Ann is reviled by the left as well as some moderate types whose entire exposure to her is out of context quotes. In Washington the most dangerous (and hateful) thing one can do is tell the truth. This is a typical column of hers; truthful, clear, succinct, and funny. I tried to make many of the same points, but she does it so so much better.
Take Two Aspirin And Call Me When Your Cancer is Stage 4
by Ann Coulter
07/22/2009
All the problems with the American health care system come from government intervention, so naturally the Democrats' idea for fixing it is more government intervention. This is like trying to sober up by having another drink.
The reason seeing a doctor is already more like going to the DMV, and less like going to the Apple "Genius Bar," is that the government decided health care was too important to be left to the free market. Yes -- the same free market that has produced such a cornucopia of inexpensive goods and services that, today, even poor people have cell phones and flat-screen TVs.
As a result, it's easier to get your computer fixed than your health. Thanks, government!
We already have near-universal health coverage in the form of Medicare, Medicaid, veterans' hospitals, emergency rooms and tax-deductible employer-provided health care -- all government creations.
So now, everyone expects doctors to be free. People who pay $200 for a haircut are indignant if it costs more than a $20 co-pay to see a doctor.
The government also "helped" us by mandating that insurance companies cover all sorts of medical services, both ordinary -- which you ought to pay for yourself -- and exotic, such as shrinks, in vitro fertilization and child-development assessments -- which no normal person would voluntarily pay to insure against.This would be like requiring all car insurance to cover the cost of gasoline, oil and tire changes -- as well as professional car detailing, iPod docks, and leather seats and those neon chaser lights I have all along the underbody of my chopped, lowrider '57 Chevy.
But politicians are more interested in pleasing lobbyists for acupuncturists, midwives and marriage counselors than they are in pleasing recent college graduates who only want to insure against the possibility that they'll be hit by a truck. So politicians at both the state and federal level keep passing boatloads of insurance mandates requiring that all insurance plans cover a raft of non-emergency conditions that are expensive to treat -- but whose practitioners have high-priced lobbyists.
As a result, a young, healthy person has a choice of buying artificially expensive health insurance that, by law, covers a smorgasbord of medical services of no interest to him ... or going uninsured. People who aren't planning on giving birth to a slew of children with restless leg syndrome in the near future forgo insurance -- and then politicians tell us we have a national emergency because some people don't have health insurance.
The whole idea of insurance is to insure against catastrophes: You buy insurance in case your house burns down -- not so you can force other people in your plan to pay for your maid. You buy car insurance in case you're in a major accident, not so everyone in the plan shares the cost of gas.
Just as people use vastly different amounts of gasoline, they also use vastly different amounts of medical care -- especially when an appointment with a highly trained physician costs less than a manicure.
Insurance plans that force everyone in the plan to pay for everyone else's Viagra and anti-anxiety pills are already completely unfair to people who rarely go to the doctor. It's like being forced to share gas bills with a long-haul trucker or a restaurant bill with Michael Moore. On the other hand, it's a great deal for any lonely hypochondriacs in the plan.
Now the Democrats want to force us all into one gigantic national health insurance plan that will cover every real and mythical ailment that has a powerful lobby. But if you have a rare medical condition without a lobbying arm, you'll be out of luck.
Even two decades after the collapse of liberals' beloved Soviet Union, they can't grasp that it's easier and cheaper to obtain any service provided by capitalism than any service provided under socialism.
You don't have to conjure up fantastic visions of how health care would be delivered in this country if we bought it ourselves. Just go to a grocery store or get a manicure. Or think back to when you bought your last muffler, personal trainer, computer and every other product and service available in inexpensive abundance in this capitalist paradise.
Third-party payer schemes are always a disaster -- less service for twice the price! If you want good service at a good price, be sure to be the one holding the credit card. Under "universal health care," no one but government bureaucrats will be allowed to hold the credit card.
Isn't food important? Why not "universal food coverage"? If politicians and employers had guaranteed us "free" food 50 years ago, today Democrats would be wailing about the "food crisis" in America, and you'd be on the phone with your food care provider arguing about whether or not a Reuben sandwich with fries was covered under your plan.
