I made the mistake of listening to FauxNewz and I heard the price of Obama’s budget. He is calling for $3.5 trillion in spending in 2010, with a budget deficit this year of $1.75 trillion.
$3.5 trillion. Let that roll around in your head a little bit. It almost sounds like a lot of money, doesn’t it?
When I heard that figure, something in my head snapped. I had to change the channel to a non-news station because they were all talking about it.
One thing in the budget proposal is, of course, universal health care. The estimated cost for that is a laughable $630 billion or so, but already people estimate that it will cost closer to a trillion dollars.
There’s that trillion thing again.
Of course, any budget proposal is an exercise in fantasy. The presumption is that whatever they do will only affect those who aren’t already insured. That would make me chuckle if my blood pressure weren’t so high right now. They also ignore any side effects of their actions. They always do.
As soon as the government provides health care, whatever level of care they provide will become the standard. Whatever floor they put on costs will suddenly the minimum cost. They will of course try to control costs by putting a ceiling on them as well. There are a few possible outcomes for that. One possible outcome is that some services will no longer be available. The other, more likely, is that some services will only be available on a cash basis and will not be covered by any insurance.
Does anyone believe that any insurance provider will cover something the government won’t?
It is not difficult to predict where this will end up. Insurance will be decreasingly available as a part of employment, which means the number of people on the government plan will increase. That $1 trillion price tag won’t remain that low for long.
Eventually most of the people in this country will be on their plan. Then they will need to cut costs. Measures that extend the life of the very old and save the lives of the very young will be deemed to costly to continue. My father, who barely survived the ministrations of HMO-style health care a year ago when he had a triple bypass would most likely be dead under a government program, if they had even bothered to do the surgery in the first place. He was 81 then, which is probably old enough to be allowed to die.
If it isn’t yet, it will be if we get government health care.
This isn’t even the entirety of the budget. You can bet there are plenty of other programs in there to spend all of our money.
Channeling happyfeet, with the invective turned up to 11, we have got to do something about these dirty fucking socialists before they completely fuck over our little country. They have already pissed away $830 billion in a “stimulus” package that was two-thirds permanent additions to the yearly budget, and that is not even close to being enough for them.
I wish I had a suggestion on how to stop them that didn’t come off as crazy. Right now, however, with the mood I’m in, crazy solutions are all I have. Hopefully someone with a more measured take will have some ideas.
Update: Allah isn’t feeling any better about this than I am. It works out to be about $25K per taxpayer.
(h/t router, from the comments)
One small ray of hope: a vote to prevent the FCC from reinstating the soi-disant “Fairness Doctrine” passed.
Big time.
Take care of your own. After that all you can do until 2010 is to do what you can to deny revenue to your city and your state, and hope that local fiscal pressures lead them to ask the dirty socialists to please, just… stop. Please stop.
That’s all I got.
for some strange reason I am having trouble posting when I try to include a link to a very strange site called theobamafourm.com . any post containing the url does not go through. Would someone please check out this freaky site and try to copy and paste the link here. I have tried at several blogs with the same result.
thanks
The tax system depends on voluntary compliance. After this … my desire to be honorable about my taxes (which I have always been) is gone. And I think there are millions like me.
Spies, that was because of the name. They passed on a party line vote the “Durbin Amendment” to, “To encourage and promote diversity in communication media ownership, and to ensure that the public airwaves are used in the public interest.”
That will be the new code for “fairness”, “diversity”.
Fargoblahblah.
For perspective, the entire national debt was only in the high single digits through 2007. Now they’re doubling it in a handful.
Exponentially expanding systems look to me like instability. The kind of instability that a bread and circuses crowd who’s forgotten how to produce anything want more than anything once they figure out how to elect their collectivists during a severe monetary crisis.
It’s come to me: the Obama plan could justly be called the Vegas plan. He’s doing what progressives have always done, when they’re down, they double down. Unfortunately, the odds are always against them and the house always comes out ahead.
What happens when the bill comes due?
These ignorant clowns won’t even recognize the bill they are engendering. It will hit them in the back of the head and if it doesn’t kill them outright they’ll ask, “Where did that come from? Why would they want to hit us?” Evil fucking morons, they are.
in the past I have always neglected to take some tax deductions that I didn’t think were right (for instance on charitable contributions).
No longer. This government is getting as little from me I can legally give it. Atlas shrugs.
Baracky can get a buch of rubes to outvote me and destroy my country. But he’ll never get my endorsement of it and he can’t control me. My leisure time just became a lot more valuable to me.
Atlas shrugs
here is joey’s site what he couldn’t post
That budget is roughly $12,000 for each person in the USA. Send every family of four a bill for $48,000 courtesy of the Democrats and Obama.
thanks feet I didnt think of trying to do a tiny. any idea of why a post containing the full url would go through?
