Democrats archive at FraudWasteAbuse

Archive for the 'Democrats' Category

Jul

Bread, Water, and Michael Moore

By JSwan 6 Comments

Categories: Democrats, civil rights and constitution

I think it’s funny that people try to dispute the facts in Michael Moore’s films. Why? Because the facts are correct and easily verifiable. Then again, so are the facts on the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide: A substance that kills millions and devestates entire economies each year. On the streets, this substance is commonly known as “water.”

It is also a fact that virtually 100% of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours after injesting… bread.

What should be disputed is the perspective which Michael Moore presents. For example, in SiCKO it is stated that “there are nearly 50 million Americans without health insurance.” This is a verifiable fact. However, this fact alone fails to give viewers a complete picture.

Allow me to explain: The population of the United States is just over 300 million. That means that roughly 17% of Americans are uninsured. That’s a pretty big chunk - about one in six people - so let’s break it down further to make sure we are not being mislead.

About 11 million of the 50 million uninsured Americans are elegible for government healthcare plans that already exist. That leaves about 39 million, or about 13% of the population that may be involintarily without insurance. That’s not quite as bad, but can we do better? Yes.

Of the 39 million people that do not have insurance and are not eligible for existing government healthcare plans, about 7.8 million of them can afford their own health insurance.

Given these additional facts, the number of people truely in need is actually about 31.2 million, or about 10% of the US population.

So how much did Michael Moore misrepresent the numbers? By about 70%.

Mar

What will universal healthcare be like? Just look at the VA

By FraudWasteAbuse 5 Comments

Categories: politics, bureaucracy, healthcare, government, Republicans, Democrats, rights, liberty, health care, hospital, constitution, doctor, VA, Veterans Affairs, socialized medicine and universal healthcare

With national elections coming late next year, it is inevitable that the topic of socialized medicine will again rear its ugly head. Much ado is made about the 40,000,000 Americans who do not have health insurance, which makes the fact that there are 260,000,000 Americans that do seem insignificant. Of course the 40,000,000 figure likely includes many young and healthy individuals with low risk of serious illness who don’t believe that health insurance would be cost-effective. But good news doesn’t make for a good emotional talking point.

If one wants to know how a national health care system would operate, one needs to merely look at the systems our government has in place. The most prominent form of socialized medicine in our country is the Department of Veterans Affairs. With 235,000 employees and a budget of more than $60 billion, the VA is the federal government’s second largest department, second only to the Department of Defense. It’s purpose it to provide benefits, disability payments, and health care to military members once they’ve left the service. The medical care provided at most VA facilities is generally considered to be fairly adequate. That is, if you can even get to see a doctor at all.

For those of us who have private health insurance, we can typically see a doctor for any reason within a week or two, depending how busy that doctor’s office is. Not so with VA health care, or any other socialized health system for that matter. Private insurance yields considerable flexibility and a range of choices. If health care is handed to the state, you do it the state’s way on the state’s terms and that’s it. If its one-size-fits-all plan doesn’t suit you, that’s too bad.

The reason for the failure of socialized medicine (aside from the fact that it is run by the government) is the notion that the laws of supply and demand can be ignored. Proponents of socialized medicine desire to create a system that offers unlimited health care to all Americans. Unfortunately, unlimited health care incurs unlimited costs. Since a system that incurs unlimited costs is obviously impossible to operate, rationing of supply is inevitable. Now we have scenarios in which priorities are assigned, and people who have brain tumors that will kill them in a year won’t be treated until the people with brain tumors that will kill them in eleven months are cured.

We can see evidence of this today in the Veterans Affairs health care system. Patients sometimes have to wait months just to see a physician for a non life-threatening condition. In one recent case, a man had to wait four months to get the result of an important medical test. A backlog exists of 400,000 applications and appeals for benefits, most of which are for veterans of previous wars. This problem isn’t limited to the VA. In Canada, wait times to get into hospitals can span weeks or months, including for simple procedures (Compared with the US where wait times are generally dependent on fulfilling medical requirements–such as no eating for a day or two). The average wait time for treatment after seeing a general practitioner is a little over 17 weeks.

Inevitably, you will have people who simply support socialized medicine in general, despite all its failing. They assert that everyone has a right to cheap or free health care no matter how crappy it is. The problem is that health care is not a right in the traditional sense of what a right is. True rights relate to the individual, such as free speech or freedom of religion. To exercise these rights, one does not have to coerce someone else to do something against his or her will. With a socialized medical system, one must coerce complete strangers into funding your actions. You are forcing others to be your slave.

Nationalizing health care, especially in the United States, would be a disaster. The US government has shown an extraordinary propensity for screwing up pretty much ANYTHING it gets involved in. Imagine yourself dealing with the type of people at the IRS or DMV the next time you need stitches.

Feb

Fear brings people closer to conservatism

By FraudWasteAbuse 2 Comments

Categories: politics, Iraq, War on Terror, terrorism, government, liberal, Republicans, Democrats, 9/11, conservatives, liberals, conservatism, conservative and Osama bin Laden

I recently read an interesting article in the February 2007 issue of Psychology Today. It was about political stances, and how most people’s politics have little to do with reason and more to do with personality traits and education level, among other things. According to the article, psychologists have discovered some interesting underlying personality differences between liberals and conservatives. A few I found to be somewhat surprising:

Multiple studies find that liberals are more optimistic. Conservatives are more likely to be religious. Liberals are more likely to like classical music and jazz, conservatives, country music. Liberals are more likely to enjoy abstract art. Conservative men are more likely than liberal men to prefer conventional forms of entertainment like TV and talk radio. Liberal men like romantic comedies more than conservative men. Liberal women are more likely than conservative women to enjoy books, poetry, writing in a diary, acting, and playing musical instruments.

As kids, liberals had developed close relationships with peers and were rated by their teachers as self-reliant, energetic, impulsive, and resilient. People who were conservative at age 23 had been described by their teachers as easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and vulnerable at age 3. The reason for the difference, the Blocks hypothesized, was that insecure kids most needed the reassurance of tradition and authority, and they found it in conservative politics.

Getting to the main point of the article, it seems that those who have the greatest fear of death, a need for an authority figure, and who have a one-dimensional view of the world are more likely to be conservative. On a side note, this would help explain why the vast majority of those in the military tend to vote Republican.

If anyone understands this, it’s President Bush. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Bush’s approval ratings shot up to around 90%. Instead of using this golden opportunity to push for a truly conservative agenda of smaller government, he vastly expanded the powers of government with the PATRIOT Act and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Instead of reevaluating US foreign policy and changing it in a way that would ease resentment of the United States in hotspots around the world, he created a culture of fear, convincing Americans that their neighbors might be terrorists. Never mind that terrorism doesn’t register much of a blip when compared to the top killers of Americans.

Today’s conservatism is fueled by fear. Those who are more easily manipulated by fear feel at ease when someone in a position of authority (Bush) reassures them and tells them that he will keep them safe. Unfortunately, this combination of fear and need to be kept safe gives people a false sense of security. It is my hope that rational people will understand that the government can do very little to stop terrorism. Until then, we need to stop being ruled by our fear.