Instead of making health care more like the DMV, how about we make it more like grocery stores? Give the poor and tough cases health stamps and let the rest of us buy health care -- and health insurance -- on the free market.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Russia Policy....Dershowitz and Obama
Obama was off to Russia last week, and once again proved the new American foreign policy supports you only if you are some form of totalitarian government. There is little difference between our Russian policy and our Iranian policy, just as there are policy similarities between Honduras and Israel. The Obama State Department supports the anti democratic governments of Russia and Iran and opposes the democratic ones of Israel and Honduras. The new United States policy now at least tacitly comes down on the side of tyranny and terrorism.
Putin is successfully developing a dictatorship with a similar strategy as Chavez. By twisting the constitution he replaced himself with a surrogate, became the prime minister, and will likely retake the presidency in the next election. Instead of siding with the voices of freedom echoing from within and without Russia, Obama chose to sit through a 50 minute lesson by Putin on Russian history and then lauded him as a great leader (much the same as he sat through the communist President of Nicaragua Daniel Ortega's diatribe a couple of months ago at an OAS meeting). Later Obama reinvented the Soviet Union and United States cold war history when speaking to some Russian school children. Somehow he asserted that these two great powers were acting with the same degree of moral justification, and that they jointly saw the dangers of and need to end the cold war. The reality is the Soviet Union had aggressively pursued their vision of world dominance (unlike the United States), and we won the war through our unmatched military build up (even though their predatory behavior has reemerged.)
Obama has this habit of elevating totalitarian states. He did it when drawing a moral equivalence between the Israelis and the Palestinians, between the CIA's help installing the Shah in Iran in the 1950s and the Mullahs today, and he has stated that criminals like Zaleya from Honduras is the legitimate president and owns the moral high ground.
Bush's famous look into Putin's eyes and his read on the character of the man was a terrible mistake. Obama has the read right on Putin. The frightening thing is that Putin and his shredding of whatever democratic reforms Russia has achieved are all OK with him.
Meanwhile... in the Wall Street Journal Alan Dershowitz defended his support for Obama and made excuses for Obama's anti Israel policy. Dershowitz is a Harvard law professor who several years ago gained national attention by successfully appealing the conviction of Claus von Bulow, who had been convicted of murdering his society wife. With this Dershowitz promoted the idea of his own brilliance (a repeating theme), and began to get a stream of high profile cases. Unfortunately for his clients, his only success was von Bulow, and that was because the man almost certainly had been framed. At least the maid and others admitted lying in the first trial, and without their testimony he never would have been convicted. Those who subscribed to and became victims of the Dershowitz myth included Leona Helmsley who went to jail, Mike Tyson who went to jail, Lee Beloff (Phila. City Council member convicted of extortion) who went to jail, and many more.
Jonathan Tobin writes for Commentary Magazine and in one article contested much of Dershowitz's WSJ defense. Although Tobin was correct, I sent him a letter expressing a more simplistic view. It is below.
Your response to Dershowitz dignifies his bogus arguments. Anyone who has watched the left's attitude towards Israel knows that it has always been anti Semitic and anti Israel in much the same was it has always been anti American. To advocate for Obama and argue that he would be anything but anti Israel is suggestive of that now famous "willing suspension of disbelief." Extremists like Wright, Ayers and Alinsky were not accidents, but formative. I realize Dershowitz's expertise is in self promotion, but even he can not be so blind as to believe what he said while selling Obama to American Jews. No, during the campaign he lied so as to shine a spotlight on himself, and now he has crafted idiotic arguments in order to keep it there. The answer is simple. The left always has been and always will be an enemy of Israel, and therefore anyone promoting the left is equally an enemy, including Alan Dershowitz.
Putin is successfully developing a dictatorship with a similar strategy as Chavez. By twisting the constitution he replaced himself with a surrogate, became the prime minister, and will likely retake the presidency in the next election. Instead of siding with the voices of freedom echoing from within and without Russia, Obama chose to sit through a 50 minute lesson by Putin on Russian history and then lauded him as a great leader (much the same as he sat through the communist President of Nicaragua Daniel Ortega's diatribe a couple of months ago at an OAS meeting). Later Obama reinvented the Soviet Union and United States cold war history when speaking to some Russian school children. Somehow he asserted that these two great powers were acting with the same degree of moral justification, and that they jointly saw the dangers of and need to end the cold war. The reality is the Soviet Union had aggressively pursued their vision of world dominance (unlike the United States), and we won the war through our unmatched military build up (even though their predatory behavior has reemerged.)
