Ambulance Driver takes the vitals on Obamacare and Massachusetts; it’s potentially worse for the Dems than they thought (emphasis added):

ObamaCare is deader than Julius Caesar.

But that’s not the only thing to learn from this bombshell of an election. The Brown campaign is now saying that while voter opposition to Congress’ health care reform was strong, their internal polling pointed to Brown’s stance on terrorism to be his biggest wedge issue.

Brown was consistent in his message that terrorists did not have a right to a tax-payer funded lawyer, that they should be brought before military tribunals and not the Federal Courts, that detaining them without trial was fine with him and that waterboarding was not torture and was a technique that should be used to garner information.

Ambulance Driver believes that a vast majority of Americans agree with this and those elected officials who have misjudged the electorate on this issue now have a lot to think about.

I suspect that the current Administration has grossly underestimated how concerned about security  – not just “War on Terror” security, but in a larger sense as well – the American people are.

Via Joe Bodell at MN “Progressive” Project, it seems that Rep Tim Walz’s  (DFL, MN 1st District) feet are cooling down in re the notion of passing the Senate Obamacare bill.

Bodell:

One of the remaining options for the health insurance reform effort is for the House of Representatives to pass the Senate version of the bill verbatim, thus avoiding having to send a modified bill back to the Senate for debate, where it would likely die thanks to 41 votes being stronger than 59.

Which, of course, the Dems could “fix” by invoking the “Nuclear Option” – changing the Senate rules to allow cloture, or the shutting down of filibusters, on a majority vote rather than needing the traditional 60 votes.  Which they are loathe to do, since it’ll come back to haunt them when the Senate changes hands again, and that change looks to be closer at hand than they’d figured a year ago.

So it’s back to parliamentary tactics 101:

Thus, [the Tics] need to figure out where House members stand — several have said various things about whether they would vote for the Senate bill, and TPM is making a list — and Minnesota’s Tim Walz looks like he falls into the “maybe” category.

I got the following statement from Walz’s spokesperson:

Congressman Walz has not taken an official stand on whether he would vote for the Senate health care reform bill verbatim if it were put before the House. However, the pay-for-value Medicare reimbursement provisions that currently exist in both bills are an extremely important consideration.

So the absence of a public option in the Senate bill doesn’t sound like a deal-breaker for Walz — but unless it looks like there could be 218 votes for the Senate bill, members are likely to be very skittish about making public pronouncements one way or the other.

“Skittish” is a good word for it.  Walz squeaked into office in 2006 by beating “Moderate” Republican Gil Gutknecht in one of the worst elections for Republicans in recent memory (until 2008).  He represents a largely red district in the rural southwest part of Minnesota, hundreds of thousands of acres of conservative farmers surrounding a tiny blue outpost in Mankato.  He’s right to be skittish; he must looking at Byron Dorgan and Earl Pomeroy’s contortions, and Collin Peterson’s deep ambivalence about throwing himself on a sword for Barack Obama in his very similar Seventh District, and calculating his odds.

CORRECTION:  Yeah, I know – Walz is the First, not Third, District.  I’m a Saint Paul guy.  Anything west of Lyndale is a purely academic concept to me.  As is the concept of “a responsive Congressperson…”

I was listening to NPR’s reliably center-left “Marketplace” last night.  And I almost pulled my car over from shock.

They did a piece on a union health plan.  The union – a hospitality workers union in Los Angeles – does things the old fashioned way; it collects its dues, and essentially runs its own private clinic where members essentially get unlimited healthcare for, basically, almost nothing out of pocket.  The report focused on the dental clinic, where workers pay $3 for a filling, $20 for a root canal, and $6 for an office visit.

The actual fees are paid out of a trust fund paid for by the employers, who pay a little over $4/hour into the union workers’ health plans.

It adds up to over $50 million a year, which for some 7,000 union workers and their dependents, means all-inclusive medical benefits, plus dental, which brings us back to [dentist working at the union clinic] Roger Fieldman. There’s a downside to providing good care at cheap prices.

FIELDMAN: We have a high no-show rate. Because essentially their dentistry is almost free.

The clinic’s no-show rate — that’s patients who miss appointments and didn’t call to cancel — is 20-25 percent. In his old private practice it was 5 percent.

FIELDMAN: We might have a two-hour appointment for some complex surgery, some dental implants, and then they just don’t show up! And for two hours of doctor and assistant time, what is the value of that? $1,000? More? The patient’s paying $6.

$6 being the fee for no-shows.

[Plan administrator] THROCKMORTON: When it’s only $6, there’s very little incentive, if it’s not convenient, for them to keep the appointment.

In other words, there’s no incentive to not waste all of that care.

And dentistry is relatively cheap.  But the waste goes into much bigger-ticket services as well:

Throckmorton says if there’s one thing he’s learned after balancing the books and the union’s trust fund all these decades it’s this: That when money is not a factor, people do not think much about waste.

Take, for example, the emergency room.

THROCKMORTON: We have no emergency room charge.

Some members will use the emergency room at any sign of sickness.

