Brew City Brawler

Less Patrick McIlheran is a good thing

Too bad the reason.

The Brawler wonders which right wing think tank will pick up Alan Borsuk or Steve Walters.

Owen Robinson offers fact-free call for free-market health care reform

 

Warning readers of the West Bend Daily News not not pay attention to socialists, Owen Robinson says the true path to health care reform is by (drumroll) unleashing the free market. It's worked for plastic surgery!

His concluding fact-based argument faith-based assertion:

    Nobody in America thinks that our health care system is perfect or that reform is unwarranted. The central question is do we go down the road of Obamacare where we throw away the positive effects of market forces in exchange for transferring rationing decisions to faceless bureaucrats or do we implement real reform where we apply the hard lessons of centuries of American ingenuity?

    America became the greatest nation on earth through liberty, private property and capitalism (Brawler: What a bout guns?). The same principles are needed for our health care system.

Paul Krugman recently did a nice job outlining the shortcomings, theoretical and practical, of relying on the free market to fix health care. Must be a socialist.

Remember: It's the point that matters!

 

 

Charlie Sykes shoots down birther conspiracy theory with right-wing conspiracy theories

You can accuse Charlie Sykes of many things, but you can't accuse him of being burdened by conscience or not having a nose for conspiracy theories gone too far.

So naturally Charlie was an early adopter in opposing the birther conspiracy theory (ie, Obama is not a natural born citizen). The Brawler recalls him "standing up for what's right" in this instance before the election, even when callers raised it. And callers have continued to raise it.

And on today's show, Charlie said enough is enough.

But do you know who's fault it is we're hearing about the birthers (Charlie adding that the story's been all over the place the past 7 to 10 days). Not the birthers themselves. It's the fault of the liberal mainstream media who cover the birthers!

"In fact itwas the mainstream media making it a big story," Charlie intoned, later adding that "Liberals are desperate to make conservatives look like we're a bunch of idiots."

Ah, liberals! That's why Lou Dobbs was raising it or Rush Limbaugh was raising it. That's why Cindy Kilkenny was having a chuckle over it. That's why a right wing senator endorsed it before walking it back and a congressman introduced a bill on the topic. That's why Mike Castle's  constituents are waving the topic.

Now, no one would look to the thrice-married Sykes as some sort of moral exemplar. But still, his ability to tap into a) conservatives' sense of victimization and b) liberal media conspiracy theories rather than concede that a not insignificant portion of the conservative movement is unhinged is truly impressive.

"It's important to distance yourself from stuff that is not true," Charlie concluded, hilariously. By that measure, Sykes' show would be reduced to 15 minutes of traffic and weather reports.

RE: conservatives and idiots. The Brawler is aware that many conservatives are not idiots and even knows some. He can't vouch whether that is true for Charlie Sykes listeners, however. He certainly thinks his audience is a bunch of idiots.

See also Folkbum and illusory tenant.

Just in! Dad29, who starts the day listening to Charlie Sykes and ends it by listening to Mike Savage, opines that birthers could be slackjawed bible-clutching neanderthals, but they are armed and patriotic as well. Solid insight!

Health care status quo is the true job killer

Or so say those commies at RAND Corp.

From BusinessWeek:

In a first-of-its-kind study, the non-profit Rand Corp linked the rapid growth in U.S. health care costs to job losses and lower output. The study, published online by the journal Health Services Research, gives weight to President Barack Obama’s dire warnings about the impact of rising costs if Congress does not enact health care reform.

The Rand researchers examined the economic performance of 38 industries from 1987 through 2005, in an attempt to assess the economic impact of “excess” growth in health care costs on U.S. industries. Excess growth is defined as the increase in health care costs that exceeds the overall growth of the nation’s GDP—a yearly occurrence in the U.S. The team compared changes in employment, economic output and the value added to the GDP product for industries that provide health benefits to most workers to those where few workers have job-based health insurance.

After adjusting for other factors, industries that provide insurance had significantly less employment growth than industries where health benefits were not common. Industries with a larger percentage of workers receiving employer-sponsored health insurance also showed lower growth in their contribution to the GDP.

Well, we all know what Charlie Sykes will be talking about tomorrow...

Funny thing is, Charlie Sykes is big on telling his listeners that part of being an American is the ability to tell the government to go to hell ...

Unless, of course, the government comes looking to arrest you in your own house when you haven't done anything.

Charlie Sykes: Obama wants to kill the elderly!!!!!!!!!

Betsy McCaughey is best known for writing a factually challenged attack on the Clinton health care plan for the New Republic that's frequently cited as one of the factors that helped kill it (it would have been killed anyway, but whatevs). She's gone on to mount a series of factually challenged attacks on the latest effort to reform our dysfunctional health insurance system. So, naturally, Charlie Sykes holds her up as a hero and spouts her latest talking point: Obama wants to kill the elderly!

From known prevaricator Betsy:

"On page 425, the Congress would make it mandatory, absolutely required that every five years, people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner: how to decline nutrition, how to decline hydration, how to go into hospice care...and by the way, the bill expressly says that if you get sick, somewhere in that five year period, if you get a cancer diagnosis, for example, you have to go through that session, again....all to do what's in societies best interest, or your family's best interest and cut your life short...these are such sacred issues of life and death - government should have nothing to do with it".

Obama threw his grandmother under the bus --now he wants to throw yours under as well!

Actually, what the bill does is require practitioners to revist the issue of advance care directives (i.e. living wills) addressing life sustaining treatment (see Terri Schiavo) every five years.

Here's the ghoulish description  of the counseling session:

‘‘(E) An explanation by the practitioner of the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice, and benefits for such services and supports that are available under this title.

