posted 09-19-2007 01:11 PM                  

I extracted this from below because I think it is a very important point.

As I mentioned, folks, if you get out the Constitution and you look at it, you will not find where it outlines, or experiments, or specifies the federal government is granted the power to force citizens to buy anything, let alone a health insurance policy. Now, I can't find it in my Constitution. There's nothing in there that says it. In fact, the whole Constitution was written to limit the power of the federal government, and now we supposedly can find a way in there that the federal government can make you buy anything. Once you let them tell you that you have to buy health insurance, what the hell else are they going to then tell you you have to buy once the precedent is set?

The entire transcript from Rush Limbaugh show.

The Details of Mrs. Clinton's Plan

September 18, 2007

Note for those not familiar with Rush. When he refers to the Breck Girl he means John Edwards

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT


RUSH: Mrs. Clinton unveiled the details of her health care plan yesterday. But before we get to Mrs. Clinton's plan, I have an interesting comment here from the director of the Health and Human Services Department, Mike Leavitt. Mike Leavitt, the secretary of Health and Human Services, said that the president is going to veto the SCHIP plan, the new additions to the children's health care program, which is good, which is fine and dandy. He's going to do that, but at the same time the president is going to urge Congress to join him in seeking coverage for all Americans. This is not how you do this. This is not how you preempt the Democrats. Leavitt said the president wants to leave office with a plan in place to cover every American insurance-wise. We go through the numbers here. They claim "47 million uninsured." For these people proposing all these health care plans, I have a question, a serious question. Are they running to lead the country, or are they running to destroy it? We hear Ubama go on and on and on about how Wall Street's gotta take care of the middle class. The middle class is dying out there. Robert B. Reichhhhhh-uh says "super capitalism" is unfair and it's destroying freedom. It is the exact opposite.

We've got every Democrat presidential candidate proposing massive, universal health care programs. What are they trying to do, lead the country or destroy it? When I say destroy it, I mean destroy it as it exists and remake it as they would like it: with a top-heavy government that's in charge of as much as they can get, in charge of in terms of individual liberties and freedoms and so forth. Now we've got the secretary of Health and Human Services out there saying the president wants Congress to join him in seeking coverage for all Americans. "Leavitt said that he'd like to see the larger debate begin; the very best opportunity we have may well be in the next 15 months." Now, I don't know if this is a campaign strategy to take the momentum away from the Democrats on this, but... I'm going to have to hear more about it. This is not the president speaking. This is the Health and Human Services director, and I want to wait 'til I actually hear the president say that, because that's something that... Well, it's just frightening.

Now, let's take a look at some of the details of Mrs. Clinton's plan. One of the Cato Institute scholars, their director of health and welfare studies at Cato (which is a Libertarian think tank), Michael D. Tanner, has examined her proposal in detail and finds the four of the worst features of her proposal.

The first one is an "individual mandate," and this is sort of like the Breck Girl's. "Senator Clinton would require every American to purchase health insurance or face penalties." Now, you might be saying, "Well, they do that with auto insurance, Rush." The states do that, folks. The states can do it. But you don't have to buy insurance if you don't drive on state roads. If you have a big estate or a big farm and you want to go out and buy a car and you only drive it on your property, you do not have to get it insured. But these are state laws, and that's fine if the states want to mandate or require this. But the federal government doing this kind of thing is totally against the US Constitution. You can read the Constitution front-to-back, and you will find the power to do this nowhere. You will find nothing anywhere in the Constitution that empowers the federal government to impose this kind of mandate -- and then penalties to boot! We just had the story out of Great Britain the other day. A guy has a broken ankle and they're not going to fix it 'til he quits smoking. He says he's tried and he can't quit, and they're not going to fix it. Hello? This is the kind of thing we're headed for. All of liberalism is about dictating behavior and finding ways to make sure you have to comply.

So if they don't want you smoking -- which is absurd, because they're using cigarette taxes to fund all these health care programs -- somebody's going to have to smoke! Somebody's going to have to buy the cigarettes, and you had better damn well make sure there's a place they can smoke them after they buy them or the whole thing is going to come crashing down. Of course it will crash down, and all of you people laughing and guffawing about the smokers' taxes going up, going "Yeah! Yeah, make 'em pay! Make 'em pay! It's a filthy, rotten, dirty habit." Well, if you don't let 'em smoke 'em anywhere, they're not going to buy 'em. If you tax 'em so high that the price becomes more expensive than gasoline, they're not going to buy 'em, and then what are you going to do for your tax revenue? All you people out there laughing at the tax increase being shoveled onto who you think is just one small group of people, guess where the taxes are going to be levied? Because they're not going to get rid of the program. They're going to come right to the rest of us to pick up the revenue that the smokers are no longer providing, which I think is the plan anyway. This is how liberals do this.