Geoffb, it’s worse than that. There are those at the bottom that have learned that they can vote the purse strings….that lot will never pay thier share of the bill. No, the bill for us productive ones will be much higher than 12K a head.
it’s capricious like that joey… I imagine it’s a service what gets updated by who knows who
I know but I was trying to be “fair”.
Idea Republican Party, send out those bills to everyone.
Obama’s new budget: $25,000 per taxpayer
i will say this again I guess. The media wanted a recession and what we do is we give them one. There’s no just one way you can do your part I think. Visualization helps. I like thinking of journalists and their children moving in with mom and dad, applying for stimulating Baracky food stamps, taking little Barrett Mark-Reginald and Seraphina Claudette to the government doctors cause of there’s something a matter but the doctors can’t say what…
Am I a bad person?
I’d say move to Canada but we already got all of the “benefits” of universal, one size fits all health care. So now that you guys are all effed I think we have to start getting the treatments we want from Thailand or some place. At least they will sell you a kidney at a decent price.
I’m investing in lead, brass and steel and waiting for a leader.
Who elected this steaming pile, anyway?
JDS. All that and laying in supplies, and maybe some silver too.
Obama Budget Sinks Stocks As Health Sector Slumps*
oh. Crap. I forgotted about the werewolves. Thanks, Rusty.
the mighty baracky with machete in hand cuts down health, banks, energy, radio sectors of the economy in the first 30 days.
You know who I’m pissed off at? The Republicans. They opened the door to this Mugabe wannabe.
Maybe vainglorious fops like John McCain, who was the Republican nominee for president in… 2008? Whatever. Anyway. Maybe vainglorious fops like John McCain opened the door for Baracky Chavez and his dirty socialist jug band but it was the media what rolled out the red carpet.
Has this country gone insane?
Vainglorious fops is almost as good as nattering bandersnatches.
Trillion is the new Billion.
Maybe I can get me some of that sweet Obamamoney.
Study the carbon content of fava beans or something.
the Cloward-Piven Strategy.
i refuse to exhale-on account of those carbon-y credits
unless you tell me a joke
then i’ll guffaw
and split the cost [’tis only fair]
Link.
happy there’s nothing mean spirited about watching media people lose their jobs and taking a certain satisfaction from it. Before I would have hated myself for doing it and the bad karma it entailed. But these were the people who took a shit on everything you hold dear about this nation. They accused a decent mother and certain vp candidate of faking her own pregnancy to help get this socialist scum into office. Well media folks that socialist scum is now your president so you’ll be living with the godamned consequences.
If you haven’t noticed there’s a bit of ideological warfare going on right now and the media has fired at you countless times but you haven’t done a thing. They shouldn’t be surprised when you have no interest in treating their wounds.
The great thing for libs is they don’t even have to justify it, other than claiming Bush caused the whole mess.
Oh and my favorite now are the idiots who stayed home on election day, claiming there is no difference between McCain and Obama.
I’m sorry, there is. McOld was the best of two lousy choices.
?
We have a president who doesn’t even bother lying at the margins anymore since he knows the media won’t say a word. At his little speech the other day did you notice how he said the porkulus bill had no earmarks? Did the media call him on it? He’ll no. Nevermind that this wasn’t just slight exaggeration or a tiny fib. It was a blatant fucking lie and he said it with a wink and a smile knowing the media is angling too hard for their very own bailout to question dear leader.
So what do you do? You go on strike. Reduce your taxable income to as little as possible. Expand your leisure time. Cease charity to liberal oriented organizations (don’t worry, they’ll get theirs).
You can be the dog or barackys fire hydrant.
Choose.
@20: Yeah, that’s the kind of thing that may have been going through my head.
@36: So there is at least one sane Democrat in congress. They will have him disappeared. Or the media will dig up a scandal and pin it to him.
Comment by N. O’Brain on 2/26 @ 8:13 pm #
Has this country gone insane?
No, what you have is just over half the population, nihilistic secularists that have discovered they can vote themselves a share of their neighbor’s earnings AND moralistically preen about it.
Investment advice: land, seeds, and the means to protect them.
Darleen, that’s why Judeo-Christian tenets tell us not to covet thy neighbors stuff. Leads to bad results, inevitable discord.
Appropriate for these times.
The Gods of the Copybook Headings
by Rudyard Kipling
As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place;
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four—
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man—
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:—
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will bum,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
Powerline on credit rating agencies and politics.
there once was a windsurfer off nantucket
with such beautiful hair/u could fuck it
but when he put on his waders
even first graders
groaned’why can’t that guy get brain cancer?”
touchdown!
flag football style!
This is going to be worse than than last big one. This time we will not have newspapers to sleep under on park benches. What are we going to use for an Obama Blanket? Stitched together stock certificates?
that poem is very dark, geoff.