Maybe I'm missing it, but I'm not seeing any references to Dr.Kevorkian in the above language. Nor do I see the explicit link between suicide and hospice care (which is covered by Medicare,btw).

But, Charlie has to whip up his benighted listeners into a froth with something, and this will definitely get his graying listeners going. One Sykes fan (in an email,the Brawler believes) said his friends say he's crazy for believing this ... but he knows it true. So Charlie will string him along for a few days. Then he'll find something else. Lie, incite, repeat. Great work if you can find it.

Does Charlie have an advance care directive?

Thanks to A Candid World.

Just in: Today Charlie links to Red State and it's a hoot (Brawler's bold):

The section requires that they talk to their doctor, not a lawyer, about living wills, durable healthcare powers of attorney, hospice, etc. Given the progressive intelligentsia already being on the record in favor of euthanizing the elderly, it is no small leap to see where the Democrats are headed with this.

Legally forcing senior citizens to have “death with dignity schedules every few years is just another way to say the government wants to make sure seniors know it is time to commit suicide to save the system money.

Again: Palliative or hospice care equals state-mandated suicide or euthanasia. Brilliant. (Also intriguing is the concept that everyone can afford a lawyer to write up a living will.) Charlie will no doubt whip his listeners into a froth over this -- and point out that the liberal elite media is trying to cover up this insane talking point.

Again, given that Medicare already covers hospice care, isn't the United States already engaged in a conspiracy to whack the old? (The original Medicare reimbursement rate was established in 1983 when Reagan was president.)

Just in: After ObamaKillGrandmaCare has been festering for a week, Talking Points Memo offers this debunking.

Full sinister language of Section 1233 beneath the fold.

Is opposing health care reform amid rising unemployment shrewd politics?

Now, the Brawler understands that rising unemployment will almost surely cut into Obama's still quite high popularity.  So the notion of delaying, nay killing, health care reform and possibly weakening the Prez surely seems appealing for Republicans with an eye toward picking up seats in 2010.

But a real world implication of rising unemployment is that a growing number of people are going to be losing their job-connected health care. And even those who still are employed likely will be increasingly skittish about their own coverage and future prospects. Even as they grumble about paying more for what they have.

The last time the GOP tried to kill health care the economy was on the rebound, even if the recovery's effects had been less than far-reaching. That's not the case now -- and unemployment surely higherthan it was from Jan 1993 (7.3%) to October 1994 (5.8%) when the 2010 election season heats up.

The US savings rate is the highest its been in 16 years, and not because people suddenly became fiscally shrewd. It's because they're scared. It is not clear to the Brawler why you want to be seen as the party fostering health care insecurity (Bill Kristol opposed health care back in 1993 to deny the Dems the privilege of being seen as the party of health care security) at a time like this. Or offering up weak ass solutions like HSAs, which everyone hates.

Yes, all things being equal a bad economy is not good for incumbents or their policies. And the Brawler's not going to argue that that calculus is obsolete.  But -- as the past two election cycles have demonstrated -- different variables are at play now.

All of which is to say, this seems like a smart move.

Health care reform opponents need better heroes (victims)

The Brawler was deeply amused (though admittedly late in reporting it) that Paul Ryan is portraying Assurant as a potential victim in a reformed health care system.

From his questioning of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee staff director last week:

Ryan: In 2013, let's take Assurant, a large employer in Milwaukee - 800 of which live in the district I represent - Assurant is a big, individual market insurer.  After 2013, Assurant can no longer enroll people in their individual market plans. Is that correct?

Charlie Sykes calls this "an inconvenient truth." Actually the biggest inconvenent truth is that the GOP better start looking for better corporate victims because Assurant sucks. Just ask google! They are good at denying claims, though the occasional multimillion dollar settlementcan result from that.

From Connecticut AG Richard Blumenthal:

"This settlement sends a message that we will pursue and punish health insurers who betray our citizens with deceptive and dishonest use of technical excuses and ruses," Blumenthal said. "We will continue the fight for additional restitution to anyone treated unfairly and denied coverage illegally. At our urging, the legislature has closed gaps in our law that permitted misuse of supposed pre-existing conditions as a reason to reject coverage requests. This remedy for Assurant's wrongdoing should assure that it never happens again."

Assurant, the accidental hostile witness against the status quo.

Just in: Assurant due for a rescission of its own?

The man who brought you the Iraq War now wants to kill health care reform

MeetWilliam Kristol. Charlie Sykes naturally thinks it's a great idea.

Bill Kristol: 100% evil.

"God Bless Our Fascist Leaders"

Scene from a Germantown tea party, held outside a scrapbooking store, courtesy of the increasingly unhinged Phelony Jones:

Phel's organizing strategy for the right:

But now, the right has emotion and logic on their side. The left, in it's cunning and stop-at-nothing, goal-post moving tactics, will not tire. But they can get too comfortable (Brawler: apparently the left has settled into a comfortable pace of stopping at nothing and moving goal posts while not tiring) and we can see that happening. Now is the time to spread the conservative message. We ARE the silent majority. More and more people are fed up with the subversive controls being imposed by the left - all we need to do is let the people we encounter know that it is safe, it is "ok" and it is NECESSARY for them to act.

Rule one of logic is to state the obvious - which is that we are being robbed and dominated. We need to state this to the news, our "representatives" and anyone else who assumes that they represent or otherwise control us. And we don't like it, we will not put up with it. We MUST say this over and over and over again to these people. It's how the left got their way, and we have to fight back with the same tactics.

Please, please,please state the obvious to random passersby, complain loudly about "subversive controls," and say it over and over. Maybe using the "Bless Our Fascist Leaders" sign will help. The "movement" should give the LaRouchies serious competition in a few years.

Just in: It appears that Phel has now gone Galt gone McBride. Huzzah!