{"id":5378,"date":"2009-09-09T06:22:01","date_gmt":"2009-09-09T11:22:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=5378"},"modified":"2009-09-09T06:22:01","modified_gmt":"2009-09-09T11:22:01","slug":"in-a-nutshell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=5378","title":{"rendered":"In A Nutshell"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sarah Palin on why socializing healthcare is just plain dumb<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Common sense tells us that the government’s attempts to solve large problems more often create new ones. Common sense also tells us that a top-down, one-size-fits-all plan will not improve the workings of a nationwide health-care system that accounts for one-sixth of our economy. And common sense tells us to be skeptical when President Obama promises that the Democrats’ proposals “will provide more stability and security to every American.”<\/p>\n

With all due respect, Americans are used to this kind of sweeping promise from Washington. And we know from long experience that it’s a promise Washington can’t keep.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, we thought <\/em>“we” – the nation – knew it.\u00a0 And yet the Dems are in power.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For now, anyway.<\/p>\n

Let’s talk about specifics. In his Times op-ed, the president argues that the Democrats’ proposals “will finally bring skyrocketing health-care costs under control” by “cutting . . . waste and inefficiency in federal health programs like Medicare and Medicaid and in unwarranted subsidies to insurance companies . . . .”<\/p>\n

First, ask yourself whether the government that brought us such “waste and inefficiency” and “unwarranted subsidies” in the first place can be believed when it says that this time it will get things right. The nonpartistan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) doesn’t think so: Its director, Douglas Elmendorf, told the Senate Budget Committee in July that “in the legislation that has been reported we do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In fairness to the Administration, anything’s possible when you’re in fantasy world and\/or making Chicago-style campaign promises.<\/p>\n

Now look at one way Mr. Obama wants to eliminate inefficiency and waste: He’s asked Congress to create an Independent Medicare Advisory Council\u2014an unelected, largely unaccountable group of experts charged with containing Medicare costs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, empanel a new bureaucracy to tame a bureaucracy…\u00a0<\/p>\n

In an interview with the New York Times in April, the president suggested that such a group, working outside of “normal political channels,” should guide decisions regarding that “huge driver of cost . . . the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives . . . .”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ah. That statement the Dems keep trying to stuff down the memory hole.<\/p>\n

Read the whole thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sarah Palin on why socializing healthcare is just plain dumb: Common sense tells us that the government’s attempts to solve large problems more often create new ones. Common sense also tells us that a top-down, one-size-fits-all plan will not improve the workings of a nationwide health-care system that accounts for one-sixth of our economy. And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-12","category-health-care"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5378\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}