HEALTH CARE: GOVERNMENT VS. PRIVATE

Do we want the government employees who run the troubled Walter Reed Army Medical Center to be in charge of our entire health care system? Or, would you like the people who deliver our mail to also deliver health care services? How would you like the people who run the motor vehicles department, the government education system, foreign intelligence and other government agencies to also run our health care system? After all, they are not motivated by the quest for profits, and that might mean they're truly wonderful, selfless, caring people.

As for me, I'd choose profit-driven people to provide my health care services, people with motives like those who deliver goods to my supermarket, deliver my overnight mail, produce my computer and software programs, assemble my car and produce a host of other goods and services that I use.

There's absolutely no mystery why our greatest complaints are in the arena of government-delivered services and the fewest in market-delivered services. In the market, there are the ruthless forces of profit, loss and bankruptcy that make producers accountable to us. In the arena of government-delivered services, there's no such accountability.

READ THE REST FROM WALTER E WILLIAMS AT TOWNHALL

GOVERNMENT ISN'T THE ONLY ANSWER TO HELPING NEEDY GET HEALTHCARE

Assisting the needy in health care is a "moral imperative" — not a constitutional right. The two are as different as a squirt gun and an Uzi.

If something is not permitted under our Constitution, the federal government simply cannot do it. Period.

The Founding Fathers vigorously debated the role of the federal government and defined it in Article I, Section 8 — spelling out the specific duties and obligations of the federal government.

Most notably, these included providing a military for national security, coining money, establishing rules for immigration and citizenship, establishing rules for bankruptcy, setting up a postal system, establishing trademark and copyright rules, and setting up a legal system to resolve disputes.

Charity is not there.

Early Start

Congress began ignoring its lack of authority for charity before the ink dried on the Constitution. When Congress appropriated $15,000 to assist French refugees in 1792, James Madison — a Founding Father and principal author of the Constitution — wrote:

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution, which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."

READ THE REST FROM INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY

HEALTHCARE IS NOT A RIGHT AND SOCIALIZED MEDICINE IS EVIL

Our rights, as stated in the Declaration of Independence, are the rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. According to the Founding Fathers, we are not born with a right to a to free healthcare, free food, free car insurance, or "free" anything.

The American rights system establishes no compulsion on other people, merely the obligation to leave you alone to pursue your own happiness as long as you're not imposing on other's rights. The founders did not look to the government as being the solution for all of societies problems. Yes, they had problems in the eighteenth century.

These rights, to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness, do not mean that your neighbors have to feed, clothe, insure, or medicate you; they mean that you have the right and freedom to earn your own food, clothing, insurance, and medication. Once earned, no one has the right to steal them from you if and when you have earned them.

Prior to the government's intrusion into medical arena, health care was regarded as a product like any other, subject to free market forces like food, clothing, or haircuts. Medical providers competed to provide the best quality services at the lowest possible prices. Doctors even made house calls! Then, almost all Americans could afford basic health care services, while those few who couldn't were able to depend on generous private charity.

If this freedom been allowed to continue, our rising productivity and standard of living would have allowed us to buy improved health care, just as, today, we buy better and greater varieties of food, clothing, and technology than our parents and grandparents did. As with food, clothing, technology, car insurance, or any other important product or service, there would be no crisis of affordability.

But by the time Medicare and Medicaid were enacted in 1965, health care began to be viewed, not as a product for which each individual is personally responsible for, but as a right, and entitlement, or as an unearned benefit to be provided at someone elses expense.

Today, what we have is not a system based on American individualism and personal responsibility, but a collectivist system that aims to relieve the individual of the responsibility of paying for his or her own health care by forcefully extracting its costs from his or her neighbors. This is evil.

Almost half of all healthcare spending in America is already in the form of government spending. It's no coincidence that affordability and access have declined in direct proportion to the amount of government involvement.

SEE THE AD THAT ABC AND NBC REFUSE TO RUN CRITICAL OF OBAMACARE

The ad was produced by the League of American Voters, a national, nonprofit group that advocates for accountability by elected officials.

