This is so sad it's almost funny ....

I will avoid the cheap shot and idle speculation about what cream-filled treats are really victimizing this pair (because I'm above all that). While they certainly look like victims of something, and also look like they're going to "need" some health care sooner rather than later, what's interesting, though, is that they seem to be completely unable to take any responsibility for their own health (looks like they're killing themselves with a fork and spoon).

"If it's for your own good, then it's not a tax increase...

Found on Jerry Pournelle's blog:

President Obama's health care plan includes an enormous tax increase, but he doesn't call it a tax. There's a discussion with considerable quotes from the President's interview with George Stephanopoulos Sunday. It's quite revealing. http://online.wsj.com/article/
SB100014240529702044883
04574425294029138738.html?
mod=googlenews_wsj

For the interview itself see: http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=rL7ak__MGyw

The interview is revealing; indeed, astonishing. I will let you draw your own conclusions regarding Obama's abilities to operate without a teleprompter. (I am presuming he doesn't have a teleprompter; I can't believe an intelligent staffer was feeding him these responses.)

The President established this point: If it's for your own good, it's not a tax increase.

Apparently Obama believes that this admission will help his campaign for the health care bill. He certainly wasn't trapped into saying this. He chose to conduct these very revealing interviews; and they were revealing indeed.

His view is that the state has every right to require you to buy health insurance, and thus it is not a tax. It is not a tax, and thus he is not breaking his oath not to raise taxes on the middle class. He is merely requiring you to act in your own interest. Now I can think of quite a few things that authority may believe to be for our own good and therefore we ought to pay for. I make no doubt we will see many of them proposed in the near future.

The notion of individual responsibility, and what we used to call freedom, seems far away. Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

HR 3200 - intentionally vague & obscure?

I have been reviewing HR 3200, aka the House bill on health care reform. While I am neither a legislator nor a lawyer; however, I believe HR 3200 will exhibit profound problems and unintended (or unclaimed) consequences if passed. Here are some of reasons why.

To begin with, HR 3200 suffers from a number of common problems found with much legislation. It is written in English, and complex, obscure, jargon-laden English at that. Many of the sections are imprecise and/or incomplete, leaving large amounts of interpretation and implementation to unelected humans. Many of the objections to HR 3200 come from this very problem, including the concern that the ambiguity is deliberate and intended to open doors to politically unpalatable consequences.

HR 3200 is also massive and very complex — over 1000 pages in printed form, with hundreds of sections. For its sheer length alone, it is difficult to understand and interpret, but there are other factors that make overall comprehension nearly impossible. It also makes after-the-fact revocation or even modification extremely difficult.

Much of HR 3200 makes piecemeal modifications to existing legislation, often with little explanation as to intent and consequences.

HR 3200 also suffers in places from what a software engineer would call “spaghetti coding“. In other words, a given section within HR 3200 (and there appear to be hundreds of them; numbers go from 100 up through 2531 and appear in numeric order, but there are many gaps along the way) will reference several other sections elsewhere in HR 3200, both above and below. Furthermore, it often requires careful reading going back pages to see whether a reference to a given section is to a section within HR 3200 itself or a section in existing legislation (such as the Internal Revenue Service code).

HR 3200 also comes across as similar to a “kitchen sink” application, that is, a single piece of legislation that attempts to do far too much. (See the bill's table of contents below to give you a sense of all that it is attempting to do). Note that these divisions, titles, and subtitles could have (and maybe should have) been broken up into individual legislation.

Finally, HR 3200 embodies what is commonly known in software engineering as a “big bang” approach to systems development. In other words, HR 3200 attempts a massive and ill-understood (and/or ill-specified) modification to the nation’s health care system (roughly 1/6th of the economy) in one fell swoop. As such, it really represents the worst excesses of the legistative system, with deployment being hard or impossible to reverse.

ObamaCare for all ....

Jerry Pournelle (one of my favorite writers & bloggers) has posted some comments about our health care "dilemma" & BHO's address to congress last night. Here are a few excerpts:

"The most impressive thing I heard in Obama's speech last night was that we can save $600 billion by eliminating fraud and waste. It was my impression that the savings was in Medicare alone. Now that would be worth doing! A hundred billion here, a hundred billion there, and pretty soon it adds up to real money. If the government can eliminated $600 billion -- considerably more than the annual budget back in Johnson days -- then that's exciting, and we ought to get on with it. Surely that can be done without adding millions to the list of people who get their doctor bills paid by someone else?