Sound familiar?

THROCKMORTON: If there’s any doubt about it, they go.

Or just because it’s convenient. Because there’s no co-pay.

THROCKMORTON: Now they can’t evaluate them and tell ’em, you’ve just got a cold, you don’t belong in emergency care. The hospital is obligated by law to see them in the emergency room. The cost is a minimum of $700.

Which the fund, of course, pays for.

Of course it sounds familiar.  The State of Minnesota’s employees were griping about similar services when they struck a few years back; they were horrified, horrified, at the thought that they might have to pay copays (which were still a fraction of what all the rest of us private-sector proles pay).

We’ll come back to that.

Now, for years the union didn’t make a big deal about how much health care people used. They wanted to give their members the most access to care. Until the recession slammed the hospitality industry.

THROCKMORTON: It was just almost like driving off a cliff.

Union workers’ hours fell 20 percent. Employer contributions, of course, dropped. The fund was spending more than what was coming in.

The story goes on to tell us that the union is raising some modest copays for some of the services, including $50 to hopefully prod customers into trying services other than the emergency room.

I finally did pull the car over (because I was, like, home from the store) and listened to the end of the story (which you should either listen to or read, at the link above); and then I yelled “OK?  It’s that it?  Close the circle!”

The story, interesting though it was, squibbed on two huge connections.

First: Hello?  This is a big reason healthcare is so expensive!  Most of America’s insured population gets insurance paid for by third parties, and are insulated from the true cost.  Third parties (with the union plan in the story being a fairly extreme example) not only hide the real cost, especially the real cost of waste, from the consumer, but also pump money into the system for the limited supply of care; it’s economics 101 that this is a recipe for immense price inflation.

Second: This is exactly how “single-payer” healthcare works, on the care side of things; when people don’t have to think about what they are somebody is paying for their care, they become casual about using it.  Which stretches the resources that are available.  Which means someone needs to react – either by introducing a bit of market discipline (adding copays, as the union in the story did) or rationing the care that the members get (as the UK, Canada, France, the Netherlands and Japan do). 

But then I suppose if you can’t count on NPR to cover for the big left, you can’t count on anything.

Nancy Pelosi takes a crack at interpreting Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts:

The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, said on Thursday that Democrats remained committed to passing far-reaching health care legislation, but she said that the House would not simply adopt the Senate version of the bill and send it to President Obama in part because of problematic provisions that she said contributed to the Republican victory in the Massachusetts special election on Tuesday.

Yeah, that’s it. The good citizens of Massachusetts made good use of all the time and visibility that Congress has allowed for the study of the proposed health care bills. Joe the Plumber, Bill the Banker and Sally the Social Worker gave haste to reading the Senate version, comparing it meticulously to the House version.

It was some clause of some paragraph of some provision somewhere that displeased them and made them turn on hapless old Martha and her saggy queen mother, Nancy.

I wonder if exit pollers were asking voters “was it the fourth paragraph of the Senate version as it contrasted the fifth paragraph of the House version that changed your mind? Or was it the font?”

“Unease would be a gentle word in terms of the attitude of my colleagues toward certain provisions in the Senate bill,” Ms. Pelosi said.

I can picture Pelosi saying that on camera while over her shoulder and out of focus, Democrats, overstuffed briefcases under their arms, papers streaming out of them, are seen fleeing like rats from a burning building.

America is pretty okay with their health care as it is for the time being and would rather their government help them find a job and quit spending their great great great great grandchild’s retirement. Nancy Pelosi may be the only liberal in Washington that didn’t get the message Tuesday evening.

“Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”

The Jester recounts his “accomplishments” thus far and blames the GOP for Congress’ Low Ratings.

What a joke.

…no less coming from a man whose qualifications for the job never exceeded telling them. From the gaping maw that is Al Franken:

I’d say the proudest accomplishment is just the overall impact I had on the health care bill. It may not have been the highest-profile stuff, but I think it’s stuff that both reflects Minnesota’s values and what Minnesota has done well, and will also ultimately not just benefit Minnesota, but benefit the whole way that health care is delivered.

…save the fact that clearly Americans and Minnesotans are against government reform of health care, hence the lack of transparency, closed-door negotiations, and blatant political payoffs to the unions of late on the part of our Democrat-led congress.

His self-aggrandizement defies the imagination of any sane voter, but not moreso than his take on Congress’ abysmal approval rating:

I would like to see give and take. I think the most surprising (is) sort of the lack of real debate, especially between the two parties, especially on the health care thing. …

I must have done between 10 and 15 roundtables on health care, with providers, doctors and hospitals, with insurance companies, nurses, health care economists, with public health people, rural health, one on health care disparities. And, you know, that was because I wanted to reform health care. … And every member of the Democratic caucus did the same. And I felt like the Republican caucus in the Senate did not do that. And that they were not invested in reforming health care; they were invested in stopping the Democratic … reform of health care.

What was disappointing to me was what came from the other side, or from opponents of health care.