Obama has this habit of elevating totalitarian states. He did it when drawing a moral equivalence between the Israelis and the Palestinians, between the CIA's help installing the Shah in Iran in the 1950s and the Mullahs today, and he has stated that criminals like Zaleya from Honduras is the legitimate president and owns the moral high ground.
Bush's famous look into Putin's eyes and his read on the character of the man was a terrible mistake. Obama has the read right on Putin. The frightening thing is that Putin and his shredding of whatever democratic reforms Russia has achieved are all OK with him.
Meanwhile... in the Wall Street Journal Alan Dershowitz defended his support for Obama and made excuses for Obama's anti Israel policy. Dershowitz is a Harvard law professor who several years ago gained national attention by successfully appealing the conviction of Claus von Bulow, who had been convicted of murdering his society wife. With this Dershowitz promoted the idea of his own brilliance (a repeating theme), and began to get a stream of high profile cases. Unfortunately for his clients, his only success was von Bulow, and that was because the man almost certainly had been framed. At least the maid and others admitted lying in the first trial, and without their testimony he never would have been convicted. Those who subscribed to and became victims of the Dershowitz myth included Leona Helmsley who went to jail, Mike Tyson who went to jail, Lee Beloff (Phila. City Council member convicted of extortion) who went to jail, and many more.
Jonathan Tobin writes for Commentary Magazine and in one article contested much of Dershowitz's WSJ defense. Although Tobin was correct, I sent him a letter expressing a more simplistic view. It is below.
Your response to Dershowitz dignifies his bogus arguments. Anyone who has watched the left's attitude towards Israel knows that it has always been anti Semitic and anti Israel in much the same was it has always been anti American. To advocate for Obama and argue that he would be anything but anti Israel is suggestive of that now famous "willing suspension of disbelief." Extremists like Wright, Ayers and Alinsky were not accidents, but formative. I realize Dershowitz's expertise is in self promotion, but even he can not be so blind as to believe what he said while selling Obama to American Jews. No, during the campaign he lied so as to shine a spotlight on himself, and now he has crafted idiotic arguments in order to keep it there. The answer is simple. The left always has been and always will be an enemy of Israel, and therefore anyone promoting the left is equally an enemy, including Alan Dershowitz.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
A Preview to Freedom Lost
Last week I blogged that "This radical left crowd has a history of anti semitism, anti Israel, anti United States, and they support every totalitarian regime that lines up against us."
Well, here they go again. After Hillary agreed with the Chinese that human rights aren't that important after all, Obama told Israel that the US will side with anyone but Israel. Obama also told Iranian demonstrators pleading for freedom and democracy that they that must fend for themselves. Now the administration has decided that democracy and the rule of law should be ignored in Honduras. Instead, we should back a failed attempt by the extreme leftist, anti American, communist President to trash their democracy rather than abide by Honduran constitutional dictates.
For those of you who haven't heard, President Zelaya of Honduras was term limited out, so he elected to have a "constitutional convention" to change things. His problem was that the constitution says that only congress can call for such a convention, and the congress refused to do so. However, being a true blue lefty, he ignored the law and continued the process. When the Supreme Court said he had no legal authority and must stop, he ordered his top general to ignore them and proceed ahead. The general refused and was fired (the court ordered he be rehired.) The President's own appointed Attorney General opposed him, as did his entire cabinet (the defense secretary resigned.) When Zelaya continued to ignore all of the legally arrived at court orders, the Supreme Court directed that he be arrested. He was, but a deal was struck where he would leave the country and avoid prosecution. There are provisions in the Honduran constitution for Presidential appointments and elections due to such events as these, and they were followed to the letter.
To Obama and his minions, to the New York Times and other left leaning organs, this constituted a coup d'état, defined as a sudden appropriation of leadership or power; a takeover. But it was not at all a takeover, and such propaganda distorts the legitimate democratic action taken. It falsely portrays it as anti democratic, justifying Obama's position supporting Zelaya. Instead of applauding the country's enforcement of rule of law and its preservation of democratic and capitalist institutions, the administration is siding with totalitarianism and the attempted destruction of those same institutions.