So’s the world right now ‘feet’s. Sad to say.
John Bolton**: The Coming War on Sovereignty
Yeah, Kipling turned very, very dark after his son was killed in The Great War.
The root and stem of the problem is the propaganda organ. It is in every shithole. If noone knows the cause and the reason then noone does anything. The result of ours is that every time I walk down a grocery isle I see 50 smiling pics of Obama and his wife looking at me. I guess the 52 find that comforting while their freedoms and childrens futures get pissed away.
oh. I was doing shopping and coffee and lunch this weekend with my friend J who is a Baracky voter and every time we saw Baracky or his woman I would say ooh look … Barack Obama! I can’t explain it but it definitely provokes a funny reaction in people nearby what hear you say that. At least here it does where people are besotted with him.
HF saw you over at JOM! You are so welcome there whenever you want to come play…
I went to dinner tonight and there were six O shirt-wearers (that I saw) in the establishment at one time… My 15 yo said “I don’t think we should eat here anymore – stupidity is contageous.” I was so proud!!!
oh – I forgot about that and now I can’t go cause Time Warner Cable can’t ward off a dos attack after like five days still. Amateurs. Mr. Maguire has really smart comment people, but sometimes they are very very serious.
I learn a lot over there. There really are some exceptionally smart folks there and well read and educated (and patient) ones, too and very few trolls. But lots of snark… only way to stay sane nowadays.
Supplementals will be illegal since not everyone can afford it…
Anything not available to the poorest will not be allowed.
Lowest Common Denominator, ya know? Mustn’t let anyone think someone else has something they don’t… self esteem might suffer.
meya
do you pay attention to what “healthcare” is like under the Brit or Canadian models?
Add to that the recently passed Pork-o-rama bills funds a Health Board charged with investigating medical “efficiency” of procedures….
COST efficiency NOT CLINICAL efficiency.
What that translates into is “universal care” that if you are young and healthy you’ll be ok… but 70 y/o grannie with a breast lump is going to be ignored until she dies (see the breast cancer survivsal rates for Britian. They let women die rather than treating them. It averages almost 18 months between diagnosis and treatment)
DOCTORS AND NURSES AREN’T SLAVES.
Look to “underground” medical treatment … via cash …
Unless the Sons of Liberty challenge The One, the American Experiment is over.
Did you know that Barry today took HIS NAME off the Pork Bills that he had submitted last year as a Senator? NOT THE REQUEST FOR THE MONEY, just his NAME. TRANSPARENCY, don’t you know. Sorry pos.
MY MIL’s was $82 a month and she was 87 when she died. Total out of pocket for her last days was -0-. That’s affordable.
Plus $410 bn for the Omnibus Spending Bill.
I’d call it a “nickle and dime” process but…Just doesn’t cover the scale of the thing.
Face it meya,
America is dead, and you killed her.
Own it.
“Hopefully someone with a more measured take will have some ideas.”
Vote out every incumbent in Congress in 2010. Face it, we could fill every seat in both houses with any random adult over the age of twenty who has held a job for over a year and has maybe two or three misdemeanors or maybe even one teeny felony (as long as it’s not financial) and be better off than we are now.
I know what it must have been like for a resident of Moscow back in 89, sitting in his crappy little state owned apartment, as he watched the Berlin Wall come down.
Except I see darkness falling where he hoped he saw light.
My understanding is that those models don’t permit private insurance.
Your understanding would be completely incorrect.
Friday morning links…
"I dress for church." Englishman. So do I, most of the time.
Don’t these bozos realize that trees are grown on tree farms?
The opening chord of "Hard Day’s Night." It’s sort of a "clang," isn’t it?
Dems seek to kill…
Can everyone afford it now?
Do you understand what the word “change” actually means?
#58
it’s free to people in need now and look at your premiums. Think How momuch more expensive it will be when it’s free to everyone. You asked for it maya. Now everyone will be equal, and everything will be mediocre. Including healthcare. What is it about mediocrity that is admirable, maya? Why do you persue it?
Maybe I can go to Fannie or Freddie and take out a loan to pay my taxes. I understand they give really good rates and you don’t have to pay them back.
There’s the germ of an idea: Borrow money from the gummint to pay the gummint taxes, then default on the loan! Then we can get a bailout from the gummint to pay that loan back! But then we’d need a $12.8 bailout…
happy, geoff, I’ve been quoting that poem since 2001. It’s a handy check for how many people understand that none of this is new. Another slightly funny one is “A General Summary”, written much earlier:
We are very slightly changed
From the semi-apes who ranged
India’s Prehistoric clay;
He that drew the longest bow
Ran his brother down, you know,
As we run men down to-tday.