[It is telling that liberals now synonymize “health care” with “government health care”-JR]

(It) seemed to be kind of talking points. There wasn’t much behind them. And also quite a bit of disinformation.

I think [our low rating is] because they see things like that. I was sort of saddened by that.

Boo Freaking Hoo, Al. Save the crocodile tears for another day. When it’s a Democrat speaking it’s reasoned debate. When it’s a Republican, it’s “talking points”, right Al?

Al Franken opines that the American people hold Congress in such low esteem because Republicans haven’t paralleled the Democrats’ enormous investment of time, effort and political capital pursuing health care reform that a growing majority of Americans no longer want.

He went on to say that the next task at hand will be to tackle job creation, as if ten percent unemployment hansn’t warranted more immediate attention than health care reform, that again, for emphasis, most no one wants.

Yet it’s the minority party’s fault that Congress suffers such low esteem among the populace?

A joke indeed.

In Obama’s speeches, one favorite phrase: ‘Let me be clear’

Obama’s declarations of clarity are far more than a little presidential throat-clearing.

In a presidency in which everything is murkier than Obama could have imagined, the “let me be clear” preface has become a signal that what follows will be anything but.

“Now let me be clear — let me be absolutely clear…”If your family earns less than $250,000 a year, a quarter-million dollars a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime.” Since then, several proposals have muddied that assertion, including the Obama-approved tax on costly health insurance plans.

Let me be absolutely clear about what health reform means for you,” he said in July. “. . . It will keep government out of health-care decisions. It will give you the option to keep your insurance if you’re happy with it.” In fact, the government’s role in health care would increase under the legislation, and the changes would, in all likelihood, result in many people ending up with different coverage through reasons not of their own choosing.

Now, let me be absolutely clear:

Proverbs 26:24-26: “A malicious man disguises himself with his lips, but in his heart he harbors deceit. Though his speech is charming, do not believe him, for seven abominations fill his heart. His malice may be concealed by deception, but his wickedness will be exposed in the assembly.”

I grew up in North Dakota; I was born in Rugby, and grew up and graduated from high school and college in Jamestown.  I was 19 before I saw a city bigger than Fargo.  The place is still a huge part of me.

And for my entire cognitive life, Byron Dorgan’s been in politics.  He was appointed Tax Commissioner when I was five years old, at age 26; he was elected to the House, succeeding Mark Andrews, when I was a senior in high school in 1980.  He was elected to the Senate 18 years ago.  He’s been a politician virtually his entire adult life – and much more than mine.

As you’ve no doubt heard, Dorgan’s not running for re-election:

Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) announced this evening that he’s retiring at the end of his term, a shocking development that threatens Democratic control of his Senate seat next year.

Dorgan was up for re-election in 2010, but the third-term senator wasn’t facing any strong Republican opposition– but was facing the growing possibility of a serious challenge from popular Gov. John Hoeven (R-N.D.).

Cassy Fiano, writing at the Greenroom, echoes a common mistake among those who don’t follow NoDak politics:

The Democrats are dropping like flies, and this gives the GOP just one more potential opening. North Dakota was won by John McCain in the election last year, and it’s entirely possible that Dorgan would had been defeated anyways.

Well, perhaps – but Mac had nothing to do with it.  North Dakota has voted Republican in virtually every election since statehood – but Dorgan went to the house in 1980, not only succeeding a popular Republican (Mark Andrews, who went to the Senate), but bucking the Reagan tide in one of the reddest states there is.  He survived the Gingrich revolution quite handily.

The reason?  Like many farm states, which are mostly famously conservative, North Dakota is addicted to pork.  The various federal Farm Bills are the staff of life – at least politicially.  And Byron Dorgan brought home the pork for a generation.  Not “dumb pork” – none of the Ben-Nelson-style legal graft.  Just lots and lots of farm bill subsidies.

And so a generation of North Dakota farmers has voted for Republicans – even Nixon and Dole – while sending Dorgan (and his successor as Tax Commissioner, Kent Conrad, and Earl Pomeroy – all of them porkocrats) to Washington to keep the swag coming.  And time is money in Washington; Dorgan’s seniority made him one of the most powerful men in the city.

But this year is different.

A recent Rasmussen poll showed him losing to Republican Governor John Hoeven, 58% – 36%. This would’ve scared the pants off of Dorgan… especially considering that Hoeven hasn’t even said that he’s going to run yet.

And the biggest question of this election isn’t “how big will Hoeven’s margin be”; it’s “will he run?”  Hoeven’s been a very successful governor; North Dakota is one of four states to have no budget deficit last year; North Dakota’s schools’ results are as good as or better than Minnesota’s, for vastly less money per student; the state rode out the recession in some style, and not entirely because of the oil boom.  In a just world, he’d be a presidential candidate; he’s one of the most accomplished governors anywhere.

But he’s been reticent so far about committing to run for higher office.  That’ll be the big question.

The Politico:

In his statement, Dorgan said his retirement was borne out of the desire to spend more time with his family.

And Beria died of a cold.