The other cast of characters supporting Zelaya are 'President for life" Hugo Chavez (who successfully did in Venezuela what Zelaya failed to do in Honduras), those lovable Castro brothers, the toast of New York journalists (notable for their having successfully kept 30 million people in an island prison for over 40 years), and every other communist, totalitarian government in South America. The United Nations weighed in condemning Honduras. That is the same UN that issued 70 percent of its resolutions condemning a member state against Israel, the only democracy in the middle east (save Iraq). That is the same UN that populates its so called Human Rights Commission with the most repressive states in the world, ones in the middle east where women hardly have higher legal standing than camels.
Do not be misled: Bad company corrupts good character (1 Corinthians 15:33). We really are known by the company we keep. The United States is now traveling with Communist China, the Mullahs in Iran, Hugo Chavez and the Castro brothers, and we talk about deferring sovereign decisions to a totally corrupt United Nations. Are you surprised? That is not a whole lot different than Obama's friendship with Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers and Sol Alinsky, all three of whom would strongly approve of our new foreign friends.
A government that refuses to support freedom and democracy abroad will certainly have no qualms about taking it away at home. Obama won't do it in the same way Chavez did or Zelaya tried, but rather through a takeover of industry and health care, new taxes, endless regulations passed in the name of saving the environment, enlarging the bureaucracy and financial support for criminal organizations like ACORN. If even a fraction of the administration proposals become law, our great country will transform into something Orwellian. Those of you who are not frightened, must be blind.
Well, here they go again. After Hillary agreed with the Chinese that human rights aren't that important after all, Obama told Israel that the US will side with anyone but Israel. Obama also told Iranian demonstrators pleading for freedom and democracy that they that must fend for themselves. Now the administration has decided that democracy and the rule of law should be ignored in Honduras. Instead, we should back a failed attempt by the extreme leftist, anti American, communist President to trash their democracy rather than abide by Honduran constitutional dictates.
For those of you who haven't heard, President Zelaya of Honduras was term limited out, so he elected to have a "constitutional convention" to change things. His problem was that the constitution says that only congress can call for such a convention, and the congress refused to do so. However, being a true blue lefty, he ignored the law and continued the process. When the Supreme Court said he had no legal authority and must stop, he ordered his top general to ignore them and proceed ahead. The general refused and was fired (the court ordered he be rehired.) The President's own appointed Attorney General opposed him, as did his entire cabinet (the defense secretary resigned.) When Zelaya continued to ignore all of the legally arrived at court orders, the Supreme Court directed that he be arrested. He was, but a deal was struck where he would leave the country and avoid prosecution. There are provisions in the Honduran constitution for Presidential appointments and elections due to such events as these, and they were followed to the letter.
To Obama and his minions, to the New York Times and other left leaning organs, this constituted a coup d'état, defined as a sudden appropriation of leadership or power; a takeover. But it was not at all a takeover, and such propaganda distorts the legitimate democratic action taken. It falsely portrays it as anti democratic, justifying Obama's position supporting Zelaya. Instead of applauding the country's enforcement of rule of law and its preservation of democratic and capitalist institutions, the administration is siding with totalitarianism and the attempted destruction of those same institutions.
The other cast of characters supporting Zelaya are 'President for life" Hugo Chavez (who successfully did in Venezuela what Zelaya failed to do in Honduras), those lovable Castro brothers, the toast of New York journalists (notable for their having successfully kept 30 million people in an island prison for over 40 years), and every other communist, totalitarian government in South America. The United Nations weighed in condemning Honduras. That is the same UN that issued 70 percent of its resolutions condemning a member state against Israel, the only democracy in the middle east (save Iraq). That is the same UN that populates its so called Human Rights Commission with the most repressive states in the world, ones in the middle east where women hardly have higher legal standing than camels.
Do not be misled: Bad company corrupts good character (1 Corinthians 15:33). We really are known by the company we keep. The United States is now traveling with Communist China, the Mullahs in Iran, Hugo Chavez and the Castro brothers, and we talk about deferring sovereign decisions to a totally corrupt United Nations. Are you surprised? That is not a whole lot different than Obama's friendship with Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers and Sol Alinsky, all three of whom would strongly approve of our new foreign friends.
A government that refuses to support freedom and democracy abroad will certainly have no qualms about taking it away at home. Obama won't do it in the same way Chavez did or Zelaya tried, but rather through a takeover of industry and health care, new taxes, endless regulations passed in the name of saving the environment, enlarging the bureaucracy and financial support for criminal organizations like ACORN. If even a fraction of the administration proposals become law, our great country will transform into something Orwellian. Those of you who are not frightened, must be blind.
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