A lot of politicians who are in favor of tax increases just pick a group of people that the rest of the population despises. Tax child abusers, tax sexual deviants, tax smokers, tax people that consume adult beverages. "Yeah, yeah, yeah! These are moral reprobates. Tax them." Yeah, that's how it works. They establish the notion of tax increase, and you'll accept it, because you think it's penalizing someone else. Well, your turn to be penalized is going to eventually come because with liberals everybody's going to get penalized. Mark my words. So we're going to have an individual mandate. Every American will be "required to purchase health insurance or face penalties." Of course, do I need to spell out the problems with this for you? This will restrict individual choice. It will restrict liberty. It will require a massive new bureaucracy to enforce. How are they going to enforce this? You know, right now if you don't have health insurance and you show up at the emergency room, federal law requires you get covered. You get treated. If, after this plan were to be enacted, and you are required to have insurance and don't, and you show up at the emergency room, what happens? Well, there are going to be penalties! What's going to happen? Are you not going to be treated? Are they going to leave you on the floor there while other people who have followed the government-run edicts get treated before you do? You want a mess? The regulatory mess that this is going to create will result in even more government control because the original set of regulations naturally won't encompass everything. "Ooooh! Yep, we forgot. We gotta add this to that," and so forth.

The second thing that Cato found among the worst features of Hillary's proposal is employer mandates. "Sen. Clinton would impose a 'play or pay' mandate on American businesses, requiring them to provide workers with health insurance or pay an additional tax into a government insurance fund." Hello, state of Maryland! They tried to do this, and a federal judge threw it out as unconstitutional. But it's in Mrs. Clinton's plan. "Such a mandate simply increases the cost of hiring workers, meaning employers will inevitably hire fewer workers. Some may even be forced to layoff current employees," in order to meet this mandate of providing cradle-to-grave health insurance for the employee and his family and his barmaids and mistresses.

Also, expanding government programs: "Sen. Clinton would expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to provide benefits for middle-class families," all the way up to incomes of $82,000 a year. "Children" are defined as 25 years or under in age. "Insurance regulation: Senator Clinton would require insurance companies to accept all applicants regardless of their health, and would impose 'community rating' on health insurance premiums. As a result, the young and healthy [would obviously] be forced to pay more in order to subsidize the older and sicker." If you walk in and you don't have insurance and you're required to go get it and they're required to sell it to you, and you're a risk to kick the bucket any time soon, the premium is going to be sky high, because they're going to have to pay off at some point all your care. Guess who's going to be paying that? Everybody else! So Mrs. Clinton is trusting Big Government. Remember, she just had a big photo-op about a month ago where she spent a day with a nurse in a hospital. They asked her, "Why were you doing this?"

"Well, I wanted to find out what nurses go through."

Wait a minute! I thought you were a health care expert? Well, I'm not wrong. It is government health care. Here's a neat trick, too, that Mrs. Clinton is doing. Mrs. Clinton learned something. That last health care plan was 2100 pages, or 1200 pages, something like that. This is just going to be a "blueprint." She's going to let congressional committees fill in the details, which means -- what wacko in the Senate runs that committee? I know in the House it's John Dingell that would be in charge of it. Who runs the health committee in the Senate? That's right, it's Kennedy's committee! So Teddy Kennedy would be plugging in the details. That's what she says, and that's to keep the heat off of her, when this happened. As I mentioned, folks, if you get out the Constitution and you look at it, you will not find where it outlines, or experiments, or specifies the federal government is granted the power to force citizens to buy anything, let alone a health insurance policy. Now, I can't find it in my Constitution. There's nothing in there that says it. In fact, the whole Constitution was written to limit the power of the federal government, and now we supposedly can find a way in there that the federal government can make you buy anything. Once you let them tell you that you have to buy health insurance, what the hell else are they going to then tell you you have to buy once the precedent is set?