Democratic Senate campaign officials only found out about Dorgan’s decision within the last 24 hours. Dorgan began calling Senate leaders on Tuesday afternoon to inform them of his decision to retire, according to Senate insiders.

He had previously given no sign that he wasn’t going to run for re-election or was even considering retirement and had been raising money for his 2010 campaign.

Could it be that Dorgan finally found a third rail even he couldn’t jump over?

Obamacare is a famously unhealthy product to push in North Dakota, whose population veers between a fairly elderly population outstate who stand to take a huge hit on healthcare with the demotion of Medicare, and a fairly young population in high-tech and university-dominated Fargo and Grand Forks.

Could it be that the rabid partisanship of the Pelosi/Reid Axis has led a Democrat two key Democrats (along with Senator Dodd) to jump before they get impaled?

The Republican attempt to soil Massachusetts’ tidy Senate election gets bleached.

In a state where only 24 of the 200 legislators who occupy the legislature are Republicans and which last reliably voted GOP at a national level during Dwight Eisenhower’s era, most pundits and pols could be forgiven for tuning out their interest in the race to succeed the late Ted Kennedy after the lopsided, low-turnout Democratic primary of earlier this month.  Between Massachusetts’ historically liberal leanings, State Attorney General Martha Coakley’s convincing primary victory and her sizable cash advantage, national Republican leaders and even conservative activists have largely written off St. Sen. Scott Brown’s erstwhile attempt to score even a moral victory in the Bay State.

While there’s no question that despite being an articulate communicator whose good looks allowed him to put his posterior in Cosompolitan magazine for posterity in 1982, Brown faces taller odds than Hervé Villechaize at a slam dunk competition.  Still, some are questioning the national GOP’s disinterest in the campaign.  NRO‘s Jim Geraghty gamely expresses the NRSC and GOP’s likely logic of throwing away good money after bad considering the simple political math that Massachusetts presents any right-of-center candidacy:

But to illustrate how tough the odds are for Brown, let’s pretend that every registered Republican in the state, as of 2008, shows up and votes for him. And let us pretend that the independents split evenly, and that only one third of the state’s Democrats show up and vote for Coakley.

Under that scenario, Coakley still wins by about 1,045 votes.

With Brown trailing Coakley in cash-on-hand alone by nearly $1.6 million, in addition to having been already outraised $4 million to $400,000, there’s little logic at hand for any national Republican organization to spend the kind of money necessary to deliver, in the words of one snubbed Bay State Republican, “a level playing field.”  Had the state’s beleagued GOP recruited any one of the higher-profile candidates mentioned months ago, including Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling or former White House chief of staff Andy Card, funds would likely be more forthcoming.   Such realities explain the lack of organizational support for Brown – but it doesn’t explain why conservative activists have wiped Brown from their radar.

Massachusetts may be solidly blue but the Democratic establishment has rarely been less popular.  Gov. Deval Patrick, who successfully broke a 20-year streak of moderate Republican governors with his victory in 2006, has a 47% disapproval rating, which is actually a slight improvement.  The state’s health care system, once seen as the template for Congress’ national health care reform, has been seen as successful by only 26% while merely 10% believe the system has actually improved the quality of care.  Throw in your run-of-the-mill scandals that happen in states that lack much competition at the polls and at least a pyrrhic Democratic victory seems possible.

The same scenario played out three years ago as Republican Jim Ogonowski nearly upset Niki Tsongas in Massachusetts’ 5th Congressional district.  Despite being outspent 4-to-1 and residing in a district where only 18% of voters were registered Republicans, Ogonowski captured 46% of the vote.  And while the numbers once again sizably favor the Democrat, the intangibles love the underdog:

[T]he number of votes there are in the Democratic Primary is usually the high-water mark of what the Democrat will get. In 2001 special congressional election, Steven Lynch got more votes in the Democratic Primary than he received in the General Election.  Fewer people voted for Nikki Tsongas in 2007 in the general than voted in the Democratic Primary.
…Coakley has basically shut-down and set the cruise control. She thinks she’s already won. Her base is no longer motivated. Scott is Senator 41. Obama’s Agenda screeches to a halt if Scott is elected . . .

Despite Brown’s potential importance, few conservative activists and fewer conservative dollars have rushed to his aid.  But recriminations are likely to abound should Brown pull closer than expected come Election Day, leaving the RNC and NRSC in an impossible position – spend money only to see Brown lose in a modest landslide or save for 2010 while likely losing dollars from yet another blog-inspired embargo on committee contributions.

Much like the Doug Hoffman candidacy in nearby New York, if conservative activists want to see Scott Brown supported, they’re best advised to start by doing so themselves.

Senator Ben Nelson – one of the crucial votes the Administration bought last week to win the Health Care vote in the Senate – isn’t up for re-election this term.  But he’s bleeding from the ears, and he’s currently down by around 30 points in a hypothetical race against Nebraska’s Republican governor for his normally-secure “blue-dog” seat.

But Nebraskans aren’t amused:

As a fresh poll measured the political cost of Sen. Ben Nelson’s health reform vote, he prepared Tuesday to take his case directly to Nebraskans during Wednesday night’s Holiday Bowl game.