“Dowb,” the first of all his race,
Met the Mammoth face to face
On the lake — or in the cave:
Stole the steadiest canoe,
Ate the quarry others slew,
Died — and took the finest grave.
When they scratched the reindeer-bone,
Some one made the sketch his own,
Filched it from the artist — then,
Even in those early days,
Won a simple Viceroy’s praise
Through the toil of other men.
Ere they hewed the Sphinx’s visage
Favouritism governed kissage,
Even as it does in this age.
Who shall doubt “the secret hid
Under Cheops’ pyramid”
Was that the contractor did
Cheops out of several millions?
Or that Joseph’s sudden rise
To Comptroller of Supplies
Was a fraud of monstrous size
On King Pharaoh’s swart Civilians?
Thus, the artless songs I sing
Do not deal with anything
New or never said before.
As it was in the beginning
Is to-day official sinning,
And shall be for evermore!
Oh no, Rusty. We’re going to make it cost less. And it’s gonna be better! We’re gonna say “Abracadabra” and click our heels three times and rub the lamp and wave a wand and before you know it everyone will have the same level of health care that Teddy Kennedy gets and it will be pretty near free. And entirely free also, it being a right and all.
” Your understanding would be completely incorrect.”
So britons who want better care go with BUPA?
Britons who want better care go to … not Britain.
Or Cuba. It’s the best in the world there, and it’s free. Michael Moore told me so.
As a health care provider, I’ll let you all in on a dirty little secret – Medicare already sets the price for reimbursement for care in the elderly by being the lowballer. Private insurance takes its cue from them, paying 105%, 110%, etc. of Medicare. If Medicare doesn’t pay for it, most private insurers don’t touch it, either. In addition, Medicare pays less each year for the same procedure (good for taxpayers, I guess) so, since we are a heavy Medicare practice because of our specialty, we have to see more patients each year just to clear the same amount we did the previous year. Most practices strictly limit how many Medicare patients (Medicaid as well) they will see due to the low reimbursement (sometimes lower than the actual cost of providing service) and try to balance them with “paying” patients (private insurance). The One and his minions will just be expanding Medicare/Medicaid to cover the entire country so we will all get to experience the wonder of government health care.
“Britons who want better care go to … not Britain.”
So BUPA doesn’t provide good care? Why do people pay for it then?
If I had money, I’d invest in India. Medical tourism for affordable health care is going to be the future. If you don’t have the bucks, you’ll get what the state won’t provide.
Except Congress, suckers. Theirs will be gold plated.
DOCTORS AND NURSES AREN’T SLAVES.
Hey, we’re working on that. Hope ‘n’ change, ya know.
“So BUPA doesn’t provide good care? Why do people pay for it then?”
The same reason most people still buy computers that use Microsoft.
So BUPA doesn’t provide good care? Why do people pay for it then?
I don’t know – I certainly can’t afford it. Most of its customers are corporate. There are numerous conditions that BUPA does not cover:
ageing, menopause and puberty
AIDS/HIVâ€
allergies or allergic disorders
birth control, conception, sexual problems and sex changesâ€
chronic conditionsâ€
complications from excluded or restricted conditions/ treatment
convalescence, rehabilitation and general nursing careâ€
cosmetic, reconstructive or weight loss treatmentâ€
deafness
dental/oral treatment (such as fillings, gum disease, jaw shrinkage, etc)â€
dialysisâ€
drugs and dressings for out-patient or take-home useâ€
experimental drugs and treatmentâ€
eyesightâ€
HRT and bone densitometryâ€
learning difficulties, behavioural and developmental problems
overseas treatment and repatriation
physical aids and devicesâ€
pre-existing or special conditions
pregnancy and childbirthâ€
screening and preventive treatment
sleep problems and disorders
speech disordersâ€
temporary relief of symptomsâ€
treatment in a hospital that is not a Bupa Heartbeat hospital
unrecognised providers or facilities
A great many taxpayers are unhappy with the level of NHS care, waiting lists, MRSA, and just about any other aspect of nationalised health care you could mention.
Sorry, my html-fu is weak today.
#70
What maya doesn’t realize is that she has voted to limit the choices we can make. Or maybe she does realize it and is happy to get over on us. Which would be sick, but the left is an illness.
I’m pretty disgusted with teh proggs.
Say! There’s an idea. I think I’ll write books Cooking With Cat Food and Interior Decoration: You and Your Cardboard Box. If I sell them to the govmint they can give ’em away at your local library. Very useful knowledge by about 2012 I’d guess.
On the other hand, perhaps I should work on my hunting and fishing and gardening skilz..
Thank you SDN. Thread’s probably dead but I’m going to post one more. The first Kipling I ever came across, Iread it in 1981 in of all things a collection of science fiction and fact stories on preserving freedom. A battle that still goes on.