If you look at the Constitution, you will find that the federal government can only take actions specifically authorized by the Constitution. All those other powers are reserved for the states, for the people. You know, there's a guy who sued God the other day. Some Nebraska guy sued God to illustrate that lawsuits are out of control. Anybody can sue anybody. Maybe we can sue God over this, if it comes to it, but here's the thing: What if we refuse, for example, to exercise? Let's say that one of the mandates is we have to exercise and we have to be healthy out there. What if we refuse? I, for one, will say, "Screw it! The federal government cannot make me exercise. I'm not going to do it." What's the penalty to me? Take my health care away? By the way, I don't even want to get into an insurance program. I don't even want to do it. Do I have a chance not to? Can I buy my own health care coverage as I need it? Not coverage, but my treatment? Can I pay for it as I need it? What if I don't want it? What's my penalty here? If we don't exercise, will Hillary send jackbooted thugs in to march us around for 30 minutes every day inside our backyards or homes, or better yet, have to go to a government-run gym to work out? She's quoted today -- I kid you not, Mrs. Clinton is quoted today -- as being upset that men do not wash their hands. Well, if she's upset that men don't wash their hands, can you imagine how livid she's going to be if we refuse to exercise? You add that on it. The ads that could destroy this, the TV ads, are just endless. They're just waiting to be made, and one of the reasons why she's not getting all that specific is to avoid the Harry and Louise-type ads that ran back in '93 and '94.


BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here's another thought, ladies and gentlemen, on Mrs. Clinton's socialized medicine presentation. I just mentioned to you that one of the things her proposal features is that an insurance company cannot turn down anyone for an existing condition. Why, then, should anyone apply for insurance until they get sick? If they can't turn you down, wait 'til you get sick because you'd have to be accepted, preexisting conditions. You'd spend a lot less money. Don't have anybody get insurance 'til they're about to die. Now, back to these penalties. What happens if they mandate the purchase of insurance out there. What happens if I don't? I asked this question mere moments ago: "Will I go to jail? If I don't buy it, will they buy it for me? Will I not get care in an emergency if I don't buy insurance? And more importantly, will illegal immigrants be forced to buy health insurance as well?" I'm dead serious about that question. Will they be forced to buy health insurance? Well, the answer will be, "Of course not, Rush, because we really don't know who they are, and we don't know how to find them." Well, then I assume they won't be covered when they show up. "Oh, no, no, no," as Hillary said to them -- we got the audiotapes coming up -- as Hillary said to them, "You are the face of America." By the way, two or three years ago, she was totally against illegal immigration. Oh, yeah, we got the audio sound bites.

I want to go back to this number: 47 million uninsured. We have 12 to 20 million illegals. In fact, we're not really sure. The Census Bureau wants all raids to stop in 2010 so that the illegals will show up and say, "I'm here," because we want an accurate count. They're estimating we got 12 to 20 million illegals. We're told the latest number that everybody is bandying about here, 47 million without health care. Wait a minute. Maybe it's 12 million without health care and 47 million illegals. How do we really know? If you're a news junky, and many of you are, you know the numbers, 12 million and 47 million, you can probably fill in the blanks. Twelve million is the number of illegal aliens, you are told. Forty-seven million, oh, yeah, piece of cake, that's number of people without health care, you are told. But, as you know, I'm from Missouri: Show me. All these numbers get bandied about, and nobody is ever required to prove 'em. Remember good old Mitch Schneider, a homeless advocate from back in the eighties, said there were three million homeless. There were never three million homeless, but it became established as the number. I assume all 12 million illegals don't have health care. What percentage of the 47 million are they? And what percentage of the 47 million don't want health care because they're young, can't afford it, or don't think they're going to need it for a while?


BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Another feature of Mrs. Clinton's health care plan is this, and I want to read it to you from the Washington Post editorial on this today: "The most intriguing part of the Clinton plan would limit the tax-deductibility of employer-sponsored health insurance for those making more than $250,000 a year. At that income level, employees would have to pay tax on plans more generous than the standard federal employee health plan." Now, what this means to me is that all of a sudden, if you make 250 grand or more, and the health care benefit that you get at work, if it's better than the federal plan is, then you have to pay tax on that as income, it would be added to your income. All these benefits do not accrue as income, taxable income. I knew this was going to happen. It's only a matter of time. It's going to happen to everybody, not just people who make over 250 K. It will start there, but it will eventually dwindle down to everybody else because that's where the real money is. You can go out there and tax all these people at 250 K up, but that's not going to give them the money they need. This is frightening stuff, folks. This is really frightening stuff.

Then you go to the New York Times: "Senator Barack Obama chastised Wall Street executives yesterday as failing to protect middle-class interests and called for increased federal oversight of credit rating agencies, including a government investigation. In an appearance at Nasdaq offices in Midtown Manhattan, Mr. Obama, a Democratic presidential candidate, praised America’s free-market impulse but lamented what he characterized as its recent toll on the middle class." Free market impulse, Senator Ubama, is what has made the middle class better than it has ever been. I cannot tell you how frustrating this is. Go out and create a message of doom and gloom each and every day. Do not report anything that is positive. Do not! It will harm the Democrats in this country if people are happy.