Nelson will air a new TV ad in which he attempts to debunk opposition claims that the Senate legislation represents a government takeover, and he makes the case for health care reform.

“With all the distortions about health care reform, I want you to hear directly from me,” the Democratic senator says in the ad.

That’s a great idea, Senator Nelson.  Why don’t you hear directly from your constituents.

At a statewide series of town hall meetings?  Where you can hear from them, too?

Or are all those peasants just too…pesky?

But there they were, the United States Senate, at 1 a.m. Monday, rushing to vote in the middle of a snowstorm to close debate on the most important piece of legislation of our time — the nationalization of the U.S. health care system.

“Rock the Vote” is urging supporters of socialized, government healthcare rationing to go all Lysistrata on their purported pro-free-market paramours:

Just when every tactic in the book had been seemingly exhausted in the health care debate, Rock the Vote comes along with a new one: if you want health care reform, don’t sleep with anyone who opposes it until his or her mind is changed. 

The youth advocacy group is pushing the campaign in a Web video and pledge on its Web site, which asks supporters to “hold out” for health care. 

The campaign isn’t just absurd; it’s an example of incredibly poor market research.  Given that most lefties, especially the young ones, regard politics as their religion, “not being a fellow statist” is often as not a showstopper for young relationships; a young Barbara Boxer supporter is staggeringly unlikely to be dating someone with an independent streatk anywhere in his/her mind.

But I have a better idea:   People who support the free market?  You withhold sex from people who support Obamacare!  Because liberals crave instant gratification and lack conservatives’ calm and patience, they’ll cave in long before you do. 

Oh, yes – and American Left?  Stay classy.  Really:

The subtlety of the online pledge, though, is completely undone by the video, which employs zero rhetorical devices, except for a couple of bleeps, to get its message bluntly across. 

“We pledge ourselves to the health and liberty of young Americans and to government for the people … and to never f—ing you if you are against us,” the team of actors in the video says. 

“We will vote against you, work against you, and once again, just in case you forgot, never ever, never ever, never ever, never ever f— you.” .

Fear not, commercial starlets (a couple of flavor-of-the-month actors from some current flash-in-the-pan series); pretty soon, you’ll discover your agents and management have taken care of that for you.  And then you’ll be doing the same thing on one casting couch or another until your plastic surgery gives out, and you won’t give a Flaming Pelosi what the casting agent’s take on healthcare will be.

(And if I were a young person, I’d be pissed that the Left figured I was such a slave to my desires that that would work on me anyway).

I had a lot of discussions last year with conservatives who refused to vote for – indeed, fumed with anger against – Norm Coleman; because of one transgression or another (keeping a campaign promise and voting against ANWR drilling being one example), they called him a “RINO”.  It was palpable balderdash, of course; Coleman was as conservative as a Minnesota Senator ever could be on a wide range of issues, including the ones – I am stressing this much more strongly verbally than you can possible tell through my writing – that should matter to conservatives, things like the budget, the war, American sovereignty.

And above that, remember – perfect is the enemy of good enough.  Coleman wasn’t the perfect conservative – but I hasten to add that Minnesota at this point in history is not going to elect a perfect conservative.  Norm Coleman was the best that we’re going to get out of five million people who also think Amy Klobuchar and Keith Ellison and Betty McCollum and Jim Oberstar are just dreamy.

Elections have consequences.  And in the Obamacare debate, we’re seeing those consequences, lining up at our nation’s head like a Russian-Roulette player’s revolver.

Mr. D at TvM via T  has a gentle reminder for at least 300 “conservatives” who helped put Al Franken in office just as surely as ACORN and MoveOn did:

Congratulations to those “true conservatives” who pulled the lever for Dean Barkley to teach that RINO Norm Coleman a lesson. You really showed ‘em. Congratulations to the Peggy Noonans and Christopher Buckleys of the world, who had every reason to know what the result of their perdify would be. Congratuations to Doug Kmiec, who assured everyone that voting with the Democrats was the best way to preserve life. I hope you enjoy your time as Ambassador to Malta. Maybe you can stay there.

Congratulations to all of you. Elections have consequences. You now get to enjoy the consequences.

And a prediction:

The next big growth industry? Maquiladora hospitals. And remember, you heard it here first.

D makes a good observation; this may be the best thing to happen to the economy of Mexico and Honduras, ever.

Too bad we couldn’t have saved a couple trillion dollars and done it by getting them to overthrow socialism instead.

As I write this, Ed and I are interviewing Rep. Tom Price on what you and I can do to push back against the healthcare bill, which should be coming up to a vote this week, quite likely on Christmas Eve.

You need to call the House at 202.224.3121.  Call Collin Peterson to thank him for being on the right side so far, and ask him to stay on the right side.  Also Represenatives Stupak, Tanner, Baird, Gordon and Moore, all of whom are vulnerable. 

We’re getting close to the “for all the marbles” phase.