BILL WOULD GIVE PRESIDENT EMERGENCY CONTROL OF THE INTERNET

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

They're not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

The new version would allow the president to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" relating to "non-governmental" computer networks and do what's necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for "cybersecurity professionals," and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license.

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RANGEL, AGAIN

Rep. Charlie Rangel's multimillion-dollar "oops" this month raises plenty of good questions, but this may be the best: How can Democrats continue to close their eyes to such sleaze?

And, more to the point, this: Will prosecutors follow up on any of it?

Rangel's "corrections" to his financial-disclosure statements from 2002 through 2007 are stunning,even by the low standards of this "error"-prone paperwork-filer -- who, by the way, happens to be in charge of writing the nation's tax laws.

The Harlem Dem now admits that he failed to disclose several million dollars in income and business deals during those years -- including up to $1 million from the sale of a building on 132nd Street.

How could that happen?

Charlie won't say.

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STOP PLAYING THE RACE CARD

As an American who happens to be black, I say to those who are playing the race card in the healthcare debate: Stop it! The very people who do all the hand-wringing about racism are the first to use it to divide us, and we are tired of it.

The racial denigration of those who show up at town meetings as "angry white folks" is disgusting. If anything is "un-American," as Nancy Pelosi has alleged, it is her describing citizens as Nazis because they do not agree with President Obama. Americans are angrily rejecting the Democrats' effort to jam government healthcare down their throats, and their displeasure has nothing to do with race.

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FCC 'DIVERSITY' CHIEF ASKED LIBERALS TO FIGHT RUSH LIMBAUGH

A top Federal Communications Commission official believes that “progressives” should challenge conservative media moguls like Rush Limbaugh and Rupert Murdoch.

FCC Chief Diversity Officer Mark Lloyd made that argument in a 2007 report he penned for the liberal Center for American Progress, CNS News reports.

The article was titled “Media Maneuvers: Why the Rush to Waive Cross-Ownership Bans?” It discusses the FCC’s decision to allow Chicago real estate kingpin Sam Zell to buy the Chicago Tribune.

Lloyd argues that liberals should follow the tactics that President Franklin Roosevelt used to fight concentration of the media in conservative hands, such as then Tribune publisher Col. Robert McCormick.

Lloyd maintains that Zell could mirror McCormick, by joining other conservative media heavies, including Limbaugh and Murdoch, to work against liberals.

“The vast majority of Zell’s political contributions go to support conservative candidates and causes,” Lloyd wrote, as cited by CNS. “Is Zell a modern Col. McCormick waiting in the wings to join forces with Rupert Murdoch and Rush Limbaugh?”

Lloyd claimed that the conservative media moguls were in league with the Supreme Court to battle liberals in the government.

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REAL U.S. UNEMPLOYMENT RATE AT 16%: FED OFFICIAL

The real US unemployment rate is 16 percent if persons who have dropped out of the labor pool and those working less than they would like are counted, a Federal Reserve official said Wednesday.

"If one considers the people who would like a job but have stopped looking -- so-called discouraged workers -- and those who are working fewer hours than they want, the unemployment rate would move from the official 9.4 percent to 16 percent, said Atlanta Fed chief Dennis Lockhart.

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DEMOCRATIC HEALTH CARE BILL DIVULGES IRS DATA

Section 431(a) of the bill says that the IRS must divulge taxpayer identity information, including the filing status, the modified adjusted gross income, the number of dependents, and "other information as is prescribed by" regulation. That information will be provided to the new Health Choices Commissioner and state health programs and used to determine who qualifies for "affordability credits."

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RUSH LIMBAUGH ON GLENN BECK: OBAMA AND FREE SPEECH

Rush Limbaugh appeared on Glenn Beck's program August 26th, to discuss possible efforts by the Obama administration to silence their critics, particularly talk radio. Rush believes that Obama does not want to debate his opponents, he wants to eliminate them. Beck and Rush discussed Mark Lloyd, Obama's diversity czar.