To go out there and tell people in the middle class that the very thing that's raising their opportunity and their wealth, their overall net worth, is destroying them. Who appointed this guy? Here again, where does Mrs. Clinton come off as the health care expert of all the people in this country? Where does Obama come off as the chief lecturer on capitalism? "But, Rush, but, Rush, they're a presidential candidate." I know, and it's up to people to figure out that they're frauds. Anybody, Republican, Democrat alike, who comes along and says, "We know better how to run this," and then the second part of that is, "the government will do it," for crying out loud, what does the government do now on the domestic side that would recommend to anybody we let 'em take over even more? It's an amazing thing.

All right, let's go to the phones and reward people's patience for waiting. This is Jack in Boston. Nice to have you on the program, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Yeah, Rush, you know, this comparison of the Hillary health care plan to automobile insurance is totally bogus. Automobile insurance is for liability insurance, if you hurt somebody else. But you don't have to insure your own car or your own safety. It's purely for liability of hurting others. So they can't cite automobile insurance as a precedent for Hillary health care.

RUSH: No, but this is how they think. Of course, people are going to maybe not be as sophisticated as you are in understanding it, but the point is that auto insurance is mandated by states, not the federal government.

CALLER: Yes, but even so, the additional argument is, even in that case, it's only for a liability if you hurt somebody else. They don't require you to insure your own car or yourself. They couldn't do that, even on the state level they couldn't do that, so the analogy breaks down in two respects. One, because it's states --

RUSH: Wait a minute, now. Do you realize how many people you have just shocked, who think that their insurance is also to insure their car, not just to insure the fact that they might harm somebody else?

RUSH: No, Rush, they can get the insurance for their own car, but what I'm talking about is what the state absolutely requires.

RUSH: Ah.

CALLER: The state requires that you have insurance --

RUSH: Right. I just wanted that stipulated.

CALLER: Yeah, right. We're talking about requirement. And to state the precedent for automobile insurance requirement at any level is no precedent for Hillary health care, because that's for just liability.

RUSH: Exactly right. So the analogy to Hillary health care would be, you've gotta get health care insurance in case somebody comes to your house and you put arsenic in their soup and they get sick.

CALLER: Right, but not if you get sick yourself.

RUSH: Not if you get sick yourself.

CALLER: Big distinction.

RUSH: I know, I'm glad you called, I'm glad you made it, I appreciate that, Jack.


END TRANSCRIPT

posted 09-20-2007 07:36 PM                  

-----------------------------------------------------------

quote from Canadian, Wayne Finch on another thread:

"The best healthcare in the world is in the US, there is no question about it. If you had to choose anyplace in the world to get very ill (let's hope not), everyone would pick the US. The most innovation, the most technology, and the highest ranked hospitals.

Canada (no private healthcare and all goverment run) = no innovation, no technology (some cases using methods not used in the US for 20 years), massive wait times (months), run down hospitals, caps on doctors salaries so they end up golfing every second day, shortages of doctors/nurses, and no incentive for anyone to care about improving the system.

More than half of all Canadians now realize we need some sort of public/private system that will provide the services and innovation required."

**********************************************************

P/Leu quote: > "If this fiasco is not her downfall, we're in for alot of trouble."

I'm thinking we are in for alot of trouble,,,,,sorry [sick] to say,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

posted 09-21-2007 07:43 AM                  

quote:

---

Originally posted by heynow14:
I sure you guys have all seen the movie "Sicko" because of your comments about the healthcare issue. Just wanted to know what you thought of it?

---

posted 09-21-2007 07:51 AM                  

Then he said the system Hillary is proposing is identical to the system in place in Massachusetts, which this MIT professor also helped institute. Then he said the individual he worked with to bring this system to Mass was Gov. Mitt Romney! He went on to say Romney deserved a lot of credit for bringing this highly effective health care system into being in Mass, but that he couldn't understand why Romney was bad-mouthing Hillary's plan when it was the same thing he instituted in Mass! Go figure...

posted 09-21-2007 08:15 AM                  

“In her plan, it's crafted by Washington; it should be crafted by the states. In her plan, we have government Washington managed health care. Instead, we should rely on the private markets to guide health care,” Romney said during a press conference.

Like the plan passed in Massachusetts during Romney's time in office, Clinton's plan would require individuals to have some form of health care insurance.

But Romney emphatically said the plan implement in Massachusetts was “entirely different” from Sen. Clinton’s.

