insurance coverage for things that aren't planned. My health insurance covers unplanned heart attacks. My life insurance covers unplanned death. My homeowner's insurance covers unplanned fires and theft. People should buy insurance for things that they don't plan to have happen.

I guess Cecile and I differ a little bit. I mean, I can choose the amount of my life insurance, or even have none; I can choose the deductible on my homeowner's insurance. I don't understand why Cecile says that I can't choose to not have abortion coverage. That even her son can't choose not to have abortion coverage.

I'm not even sure I can explain it to my husband. He's pro-choice, but I'm not sure he's going to get why he's supposed to write a check each month to pay for abortion coverage.

Cecile, according to Wikipedia, you graduated from Brown in 1980. That puts you something north of fifty years old. Why should he write a check each month to pay for abortion coverage?

Yeah, I'd have to say that I'm pro-choice with respect to abortion insurance.

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Cartoon: John Francis Borra on the Democrats' Health Care Reform

This is a good one:



Find the original here.

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Dodd: "Maybe Teddy's Passing" Will Spur GOP To Act On Health Care

The headline above is taken directly from the Huffington Post. I have a question for Senator Dodd: Why does he think that the passing of someone who

• Didn't have to deal with the insurance problems normal Americans do,
• Has some of the best healthcare in the world, and
• Wouldn't have been included under any of the current healthcare "reform" plans

...would make us want to overhaul a system he didn't use, and never would?

Here's an idea -- let's overhaul the Congressional healthcare system to bring it more in line with Medicaid and Medicare!

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Healthcare: Alternative ideas but the White House and Democrats aren't listening!

Whenever you read in the paper that Republicans are obstructionists and the people are just complaining at town hall events, there is a common thread in the story. And it is that no one is offerring alternative ideas to the load of garbage being put forward by House Democrats and the White House. The sad thing is that there are a lot of ideas suggested to fix both the cost and the coverage aspects of healthcare that our current crop of politicians absolutely refuse to comprehend.

And all while Obama insists on demonizing insurers. The unfortunate thing is that the industry is far from healthy and is hurting in a major way. In my business, we work with all kinds of organizations and the insurance companies have been shedding employees for the past 5 years. They are not making massive profits. As a matter of fact, if you graph Barack Obama's and Chris Dodd's last eight years revenue against individual companies in the insurance industry, you will find that both Obama and Dodd fared far better in terms of growing their revennue base. The insurance industry in fact makes less than 1 penny for every dollar in premium received (Forrester research).

We have the Obama and Democrat narrative:

- Insurance companies are evil and healthcare unions are good
- Companies that provide insurance are bad and government providing insurance is good
- Competition is bad when private companies do it, good when the government fixes it
- People that speak at town halls are astroturf while union thugs beating them up are good
- Anyone questioning Democrats is fake while paid protestors are good
- Old people are bad but illegal immigrants are good
- Doctors are bad but Tort lawyers are good

It's no wonder people are fed up.

Here are some ideas that will never find their way into the debate despited being offerred up by Republicans, the insurance industry and free market advocates:

Controlling cost and adding flexibility

1. Insurance Portability. Make it a requirement that all insurance it portable. If every firm needs to accept the rule, it will be so. The insurance industry has already agreed to do this early into the debate.
2. Tort Reform. I know I know. The Democrats need to protect poor Dicky Scruggs so that he can own ten airplanes while filing bs lawsuits against doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical firms. But you cannot control costs without addressing frivilous lawsuits.
3. Drop interstate limitations on competition for insurance. Right now we have 50 different states plus the Federal government regulating insurance and blocking competition. Remove these barriers and then maybe Joe Smith in New York will stop paying 5 times what Jim Smith in Tennessee is paying.
4. Have a discussion about moving the responsibility for insurance from the employer to the employee. And help provide a transition from the business entity which will gain long term in cost control to the employee. Then the employee will be free to take advantage of the increased competition to buy the kind of coverage that will be optimal for their family.
5. Health savings accounts. Cash is king even in the healthcare marketplace. Remove the requirement to submit claims for insurance completely and the doctor can perform certain care much more efficiently and cost effectively.
6. Eliminate government based care and hospital mandates so that the private sector can stop underwriting goverment programs and citizens are not paying twice for the same thing. For example, we all pay for medicare at both the state and federal level. Then the goverment only pays the hospital 5 dollars for a 20 dollar procedure. Who pays the rest? We do through private insurance as we will get charged 35 dollars to make up for it. This is goverment competition and is contributing to our current damaged system. Obama and Democrats just don't talk about it.
7. A national fraud database to track both doctors patients who abuse the system and real penalties when they are caught.

Once costs are brought under control, we can have the discussion about insuring the 12 million people who legitimately may need assistance. Not the illegal aliens. Not people who can afford insurance but choose to keep their money in their pocket. And not the fictitious people who cannot get insurance until you really investigate their story and find out they really do have coverage.

All of these things would add to the debate but you will never hear them proposed. Why? Because they don't add power to the unions and Democrats in congress.

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Want universal healthcare? Everyone shoulld pay.

The debate around universal healthcare has been too slanted for too long. The current debate purports to position a new benefit to every American (FREE HEALTHCARE) allegedly paid for by "THE RICH GUY". Despite the fact that it would be impossible to tax the rich guy enough to pull that whopper off, the Democrats are pushing that line because they think they can bring along all of those voters who believe that there is such a thing as a free ride.

The real debate around this topic should be as follows:

1. Do we all want universal healthcare?
2. Should it or can it be managed by the government?
3. What track record does the government or ANY government have in effectively and efficiently managing healthcare for its citizens?
4. Would this healthcare plan be so appealing that the congressman who are sponsoring it will drop their current gold plated system and move to this new one?
5. ARE YOU PERSONALLY WILLING TO PAY OUT OF YOUR POCKET TO ACHIEVE THIS GOAL?

I guarantee you, if the average person following this debate answered those questions honestly to themselves, the current approach being pushed by the Democrats would go nowhere. You see, this entire debate is about using a group of people who see a "FREEBIE" and want to take advantage. Some of these people are consumers. And some are business owners that believe that they may be able to drop the coverage the currently pay for and dump their employees into a government plan. Either way, each one want something for nothing. And as my father told me a long time ago, there is no such thing as a free ride.

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House Democrats want higher taxes for healthcare. Big shocker.

The word is that House Democrats will be proposing higher taxes on "high" wage earners to pay for their healthcare proposals. From Bloomberg:

Two people familiar with closed-door talks by committee Democrats said a House bill probably will include a surtax on incomes exceeding $250,000, as Congress seeks ways to pay for changes to a health-care system that accounts for almost 18 percent of the U.S. economy. By targeting wealthier Americans, a surtax may hold more appeal for House Democrats than a Senate proposal to tax some employer-provided health benefits.

“The surtax is obviously more attractive to Democrats in the House because it’s more progressive, which they find attractive in and of itself,” said Paul Van de Water, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a research group focused on policies affecting low- and moderate-income families.

The real joke here is that Democrats and President Obama keep proposing taxes on the "rich guy". And for every one of these proposals, the "righ guy" keeps changing. I am willing to guarantee that this will eventually translate into a tax across the board for all productive members of society.

But the bigger problem is that Democrats said they were going to pay for the stimulus by taxing "rich people". Then they were going to pay for their irresponsible budget by taxing "rich people". Then they were targeting "rich people" for the carbon tax. It seems to me that they have used this tactic to "pay for" every spending increase they have proposed.

Time to wake up America. We cannot afford another House spending proposal.

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Health Care Reform - Mass vs Ga

I saw this today at The Corner on National Review Online. It's a must see.

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