Category: Health Care

The very first Dem 2020 debate just took place, and it was Kamala Harris vs. Kamala Harris on eliminating private health insurance

Where have we heard THIS before?

Here’s the first Democrat debate of the 2020 presidential campaign season, and the two debaters are Kamala Harris, and Kamala Harris.

Harris supports trashing all private health insurance plans:

Meanwhile, Harris on the other hand, argued that private health insurance plans could remain an option:

Confirmed: Somebody did some overnight polling and backpedaled faster than a bicyclyst with broken brake cables careening down San Francisco’s Filbert Street.

As for Harris’ fresh CYA spin about private insurance policies, Obama’s no longer in office, but already we’re back to “if you like your plan, you can keep it.”

Update:

It’s clear what really caused the Harris campaign to backpedal: She accidentally said out loud what the libs’ true intentions are, and other Dems were freaked out:

Pass the popcorn.

Progressive shocker! Bill de Blasio’s plan to keep NYC parks clean of used syringes has opposite of intended effect

Law of Unintended Consequences yet again confirmed

Is there anything progressive politicians ever do that does not validate the Law of Unintended Consequences? People’s Exhibit #9,402:

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to have junkies toss their used syringes into special receptacles has failed to clean up drug-infested parks, and the bins are serving more as suggestion boxes — spreading the message that the city is OK with them shooting up there.

Official statistics obtained by The Post from the first six months of de Blasio’s controversial program show that parks in the Bronx are still littered with dangerous hypodermic needles, with nearly 60,000 found on the ground compared with just 7,000 in Hizzoner’s 44 locked containers.

Even worse, the green metal bins are seen as a welcome mat for druggies to take over the parks, said one addict who openly injected himself in St. Mary’s Park in the Bronx Thursday morning with what he said was a speedball of heroin and cocaine.

“They’re giving permission with that box,” said Javier Martinez, 32.

The best way to get de Blasio to figure out how to keep parks free of discarded syringes would be to challenge him to come up with a way to make the problem worse, then he might inadvertently come up with something that accomplished the opposite.

What could possibly go wrong? Elizabeth Warren wants the federal gov’t to start manufacturing ‘affordable’ prescription drugs

The incompetent elephant(s) in the room

This is unintentionally funny on a whole lot of levels:

Are they going to make drugs as “affordable” as the “Affordable” Care Act made health insurance? The only people who will believe the federal government will make anything affordable are the ones who don’t care to notice that they (meaning “we”) over $20 trillion in debt.

Also, the federal government couldn’t make a f***ing health insurance website that worked properly but sure, who would have any doubt about taking their heart pills and blood pressure meds?

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) would like the federal government to start manufacturing prescription drugs when the market fails and prices for certain medications become unaffordable.

It’s an interesting idea, experts who lean right and left agree. But more than that, it is a reminder that there are all kinds of creative ways we might go about bringing down drug prices. We know Americans are really worried about drug costs — six in 10 people take a prescription and 80 percent say the cost of drugs is unreasonable — and they really want Washington to do something about it. The issue always ranks as one of the public’s top health priorities for Congress.

Vox at least does acknowledge the incompetent elephant in the room:

There are some questions, of course, starting first and foremost with how well equipped the government is to make medications. The Food and Drug Administration previously forced the National Institutes of Health to shut down its drug manufacturing facilities over quality concerns — though this legislation notably allows the federal government to contract with private companies to do the actual drug producing.

So if the government would contract out the manufacturing, that means they’d be serving as an extra “middle man,” which pretty much defeats the stated intent of making the whole process cheaper. But at least now Warren has something to talk about on the 2020 campaign trail besides her backfired DNA test.

Latest justification to pay for socialist utopia: Think of all the money families will save on funerals, or something

Whaaat?

Socialist “free everything” proposals floated by the likes of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders have been scrutinized as far as how they’d be paid for (spoiler: they couldn’t possibly be). But that isn’t stopping socialist utopia cheerleaders like Ocasio-Cortez from presenting the sales pitch.

Fasten your seatbelts, because you’re about to blast off into another adventure into socialist fantasyland:

“So, we’re paying for this system. We — Americans have the sticker shock of healthcare as it is, and what we’re also not talking about is, why aren’t we incorporating the cost of all the funeral expenses of those who died because they can’t afford access to healthcare? That is part of the cost of our system.”

Ha! “Sure ‘free healthcare & college for all’ will cost $218 trillion over 30 years, but nobody’s going to die. NOW how much would you pay!?”

Anybody want to tell her that people who can afford access to health care are going to die too? And it’s interesting that she brought up “access to health care.” Health insurance is NOT access to health care — just ask people in countries with socialized medicine who are on nine-month waiting lists. They tend to have plenty of access to insurance, but highly limited access to health care.

Vox unable to put spin Bernie & Alexandria’s socialist proposals because the price tag’s too heavy

Even progressives can’t find enough confectioners glaze to sugarcoat this monster

This analysis of various “nonpartisan and left-leaning studies” from Vox is amazing in that even they can’t find enough confectioners glaze to sugar-coat this monster. First of all, they’re concluding a ten-year cost of Bernie & Alexandria’s proposed Bankrupt-a-Palooza would be $42.5 trillion, but over 30 years the “savings” really add up:

The 30-year projected tab for these programs is even more staggering: new proposals costing $218 trillion, on top of an $84 trillion baseline deficit driven by Social Security, Medicare, and the resulting interest costs.