“Her plan is crafted by Washington. Mine is crafted by individual states,” Romney explained. “Her plan has government insurance. Mine has private insurance. Her plan raises taxes. Mine does not raise tax.”

posted 09-21-2007 08:21 AM                  

On April 12, 2006, Governor Romney signed into law landmark legislation ensuring that every resident of Massachusetts would have access to affordable, portable, quality private health insurance – without higher taxes, an employer mandate or a government takeover of health care.

Republican presidential hopeful, former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney talks with reporters after speaking at a gathering of potential supporters, Friday, July 27, 2007, in Adel, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Related Media:
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Mitt Romney, Presidential Canidate
Universal Healthcare
Massachusetts was afflicted with many of the same problems that plague the health care system across the country. There was no easy way to buy affordable insurance except through an employer. Without the employer option, it just was not feasible for many people to buy health insurance. As a result, they had to resort to emergency room care and the taxpayers ended up footing the bill. People choosing their health care provider could not get critical information about the cost or quality of care, and excessive state regulations reduced choices and drove up costs.

When Governor Romney decided to tackle the double-digit annual increases in health insurance costs, the average uninsured resident in Massachusetts had to pay $335 a month for private health insurance, which did not include coverage for prescription drugs and featured a $5,000 deductible. Moreover, the state was spending over $1.3 billion a year on "free care" for the uninsured.

Governor Romney actually got the Democrat-controlled legislature to enact a plan that addressed these problems. He took the time to understand what makes private health insurance markets work and transformed the market in his state from one that was government-controlled to one that allows competition to flourish.

Governor Romney's health care plan featured a number of reforms. First, his plan deregulated the overburdened Massachusetts insurance market to reduce the cost of private insurance, while giving consumers more choice from a broader range of plans. Second, the plan addressed the problems caused by the fact that many people could not get healthcare through their employers and could not afford it on the individual market. Third, he redirected the millions of dollars that were being spent on free emergency room care and used it instead to help those who truly were not able to afford private health insurance.

Finally, Governor Romney recognized that competition is the key to the success of any market – so doing what no one had ever done before, he created a new market where consumers can go to pick the health care plan that suits them best. Called the "Connector," this marketplace is not a new regulatory agency or insurance purchasing pool. It is a place that gives people access to more choices, better information, and lower costs in selecting a private health insurance plan. The Connector also provides a way for individuals to purchase insurance with the same pre-tax advantage given to those buying insurance through their employers. Even better, the Connector gives people the chance to buy private insurance independent of their jobs, so that they don't have to worry about losing their coverage when they change employers.

But Governor Romney's reforms did not stop at reducing the cost of insurance today. He also tackled a number of reforms that will help reduce the rise in health care costs over the long-term. His plan included medical transparency provisions that allow consumers to compare the quality of hospitals and providers, while tracking and recording the costs associated with the care they provide. The reforms also instituted measures to encourage the use of electronic health records, which will reduce medical errors and lower costs.

What's been the result of all these reforms? Although the reforms were signed into law just over a year ago, the changes are dramatic. The same uninsured individual whose choice was formerly limited to a policy with a $335 a month insurance premium with no drug benefits and a $5,000 deductible now can purchase quality private insurance, which includes coverage for prescription drugs, office and emergency room visits, and a $2,000 deductible, for $175 per month. Between July 1, 2006 and May 1, 2007, nearly 125,000 previously uninsured residents of Massachusetts got health insurance coverage.

Taxpayer-funded "free care" is falling at double-digit rates, because the Romney reforms no longer allow people to let others pay for their health care if they can afford their own health insurance. Those who previously couldn't afford health insurance now have the help they need to get access to affordable, quality, portable private coverage. And, as he promised, Governor Romney did all this without raising taxes and without a government take-over of health care.

All of Governor Romney's reforms are consistent with the goal of making private health insurance more available, flexible, and affordable. That is why many conservative organizations have hailed Governor Romney's health care reforms. The Heritage Foundation called it "one of the most promising strategies out there." Massachusetts Citizens For Limited Taxation said that Romney's plan was a responsible solution to America's health care challenges. And the Ethan Allen Institute praised Governor Romney's plan because of its focus on personal responsibility and choice.

posted 09-21-2007 07:29 PM                  

quote:

---

Originally posted by BeWare:
“Her plan is crafted by Washington. Mine is crafted by individual states,” Romney explained. “Her plan has government insurance. Mine has private insurance. Her plan raises taxes. Mine does not raise tax.”

---

Other than that they are the same. That darn conservative NPR is at it again. lol

posted 09-22-2007 01:42 AM                  

quote:

---

Originally posted by BeWare:
I have not watched anything that MM has put out and never will. Everything he produces is skewed to push his ultra left wing agenda. If any one is a Sicko it's MM. However had I watched it I could probably provide and document counter points to disprove much of what he implies.