I”m not sure what’s got me more jazzed; that Obamacare is such a shambles, even the far left is bailing on the President…:

In a stunning reversal of fortune for President Barack Obama top progressives are attacking the health-reform plan moving through the Senate as “hollow,” “unsupportable” and a sellout to corporate interests.

Republicans, after plotting for months to sink the signature legislation of Obama’s first year, suddenly think that Democrats might wind up doing it for them.

Most dangerously for White House chances of assembling 60 Senate votes, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean launched a third day of attacks on the emerging bill, arguing in a Washington Post op-ed that it meets none of his benchmarks for “real reform.”

“[A]s it stands, this bill would do more harm than good to the future of America,” Dean wrote, then took to the airwaves to amplify his case.

…or that Fast Eddie Schultz, a man who actually is as stupid and hateful as the left alleges conservative talk radio to be (see Berg’s Seventh Law), is now considered a “top progressive”:

Ed Schultz, an influential liberal radio host [he’s “influence” a few million listeners to switch back to Limbaugh – Ed.], declared on his “Ed Show” on MSNBC: “The base is restless. They are wandering in the wilderness, Mr. President. … They want to know, where are you? … Right now, Mr. President, your base thinks you’re nothing but a sellout — a corporate sellout, out that. … The only people who like this current bill right now, Mr. President, is the insurance industry — they get a bunch of new customers.”

Don’t you love it when the left takes a break from demanding that conservative leaders run to the center, to demand that liberal leaders move to the left?

This holiday season consumers armed with smartphones are using the internet in their palm to find the best deals, keeping retailers on their toes, and presumably driving prices down.

The rise of smart phones, with their go-anywhere Web access, is changing the shopping game this holiday season.

Tech-savvy shoppers are finding it easier than ever to work the system to get the best deals.

They’re scanning barcodes with their cell phone cameras to load into price comparison Internet sites while standing in store aisles, using GPS to find discounts at nearby stores and flashing electronic coupons straight from their phones.

This is how a free market works.

Now, imagine of you will, a time when health care consumers, free to choose from multiple providers of insurance and care, armed with reviews and cost comparisons via the internet and driven by the same motivation to get more for less.

…if only the government would get out of their way, reform indeed we would have.

Desperation, thy name is Obama. Earlier this week the President pleaded if we don’t pass health care reform now, no President will ever try it again.

Today, with virtually every federal agency in financial disarray or on a trajectory of financial collapse, the President implies this time it will be different.

President Obama told ABC News’ Charles Gibson in an interview that if Congress does not pass health care legislation that will bring down costs, the federal government “will go bankrupt.”

Mr. President, sir, we have no doubt that you will see to that whether we reform health care or not. The truth of the matter is, the federal government, by any measure applied to any non-public entity is insolvent already.

When private entities reach the end of the fiscal road, they don’t have the benefit of raising debt ceilings and taxes. They die a quick death – that is unless the government decides a bail-out is in order – then they die a slow, painful death. Either way, the competition eats their lunch and steals their talent. Of course, the federal government has no competition, no one to keep it accountable (any more).

As for a bankrupt federal government, the tipping point was probably reached some time ago. We will never pay off our national debt and inevitably it’s weight will come crashing down on our economy making 2009 look like the good ol’ days for millions of Americans.

Indeed, Mr. President, I have to agree with you. The federal government will go bankrupt if we don’t pass health care reform legislation.

But if we do, it will come a lot faster.

A midwife in a Brit maternity ward writes about a typical day under Britain’s National Health System – the one that Americans continue to insist is fine, Winston, just fine.

Clutching her husband’s hand and with agony and exhaustion etched on her face, a young woman struggled into a room in the maternity unit where I worked.

She was in the early stages of labour with her first baby, she was terrified, in excruciating pain and desperate for any crumb of support.

Helpless beside her, her overnight bag in his hand, her poor husband looked equally traumatised.

My heart went out to them. But I knew there was little I could do. With five other pregnant women to care for at the same time, all with hugely different and complex problems, I was rushed off my feet and didn’t have the time to look after her properly, to allay her fears or to hear about how she wanted the birth to unfold.

“Brits love the NHS”

I longed to sit with this poor young woman, calm her and remind her gently to breathe deeply through each contraction.

Just half an hour of my time could have made all the difference. Instead, I put on my cheeriest smile and followed hospital procedure. ‘Would you like a painkiller?’ I asked.

“Here, look at this poll, helpfuly provided to me by a pro-public option group!”

Ten hours later, after she had been drugged to the eyeballs to dull the pain, I heard she’d given birth.

“PUBLIC OPTION NOW!  PUBLIC OPTION NOW! PUBLIC OPTION NOW!”

Her baby was healthy, but I knew I’d let her down.

The piece also goes into detail on the erosion in numbers of providers – doctors, nurses, midwives and the like – that is inevitable under socialized healthcare.  15 years ago, there were 35,000 midwives in Brit materinity wards.  Today, there are 25,000 – half of ’em part-timers.

Read the whole thing.

And then call your legislator and remind them that if they want this kind of healthcare so bad, they should lead the way by having it themselves.