What would be the effects of such an unprecedented spending binge? Federal spending, which typically ranges between 18 and 22 percent of GDP, would immediately soar past 40 percent of GDP on its way to nearly 50 percent within three decades. Including state and local government spending would push the total cost of government to 60 percent of GDP by that point — exceeding the current spending level of every country in Europe.

And I’m guessing that’s still a conservative estimate, which is the only thing “conservative” Vox is ever going to do.

That feeling when even Vox can’t spin Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez’s dreamy socialist proposals:

I will say this for Sanders & Ocasio-Cortez’s pricey proposals: They’d be a little cheaper than the projected cost to build a real life Death Star, and probably accomplish the same thing.

Hot new idea to achieve progressive healthcare utopia: Forcing doctors to take huge pay cuts

Ever notice lefty progressives/socialists never recommend cutting their own salaries to “help” others with their needs?

You know, listening to progressives banter about talking about their visions for socialist utopia reminds me of when I was a kid. There were always some 8-year-olds dreaming out loud: “Hey, if everything was free then nobody would really have to work for anything and we’d all be taken care of.” Progressives are the ones who never really outgrew that stage.

So anyway, how can the Left’s plan of “Medicare for all” work in the U.S.? A couple of writers for the progressive pipe dream manufacturing plant called Vox are on it:

I for one look forward to being operated on by a doctor recently disgruntled by a huge salary cut while being assisted by his staff who were hit by even steeper pay cuts while all of them are frustrated by a 9-month backlog of pissed patients on their waiting list. And I’m sure people will be lining up around the block to study their asses off for years in medical school and then work 18 hour days in residency to end up earning about as much money as a New York City bus driver.

Ever notice lefty progressives/socialists never recommend cutting their own salaries to “help” others with their needs?

(h/t Twitchy)

Jimmy Kimmel thinks talking points sent to media are threats to democracy (UNLESS….)

Sinclair Broadcasting sent word to all their stations to make sure to air statements acknowledging there’s so-called “fake news” out there, and to make clear they’re not taking part in the pushing of any particular narrative. The result was a whole bunch of local news readers reciting the same script:

Having worked in local TV for over 20 years, such corporate edicts from any broadcast ownership aren’t necessarily a rarity, but this one had a particularly higher profile because it involved on-air statements. In any case, Jimmy Kimmel found it very disturbing:

Dude, just stop!

I guess people on TV being given a script presents a threat to democracy, unless it’s Jimmy Kimmel being told what to say to the entire country on ABC:

In other words, it’s NOT damaging to the nation when Kimmel goes on national TV and parrots a narrative written and sent to him by partisan liberal politicians:

Comedian Jimmy Kimmel consulted with Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) office on details surrounding the health-care debate, The Daily Beast reported Friday.

Schumer’s office “provided technical guidance and info about the bill, as well as stats from various think tanks and experts on the effects of” the legislation, a source told the outlet.

Kimmel launched a series of attacks this week on the Senate GOP’s latest ObamaCare repeal and replace measure, sponsored by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.).

Schumer and the late-night comedian were reportedly in touch over the past several months, and the New York Democrat encouraged Kimmel to speak out against the legislation.

But a station owner sends talking points to its affiliates and suddenly it’s a grave threat to the Republic? Maybe Chuck Schumer told Kimmel to say all that.

Outcome of Supreme Court’s ruling on ACA best summed up by these millennial pro-Obamacare interpretive dancers

I wrote a bit about the SCOTUS ruling on Obamacare subsidies here, but you can tell what the Court ruled based only on the reaction from these Hope & Change-bots:

That was an interpretive dance titled “A Midsummer Night’s Premium Increase for Mom and Dad.”

Could this WaPo poll question about Obamacare be any more leading?

A Washington Post/ABC News poll found that a majority of those questioned do not want the Supreme Court to block subsidies to states that didn’t set up their own Obamacare exchanges (the case is King v. Burwell).

Check out how the question was framed:

polling


In other words, “Do you want poor kids to die, or do you not care?” That poll question must have been written by Alan Grayson.

‘Blame Republicans for the Obamacare train wreck’ effort continues, with the GOP’s help in some cases

A couple days ago The Hill provided a hint as to what the “blame the GOP for a law NONE of them voted to pass” movement will look like heading into next year’s election.

Next up, HuffPo:

This criticism, while stupid and pitiful, isn’t entirely unjustified. Instead of telling Democrats to go f*#k themselves nuts deep when it comes to helping repair anything connected to Obamacare, some in the GOP have insisted on putting Republican fingerprints on the law, which is beyond stupid — regardless of the upcoming SCOTUS decision on King v. Burwell.

The Dems passed a shitty law, so let them bear the entire burden of the consequences of the illegalities courts agree it contains. By insisting on helping to “fix” Obamacare the Republicans are torching their best arguments/examples for full repeal.