---

Start here: http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/checkup/

posted 09-22-2007 09:17 AM                  

There are other parts I don't like but I won't go into them here. At least I am open enough to say that not everything the Democrats do or propose is bad and I have also criticized Bush and the Republicans on issues that I disagree with. I can't say that I have ever heard you criticize any Democrat in any of your posts. If I am wrong then I apologize but would like to see when you did so. Please post a link to one or two.

Repeated from above.

If you get out the Constitution and you look at it, you will not find where it outlines, or experiments, or specifies the federal government is granted the power to force citizens to buy anything, let alone a health insurance policy. Now, I can't find it in my Constitution. There's nothing in there that says it. In fact, the whole Constitution was written to limit the power of the federal government, and now we supposedly can find a way in there that the federal government can make you buy anything. Once you let them tell you that you have to buy health insurance, what the hell else are they going to then tell you you have to buy once the precedent is set?

posted 09-22-2007 10:08 AM                  

quote:

---

Originally posted by heynow14:
Start here: http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/checkup/

---

OK I looked at it and found errors with the very first item. He claims that 54.5 million were uninsured according to the CDC. The actual number reported by the CDC is 43.6. Still not good but significantly less that he stated. This is 14.8% of the population all ages. (see CDC link below)

Where did the extra 10% come from. Illegal Aliens possibly.

He also stated:
"The amount of uninsured is rising every year, as premiums continue to skyrocket and wages stagnate. From 2004 to 2005 the number of uninsured rose 1.3 million, and rose up nearly 6 million from 2001-2005".

However the CDC states:
"In 2006, the percentage uninsured at the time of interview was 16.8% (43.3 million) for persons under age 65 years, 19.8% (36.5 million) for persons aged 18–64 years, and 9.3% (6.8 million) for children under age 18 years.
For adults aged 18–64 years, the annual percentage uninsured at the time of interview decreased from 1997 to 1999, followed by an increase from 1999 to 2003, then decreased from 2003 to 2005. The estimate for 2006 was significantly higher than the estimate in 2005
For children under age 18 years, the percentage uninsured at the time of interview decreased from 13.9% in 1997 to 8.9% in 2005. The estimate for 2006 was higher than, but not significantly different from, the estimate in 2005."

So it is not rising every year. He also claims from 2004 to 2005 the number rose. However from 2003 to 2005 the number declined according to the CDC. It looks bad for 2006

I will look at more later. The numbers still are not good but I want to view other factors also,

Robert, Have you done any research? or are you just taking Michael Moore's word as fact?

By the way since I know your name mine is Rich.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/earlyrelease/200706_01.pdf

posted 09-22-2007 11:08 PM                  

From a report in the spring issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.

Quote
"The Seen and the Unseen
The influx of illegal aliens has serious hidden medical
consequences.We judge reality primarily by what we see. But what
we do not see can be more dangerous, more expensive, and more
deadly than what is seen.
Illegal aliens’ stealthy assaults on medicine now must rouse
Americans to alert and alarm. Even President Bush describes
illegal aliens only as they are seen: strong physical laborers who
work hard in undesirable jobs with low wages, who care for their
families, and who pursue theAmerican dream.
What is unseen is their free medical care that has degraded and
closed some of America’s finest emergency medical facilities, and
caused hospital bankruptcies: 84 California hospitals are closing
their doors. “Anchor babies” born to illegal aliens instantly qualify
as citizens for welfare benefits and have caused enormous rises in
Medicaid costs and stipends under Supplemental Security Income
and Disability Income.
What is seen is the illegal alien who with strong back may
cough, sweat, and bleed, but is assumed healthy even though he and
his illegal alien wife and children were never examined for
contagious diseases.
By default, we grant health passes to illegal aliens. Yet many
illegal aliens harbor fatal diseases that American medicine fought
and vanquished long ago, such as drug-resistant tuberculosis,
malaria, leprosy, plague, polio, dengue, and Chagas disease.
What is seen is the political statistic that 43 million lives are at
risk in America because of lack of medical insurance. What is
unseen is that medical insurance does not equal medical care.
Uninsured people receive medical care in hospital emergency
departments (EDs) under the coercive Emergency Medical
Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1985 (EMTALA), which
obligates hospitals to treat the uninsured but does not pay for that
care. Also unseen is the percentage of the uninsured who are illegal
aliens. No one knows how many illegal aliens reside in America. If
there are 10 million, they constitute nearly 25 percent of the
uninsured. The percentage could be even higher.
http://www.jpands.org/vol10no1/cosman.pdf

posted 09-22-2007 11:21 PM                  

INVASION USA
Illegal aliens threaten
U.S. medical system
Docs journal reports hospitals being closed, previously vanquished diseases being spread

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: March 13, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

Cristobal Silverio emigrated illegally from Mexico to Stockton, Calif., in 1997 to work as a fruit picker.