UPDATE:  Added the link.  It was early.

…are not so evil after all.

The government recently advised that women don’t really need so many mammograms…that it takes 1900 of them to save one life.

Insurance companies’ reply?

Don’t worry. You’re covered…

Insurance companies contacted by USA TODAY say they will continue paying for annual mammograms amid widespread fears that new breast cancer screening guidelines from a federal task force could lead women to lose coverage for those tests.

The guidelines – suggesting that most women under 50 don’t need routine mammograms and that women over 50 need them only every other year – were issued Monday night by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

…until the government takes over that is.

So let’s strike! ….because there’s no one else that can drive a bus or a car on tracks.

[Curly Stooge] Ironic, aint it? [end Curly Stooge]

[Pennsylvania’s Democratic Governor Edward] Rendell and [U.S. Rep. Robert Brady, D-Pa.] had announced a tentative agreement late Friday, but it fell apart Saturday over the union’s call for an independent audit of the pension fund and assurance that members would not be affected if the company’s costs increased with possible passage of a national health reform plan. [in other words they want the same deal as Congress!-JR]

So, let me get this straight. Union workers in Pennsylvania are fearful that national health care “reform”, brought to to us by the gerbils they almost assuredly voted for, could cost them their pension? So they strike…the week unemployment tops ten per cent?

The stupid is so thick you can taste it.

Joe Lieberman walks a fine ideological line and trips over his own feet much of the time, plus he talks like a weenie (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

…but today he stands poised to be an American Hero.

If a government plan is part of the deal, “as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote,” Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent whose vote Democrats need to overcome a GOP filibusters, told “Fox News Sunday.”

“I don’t want to do that to our children and grandchildren,” he said.

…or their parents for that matter.

I joined Facebook a while ago, largely to reconnect with friends from high school (for which it’s been great).

But for whatever reason, I’ve been “Friended” by a lot of people with some outspoken political beliefs.  Most of them are regular, workadaddy hugamommy conservatives like me.  A few – very few – are left of center.

And there are a couple from, let’s be polite, a paranoid fringe that spans and ignores party boundaries.

And in the immediate aftermath of the Stealthcare vote on Friday, they were out in force.

Some were just…out there?  “It’s time to talk secession!  Democracy’s dead!”

Well, no.  This bill has to get through the Senate yet – and when you consider that the Dems had a 75 vote majority in the House, and it only passed by five votes, you can see where the Senate, with a two vote lead, is going to be a problem.

The majority were just…depressed?  I can’t say as I blame them; it is depressing to think that Congress is controlled by such profligate wastrels, and even worse to know that so many of our fellow subjects citizens voted for these hamsters.

But I had to respond; “don’t you guys read the blogs?  Or listen to the NARN?  Or member ninth-grade civics? This is not the end of the debate.  This is the end of the beginning of the debate. ”

And Saturday, while not exactly “good news” in the classic sense, wasn’t bad; 39 Dems flipped – most of them because they feared MoveOn and Nancy Pelosi less than they fear…

…you.  The workadaddy, hugamommy conservative who turned out at the Tea Party rallies, and who showed up at their Town Hall meetings, and weathered the ignorance and mockery and occasional seat-stacking and even more-occasional violence to get your points of view across to these idiots.  And so Nancy Pelosi had to rush the vote into a weekend in November, so her minions can’t get home to hear more from you, and in order to try to ram this thing through before the 2010 campaign gets into swing – because the Tea Parties, the Town Halls, and last Tuesday’s elections show that she’s not gonna get an infinite series of chances.

The Senate?  Well, they worry about re-election too.  And while Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins may well join the Dems, there are a lot more blue-dog Senators, especially a few that would not have otherwise won in 2006 and 2008, who are going to be watching their phone logs and mailboxes closely.

So relax…er, no.  Don’t relax.  Call your Senators; let ’em know where you’re at.

And call your Representatives.  If they voted against the bill, thank them (and by the way, thank you John Kline, Erik Paulsen, Collin Peterson and Michele Bachmann).  If they voted for it, politely let them know you’re not amused (presuming the likes of McCollum and Ellison have bothered to clean out their voice mail).

To quote the sage – this isn’t over until we say it’s over.

CORRECTION:  Added Collin Peterson, who is the unusual combination of utterly safe (he won his last race by 45 points), Democrat, Blue Dog and sane on healthcare.  He voted against as well.  I’ve updated the post.

The Dems want to adopt a European healthcare system.

Some of them might want them S might want us to take theirs off their hands:

Question:  Is introducing a dissenting point of view a “hatecrime” yet?

(via King Banaian).

This morning the Pastor at our church brought up the recent health care debate thusly:

“A friend came up to me this morning and asked ‘So what do you think about the health care vote yesterday.'”

It was clearly a loaded question, the Pastor explained.

His reply was that he would respond with a God-centered perspective. Every person, every life in this country is precious; sacred. “Our health care system should reflect that.” He said further that he didn’t know how it should be managed or paid for but that is how he believes we should be approaching this issue.