Nowhere did anyone address the fundamental question: under what principle do we all acquire a right to health care paid by someone else, and under what principle do those who have to pay acquire the obligation? Whatever principle that is must have some other consequences, and I'd like to know what those are. It's a pretty fundamental change in our political philosophy. Does it mean that everyone is entitled to anything that someone else can afford? It probably doesn't apply to health care alone. Where does this right stop? Does it apply to cosmetic surgery for burn victims? Those with genetic malformations? Aging skin sag? Breast implants? I don't ask these questions frivolously: since I don't know what principle is being applied to infer that everyone is entitled to health care whether they can afford it or not, it's hard to see what else that principle implies. There must be other implications, but what are they?

In any event I would like to know the principle under which everyone is entitled to health care whether they can afford it or not, and how much health care each person is entitled to without paying for it. It is clearly not simple Christian charity (which would be illegal anyway) since it will not, at least in theory, apply to illegal aliens. Of course it will apply to illegals, as Congressman Wilson implied when he shouted "You Lie!" to Mr. Obama during his speech: Democrats in committee carefully removed all the provisions for actually checking on the status of those making use of the new health care laws. We have a program (SAVE) that is in use in about 40 Federal Programs to prevent illegal aliens from getting their benefits; that was explicitly taken out of the qualifications for getting health care insurance under the bill. It is sufficient to say (in any language you care to use) "I was born in the USA" and they have to enroll you. If you can't check eligibility then in practice everyone is eligible. So it goes."

Selah...

...and the Lord said, "let there be balance"...

God was missing for six days. Eventually, Michael, the archangel, found him resting on the seventh day..

He inquired, "Where have you been, Lord?"

God smiled deeply and proudly pointed downwards through the clouds, "Look, Michael. Look what I've made."

Archangel Michael looked puzzled, and said, "What is it?"

"It's a planet," replied God, "and I've put life on it. I'm going to call it Earth and it's going to be a place to test balance."

"Balance?" inquired Michael, "I'm still confused."

God explained, pointing to different parts of Earth. "For example, northern Europe will be a place of great opportunity and wealth, while southern Europe is going to be poor. Over here I've placed a continent of white people, and over there is a continent of black people. Balance in all things."

God continued pointing to different countries. "This one will be extremely hot, while this one will be very cold and covered in ice."

The Archangel , impressed by God's work, then pointed to a land area and said, "What's that one?"

"That's the Commonwealth of Virginia, the most glorious place on earth. There are beautiful mountains, rivers and streams, lakes, forests, hills, and plains. The people from the Commonwealth of Virginia are going to be handsome, modest, intelligent, and humorous, and they are going to travel the world. They will be extremely sociable, hardworking, high achieving, carriers of peace and producers of good things."

Michael gasped in wonder and admiration, but then asked, "But what about balance, God? You said there would be balance..."

God smiled, "Right next to Virginia is Washington DC. Wait till you see the idiots I put there."

Some basic questions about the health care bill ...

1. We have access to health care now but it cost money; isn't this debate over how to pay for people who don't have health insurance?

2. The current system works fine for 85% of Americans. Shouldn't we, then, focus on fixing the 15%?

3. Fix Medicare, Medicaid and social security first. They are nearly bankrupt. So how can we start a new program without fixing the old? That's irresponsible.

4. With the current economy the way it is we don't recommend new spending of $1-2 Trillion! Especially in light of the "mistake" the Obama Budget office made in "miscalculating" $7 Trillion deficit to $9 trillion now! What other "miscalculations" could occur in a massive bill of this nature? Seems as though any money we may have had at one time for a total transformation of health care is gone now!

5. Getting a massive stimulus bill that was full of pork, then bailing out the car companies, then paying for people to get new cars (little of which seems to have actually helped the economy): seems to me we have done enough for the time being.

6. The administration says that if we "don't do this now we will face higher costs in health care". It's this type of attitude that has tripled the deficit in less than 6 months. Slow down and focus on fixing the system we have now that doesn't do any harm such as taking away deductions for health benefits, FSAs and HSAs. This would put many more millions out of work like me!

7. I am not interested in waiting lists and waiting lines when it comes to my family's health. SO NO GOVERNMENT RUN PROGRAM PLEASE!

8. The HR 3200 is written vaguely which means there's a lot of room for "interpretation" later by government bureaucrats after it is signed by those attempting to implement the bill. When something like this is written so vaguely and confusingly, it seems likely there's a reason for it (what's hiding?). This concerns me a great deal.

9. I would also like to know who or what group exactly wrote HR 3200? This 1,017 page bill was produced awfully fast, especially since no one in Congress or the administration seems to have even read it!

Let's take a D-E-E-P breath and slow down a bit, eh?