They stressed that the issues before the American people today are not about left vs. right, Republican vs. Democrat, it's the state and totalitarianism against freedom and the American people.

AS BUDGET DEFICIT GROWS, SO DO DOUBTS ON DOLLAR

The U.S. economy may be showing signs of recovering from the financial crisis, but the jury is still out on the future of the U.S. dollar.

While many analysts expect the dollar to strengthen in coming months as the crisis fades and the U.S. economy turns toward growth, a growing chorus of investors is expressing concern about the longer-term outlook for the greenback.

In a new twist to an old refrain among economists, who have long worried about the effects of growing U.S. debt, they say that the huge liabilities the U.S. is taking on to dig its way out of crisis could ultimately undermine faith in the dollar.

"There has been a lot of disappointment with the way the U.S. credit crisis was handled," says Claire Dissaux, managing director of global economics and strategy for Millennium Global Investments Ltd., a London investment firm specializing in currencies. "The dollar's loss of influence is a steady and long-term trend."

On Tuesday, the Obama administration added fuel to concerns about the dollar, saying the U.S. will run a cumulative budget deficit of $9 trillion over the next 10 years, $2 trillion more than it had previously projected.

READ THE REST FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

WHY ARE WE MOVING TOWARDS SOCIALIZED MEDICINE?

Government intervention in medicine is wrecking American health care. Nearly half of all spending on health care in America is already government spending. Yet President Obama's "reforms" will only expand that intervention.

Prior to the government’s entrance into medicine, health care was regarded as a product to be traded voluntarily on a free market--no different from food, clothing, or any other important good or service. Medical providers competed to provide the best quality services at the lowest possible prices. Virtually all Americans could afford basic health care, while those few who could not were able to rely on abundant private charity.

Had this freedom been allowed to endure, Americans’ rising productivity would have afforded them better and better health care, just as, today, we buy better and more varied food and clothing than people did a century ago. There would be no crisis of affordability, as there isn’t for food or clothing.

READ THE REST FROM CAPITALISM MAGAZINE

DEMOCRAT PAT CADDELL IS AT A LOSS FOR WORDS OVER ELITIST OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

ATLAS SHRUGGED SELLING IN RECORD NUMBERS

Penguin USA, publisher of the four American editions of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, has reported that in the first half of 2009 it shipped well over 300,000 copies of Atlas Shrugged to distributors, bookstores, bookstore chains, online resellers, libraries, businesses and other institutions.

As Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, noted, “Considering that in the first half of 2008 Penguin shipped about 85,000 copies, the spectacular jump to 300,000 copies in the first half of 2009 represents an increase of almost 250 percent in gross sales of Atlas Shrugged!

Reports from industry sources indicate that more copies of Atlas Shrugged were sold in book stores and by online resellers in the first half of 2009 than in all of 2008, when a new all-time annual record was established with more than 200,000 copies of the novel sold in the United States.

“The spike in sales of Atlas Shrugged more than a half century after its initial publication is truly remarkable,” Dr. Brook pointed out. “Annual sales of Atlas Shrugged have been increasing for decades to a level not seen even in Ayn Rand’s lifetime. Sales of the U.S. paperback editions averaged around 70,000 copies a year in the 1980s, and doubled to about 140,000 copies a year in the current decade. And the pace of sales has been accelerating recently, reaching an all-time high during the novel’s 50th anniversary in 2007, surpassing this mark in 2008, and on course to set another record in 2009.”

Almost 7,000,000 copies of Atlas Shrugged have been sold since it was first published in 1957.

VISIT THE FREEDOM POST BOOKSTORE TO GET YOUR OWN COPY OF ATLAS SHRUGGED

GRASSLEY WARNS OF HYPERINFLATION RIVALING THE 1980'S

The economy could spiral into hyperinflation not seen since the early 1980s if the Federal Reserve does not tighten its monetary policy soon, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) warned Tuesday.

Grassley, speaking about the renomination of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to a second term as head of the Fed, asserted that Bernanke's ability to hold down inflation would be the metric by which the Fed's success would be measured.