…and I found myself agreeing with him in principal, although I’m not sure he believes government is the answer or not.

Is there a way to look at this debate from a “What Would God Do?” perspective?

I would not presume to know what God would think and recognize that many of you don’t even believe that God exists.

I do believe that individuals and families should have access to quality health care in America and should have a choice as to where they buy insurance to protect them against catastrophe, and how much of that risk they are comfortable retaining. They should have a choice as to where they seek care and from whom.

While I believe it is inevitable that all citizens be required to carry some form of health insurance, I believe they should have more choice as to where they obtain it, not less, and without regard to where they work. For those times that they are not able to afford it temporarily due to unemployment or being unemployable, the government should provide a backup and help those that can’t help themselves.

So far I think most Americans would agree with me and would deem it common sense. Believe in God or not, most would agree government should have a benevolent and responsible role in health care. Where Americans find themselves divided is how to get us there.

I believe God helps those that help themselves and expects us as individuals to help those that can’t. Teach a man to fish and if he can’t, give him one.  If we all lived this way, much of our federal government would find itself out of a job.

As for health care, creating incentives and removing barriers is or should be the conservative approach. Private enterprise has a way of filling a vacuum if it is allowed to do so. After all, there certainly is a demand for quality health care, and people are willing to reasonably pay for it. That sounds like the preamble of any good business plan.

But liberals would say that the private enterprise system has failed here and it is time for a benevolent government to wrest control. They offer more of what broke the system (and many others) in the first place.

If Congress cares so much about Americans, their health care and actually improving it, why is there such a rush to ram it through the legislative system?

Why are they not recognizing who they serve and honoring the promise to allow legislators and the public time to read and understand the bill?

Why are they lying about how many people are uninsured by choice?

Why is the trillion-dollar burden not borne by everyone equally, and not skewed for political bias?

Why is Congress exempt from the plan?

If there are such savings to be gained why does it cost a trillion dollars more than the current system?

Liberals think that an ever-growing government is the only means by which to effect change on any front.

The fact that many Americans don’t have health insurance or access to quality care is not a function of a lack of government intervention rather a result of too much of it.

Government has so regulated the industry such that most Americans have their health care choices made for them by their employer, who has the ability to choose from only a few insurance companies and thus care providers in each state.

If insurance carriers have been allowed to dictate to doctors and patients, have failed to cover preexisting conditions, while at the same time jacking up costs and profits, it isn’t due to a lack of regulation, rather a lack of competition because of over-regulation.

As I have said before, don’t blame the free market system when the market isn’t free.

A truly free market would force insurance companies and health care providers to vie for consumer health care dollars on the basis of coverage, quality and cost, just like auto insurance, which is also required by law.

Beyond that, a compassionate, benevolent (and mostly God-fearing) citizenry would see the mutual benefit of a federal government that takes care of those that legitimately can’t take care of themselves.

But what about those that can help themselves and choose not to? What would God say to this? For example, you don’t exercise, you eat too much, and you smoke or take drugs?

Does God expect us to pay the wages of our sins, or does he call for a benevolent government to transfer those burdens to others? That is admittedly also a loaded question and the answer is clear.

The current bill says that the government will not allow private and public insurance companies to penalize you for the higher burden you will eventually be to the system.

I think God would expect you to pay the wages of your ill-chosen behavior. I think God would expect you to take care not to be a burden to your neighbor. I think God expects you to live your life with others in mind.

God would have voted against this bill.

The NYTimes runs a handy graphic on the 39 Democrats who overcame their party’s collective insanity and voted for a free future, good healthcare, and a viable economy.

It’s illuminating – all but five of them came from districts that either McCain won, or that had voted Republican up until 2008.,  Tellingly, six of the last were from former Republican districts and won their seats by less than five points – in several cases, by less than a point.  Tuesday’s election results had to have had an extra impact there.

Many, like Collin Peterson, represent solidly Republican areas, and are as safe as can be (Peterson won his last race by 45 points).  Others, like Dennis Kucinich, apparently were angered by the fact the bill doesn’t give full benefits to plants.

All but 14 are classed as “Blue Dogs”.

Remember – this is a 39 vote swing in a chamber with a 75 vote Democrat majority.  Passing Pelosicare should have been as simple as counting the votes.

Why the swing?  Why did Nancy Pelosi come five votes from failing?

Because of you.  You turned out at town halls and tea parties. You endured the insults and the mockery of the misbegotten “elites”.  You flipped a big group bird at the “conventional wisdom”.  And you almost pulled off the impossible – turning a near-supermajority against itself.

Don’t think the Senate – where we need two votes – is paying attention?

Cross-posted in The Greenroom.

To:  Representative Betty McCollum, (D MN-4)

From:  Mitch Berg, your “Constituent”

Re:  Office procedure.

Dear Representative McCollum,

I realize that it might be easier to leave things be than actually deal with a constituent who differs from an approach you no doubt committed to take on the issue long, long ago…

…but would it kill you to clear out some space on your voicemail?

That is all.

MBerg