He brought with him his wife, Felipa, and three children, 19, 12 and 8 – all illegals. When Felipa gave birth to her fourth child, daughter Flor, the family had what is referred to as an "anchor baby" – an American citizen by birth who provided the entire Silverio clan a ticket to remain in the U.S. permanently.

But Flor was born premature, spent three months in the neonatal incubator and cost the San Joaquin Hospital more than $300,000. Meanwhile, oldest daughter Lourdes married an illegal alien gave birth to a daughter, too. Her name is Esmeralda. And Felipa had yet another child, Cristian.

The two Silverio anchor babies generate $1,000 per month in public welfare funding for the family. Flor gets $600 a month for asthma. Healthy Cristian gets $400. While the Silverios earned $18,000 last year picking fruit, they picked up another $12,000 for their two "anchor babies."

While President Bush says the U.S. needs more "cheap labor" from south of the border to do jobs Americans aren't willing to do, the case of the Silverios shows there are indeed uncalculated costs involved in the importation of such labor – public support and uninsured medical costs.

In fact, the increasing number of illegal aliens coming into the United States is forcing the closure of hospitals, spreading previously vanquished diseases and threatening to destroy America's prized health-care system, says a report in the spring issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.

"The influx of illegal aliens has serious hidden medical consequences," writes Madeleine Pelner Cosman, author of the report. "We judge reality primarily by what we see. But what we do not see can be more dangerous, more expensive, and more deadly than what is seen."

According to her study, 84 California hospitals are closing their doors as a direct result of the rising number of illegal aliens and their non-reimbursed tax on the system.

"Anchor babies," the author writes, "born to illegal aliens instantly qualify as citizens for welfare benefits and have caused enormous rises in Medicaid costs and stipends under Supplemental Security Income and Disability Income."

In addition, the report says, "many illegal aliens harbor fatal diseases that American medicine fought and vanquished long ago, such as drug-resistant tuberculosis, malaria, leprosy, plague, polio, dengue, and Chagas disease."

posted 09-22-2007 11:34 PM                  

Canadians are mad as heck, and this time, they’re not going to take it. Michael Moore went too far to be ignored, which meant that a Canuck really gave him “what for” in the form of a polite but pointed recap of a heated press conference on Saturday for the premiere of “Sicko,” Moore’s one-sided US health-care hit job, which debuted at Cannes Film Festival .

May 20, Toronto Star entertainment reporter Peter Howell wrote in the ideologically left of center paper that the Canadian journalists who saw “Sicko” were less than happy with his “playing fast and loose with the facts” and churning out a one-sided Pollyanna treatment of Canadian health care, presenting a system without problems. After being chastised by some of the most polite people on Earth, he fired back and leveled a truly terrible offense at them by stating their system is barely a step above America's. Quelle horreur!

Read what one of the few articles critical of Moore and his accuracy had to say about the movie's obvious problems with Moore’s film (bold emphasis mine throughout):

We Canucks were taking issue with the large liberties Sicko takes with the facts, with its lavish praise for Canada's government-funded medicare system compared with America's for-profit alternative.

While justifiably demonstrating the evils of an American system...Sicko makes it seem as if Canada's socialized medicine is flawless and that Canadians are satisfied with the status quo.

Moore makes the eyebrow-raising assertion that Canadians live on average three years longer than Americans because of their superior health care system.

(..)

Other Canadian journalists spoke of the long wait times Canadians face for health care, much longer than the few minutes Moore suggests in Sicko. Moore, who has come under considerable fire for factual inaccuracies in his films, parried back with more questionable claims.

A Michael Moore movie with “factual inaccuracies” and “questionable claims?” Shocking, simply shocking.

Moore started with a stunningly stupid statement that essentially told these socialized medicine ingrates to quit their whining about 18 month-long waits for gallbladder surgeries because it means they apparently live three years longer...somehow. Moore lashed out at these legitimate questions about his habit of propping up an unrealistic portrayal of a socialist utopia (or communist, in Cuba’s case) by minimizing the citizens’ hardships:

"You're in a longer line than we're in because you get to live three years longer than we do. Why is that?" Moore said. "Why is it that a baby born in Toronto has a better chance of making it to its first birthday than a baby born in Detroit?"

Moore later back-pedalled on some of his praise, saying neither Harper nor regular Canadians should pat themselves on the back too much.