"We won't know for a year if he's done a good job so far, because he shoveled money out of an airplane to save banks and the financial system," Grassley said in a conference call with Iowa reporters. "But shoveling money out of an airplane to solve problems can be inflationary — in this case, hyperinflationary — if he doesn't start mopping up some of the money that's out there."

Grassley, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, said that inflation as a result from government spending on bailouts could result in inflation rivaling rates in 1980, when it hit a peak of 13.5 percent.

"The Fed has the ability to put money out, it's got the ability to take money back in, and if they don't do that, we will have hyperinflation worse than we had in 1980 and '81," Grassley said. "And I hope he demonstrates that ability."

Grassley argued that while it would be a year until lawmakers will know whether Bernanke has been successful at bringing inflation under control, it would probably be best to keep the chairman on board for a second term as head of the Federal Reserve.

"I would suggest that right now, when everybody's nervous about the economy, that you don't change horses in the middle of the stream, and consequently, it would probably be detrimental to not have him reappointed," he said.

MOST ARKANSAN VOTERS PREFER RUSH LIMBAUGH'S VISION FOR AMERICA OVER PRESIDENT OBAMA'S

Barack Obama has a low approval rating, voters don’t like his plans for health care, and they think Rush Limbaugh’s vision for America is superior, Public Policy Polling’s newest Arkansas survey finds.

56% of voters in the state disapprove of the job Obama is doing so far as President, with just 40% approving. Those numbers are down from a March Arkansas survey that found the spread at a favorable 47/45. 72% of Democrats, 30% of independents, and 9% of Republicans give him good marks.

On health care, just 29% of Arkansans say they support Obama’s plans with 60%

opposed. On that front he has the support of only 54% of Democrats and 20% of

independents.

When asked whether they think Obama or Limbaugh has a better vision for the country, 55% of respondents selected Limbaugh in spite of the fact only 35% of them have a favorable opinion of him, compared to 44% unfavorable.

PPP surveyed 784 Arkansas voters from August 21st to 24th. The survey’s margin of error is +/-3.5%. Other factors, such as refusal to be interviewed and weighting, may introduce additional error that is more difficult to quantify.

Complete results are attached and can be found at www.publicpolicypolling.com.

PENCE: BUDGET NUMBERS WARN OF FISCAL TRAIN WRECK

U.S. Congressman Mike Pence, Chairman of the House Republican Conference, made the following statement today after the president's Office of Management and Budget, and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, released updated information on the outlook of the federal budget:

"For months the president stood by erroneous economic numbers to justify his plans for a government takeover of health care and a new national energy tax. As independent experts from both political stripes sounded the alarm, the president pressed forward with record spending, record deficits, and record debt."

"Now, his Administration finally admits the real impact his economic plan will have on our nation's fiscal future, an admission that includes roughly $9 trillion in new debt. The budget disaster we face is no longer one the president inherited but one he helped create, with the support of Congressional Democrats."

"We owe it not only to today's taxpayers but to future generations, to get the government's fiscal house in order. The president and Democrats in Congress should stop burdening future generations of Americans with unsustainable debt, and begin working with Republicans to deliver on their promise for fiscal responsibility."

PROTECTING OUR SENIORS. GOP PRINCIPLES FOR HEALTH CARE

By Michael S. Steele

Americans are engaged in a critical debate over reforming our health-care system. While Republicans believe that reforms are necessary, President Obama's plan for a government-run health-care system is the wrong prescription. The Democrats' plan will hurt American families, small businesses and health-care providers by raising care costs, increasing the deficit, and not allowing patients to keep a doctor or insurance plan of their choice. Furthermore, under the Democrats' plan, senior citizens will pay a steeper price and will have their treatment options reduced or rationed.

Republicans want reform that should, first, do no harm, especially to our seniors. That is why Republicans support a Seniors' Health Care Bill of Rights, which we are introducing today, to ensure that our greatest generation will receive access to quality health care. We also believe that any health-care reform should be fully paid for, but not funded on the backs of our nation's senior citizens.