"It's not hard to do better than the U.S.," Moore cautioned. "The Canadian system, if you look on that list of the World Health Organization, is not that far above us. It's not like the French system. The French system is the best in the world."

Talk about getting nasty. To a Canadian leftist, comparing anything Canadian, especially health care, to anything American is just about the worst insult Moore could have used. If he thinks so poorly of the Canadian system, why praise it so highly in the movie, which is what irked the Canadians to begin with?

Perhaps this backlash indicates Moore is finished infantilizing and patronizing Canada, as he does Cuba and to a lesser extent, France, by pretending it is a real-life "Pleasantville." Howell was still irritated that Moore used the same technique of distorted reality when he claimed in the anti-gun film “Bowling for Columbine” that Canadians don’t lock their doors, as well as stating that they aren’t afraid of crime in Canada.

Does this mean that Moore’s love affair with Canada is over, now that some citizens have the audacity to question his rhetoric? Howell maintained the kind of professionalism and objectivity in this article that, based on his comments, Moore could not during the press conference. Too bad the media hasn't reported this conflict, eh? More about Moore, here and here.

* This appears to be an article about the same Cannes press conference with more quotes and without the criticism.

posted 09-22-2007 11:51 PM                  

John Goodman: Film buffs may praise Moore's 'Sicko,' but policy buffs can see all its defects

Its goal is to drive a specific agenda, not to show how to fix health care

08:59 AM CDT on Monday, July 16, 2007

Michael Moore's documentary Sicko is full of errors and omissions, but that is almost beside the point. Since the stated purpose of the film is to compare the worst features of American health care with the best features of health care in Britain, Canada, France and even Cuba, who can complain about a few errors here and there?

A majority of movie reviewers and columnists have praised Mr. Moore's filmmaking and lauded him for "raising the important questions." The problem is, few of them can speak to the policy issues Mr. Moore pretends to objectively present. Sicko isn't a movie about health care and how to fix it. It is a one-sided attempt to drive a very specific agenda – single-payer, government-run health care.

Mr. Moore told ABC's Good Morning America that, in Britain and Canada, people "have a basic core belief that if you get sick, you have a human right to see a doctor and not have to worry about paying for it." By contrast, according to Mr. Moore, "people are dying in this country as a result of the decisions that get made by [private] health insurance companies."

If you have never tried to see a doctor in Britain or Canada, you might even believe it. People who actually live there, however, know they have no right to any particular health care service. A Canadian, for example, has no "right" to an MRI scan or heart surgery. There is not even a right to a place in line. Far from enjoying a "right to health care," people in other countries often wait for needed care. For example:

•In Britain, about 1 million are waiting to be admitted to hospitals at any one time.

•In Canada, more than 876,000 are waiting for treatment of all types.

•In New Zealand, the number of people on waiting lists for surgery and other treatments is more than 90,000.

Patients who wait are often waiting in pain. Many are risking their lives. People have to wait for care because of a conscious decision by the government to limit health care resources. When Mr. Moore boldly asserts that Britons "wouldn't trade their NHS cards for his Blue Cross card," he could not be more wrong. In fact, people in other countries often have to pay out of pocket for care that has been denied them by the government.

Why, then, is national health insurance in other countries as popular as Mr. Moore says it is? One reason is that people do not realize how much they pay for it in taxes. Even mediocre care looks good if you think it is free. A second reason is that doctors in other countries often don't tell their patients their care is being rationed. Instead, they say, "There's nothing more we can do." A third reason is that most people are healthy.

Relative to U.S. levels of provision, countries with national health insurance routinely under-provide to the seriously ill and over-provide to patients with minor ailments. Thus, the scene where patients in a Canadian waiting room are asked how long they had to wait, and they all reply with times under an hour. Mr. Moore didn't bother to revisit these patients and ask how long they would have to wait to see a specialist. Seventeen and half weeks would definitely add to the average wait time.

In a typical U.S. private health care plan, 4 percent of the enrollees spend more than half the money. In a government-run, universal health care system, politicians cannot afford to spend half of the budget on 4 percent of the voters, many of whom are probably too sick to vote anyway. The temptation is always to take from the few who are sick and spend instead on the many.

So what are we to make of Mr. Moore's work? Economists study reality in order to adapt to it. Artists selectively focus on some facts and ignore others in order to recreate reality.

John C. Goodman is president of the National Center for Policy Analysis and co-author of "Lives at Risk: Single-Payer National Health Insurance Around the World." His e-mail address is jcgoodman@ncpa.org.

posted 09-23-2007 08:33 AM                  

Question which goes back to one of my primary objections to Hillarys plan.