The Republican Party's contract with seniors includes tenets that Americans, regardless of political party, should support. First, we need to protect Medicare and not cut it in the name of "health-insurance reform." As the president frequently, and correctly, points out, Medicare will go deep into the red in less than a decade. But he and congressional Democrats are planning to raid, not aid, Medicare by cutting $500 billion from the program to fund his health-care experiment. The president also plans to cut hospital payments and Medicare Advantage, all of which will mean fewer treatment options for seniors. These types of "reforms" don't make sense for the future of an already troubled federal program or for the services it provides that millions of Americans count on.

Second, we need to prohibit government from getting between seniors and their doctors. The government-run health-care experiment that Obama and the Democrats propose will give seniors less power to control their own medical decisions and create government boards that would decide what treatments would or would not be funded. Republicans oppose any new government entity overruling a doctor's decision about how to treat his or her patient.

Simply put, we believe that health-care reform must be centered on patients, not government.

Third, we need to outlaw any effort to ration health care based on age. Obama has promoted a program of "comparative effectiveness research" that he claims will be used only to study competing medical treatments. But this program could actually lead to government boards rationing treatments based on age. For example, if there are going to be only so many heart surgeries in a given year, the Democrats figure government will get more bang for its buck if more young and middle-aged people get them.

Fourth, we need to prevent government from dictating the terms of end-of-life care. Many of the most significant costs of care come in the last six months of a patient's life, and every American household must consider how to treat their loved ones. Obama's government-run health "reform" would pay for seniors' meetings with a doctor to discuss end-of-life care. While nonthreatening at first, something that is quite normal for a family to do becomes troublesome when the government gets involved. Seniors know that government programs that seem benign at first can become anything but. The government should simply butt out of conversations about end-of-life care and leave them to seniors, their families and their doctors.

Finally, we need to protect our veterans by preserving Tricare and other benefit programs for military families. Democrats recently proposed raising costs for the Tricare for Life program that many veterans rely on for treatment. Republicans support our veterans and believe that America should honor our promises to them.

Barack Obama campaigned on "post-partisanship." As president, however, Obama has shown that he is beholden to his party's left-wing ideologues. It's not too late for him to honor his pledges for bipartisan health-care reform. Reversing course and joining Republicans in support of health care for our nation's senior citizens is a good place to start. Doing so will help him restart the reform process to give Americans access to low-cost, high-quality health care.

Michael Steele is chairman of the Republican National Committee.

PREDICTIONS PROVE TO BE TRUE: OBAMA IS NEW JIMMY CARTER

With the Obama team, everything has to be a bigger and brasher brand of Carter-style politics. Carter merely had his pearly white teeth to flash to the media. President Obama has his endless wit and charm, and the ability to sink a half-court basketball shot on a moment's notice.

But just like Carter's toothy grin grew weary on the general public, Obama's stylish forays and endless press conferences, while perhaps still the apple of the eye of the D.C. press corps, are quickly growing old with Americans. They're not entertained or charmed because they're too busy being terrified over their economic future and confused by a barrage of government programs that the new administration is proposing.

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RETARDING RECOVERY

One would have to go back to the 1930s or perhaps the 1970s to find an Administration as hostile to economic innovation and growth as this one is. Franklin Roosevelt clearly thought that the age of great industrial advancement was over and that it was Washington's task to increasingly regulate business while bashing the "selfishness" of "economic royalists" who were running American enterprises. After all, they had caused the Great Depression, hadn't they? The 1970s, especially during Jimmy Carter's presidency, were also antagonistic to commercial risk-taking. Inflation ran rampant, and the capital gains tax was raised to a maximum of almost 50%.

Washington is in a similar mood today (see Current Events, p. 17). One expression of this obtuseness-cum- animosity is a proposal from the Treasury Department to crush venture capital firms with burdensome new regulations as part of the Obama Administration's grand scheme to reform our higgledy-piggledy financial regulatory system.

READ THE REST FROM STEVE FORBES AT FORBES