Don't Read His Lips--It's All in HR 3200

The health care bill that emerged last week from the House of Representatives, HR 3200, indeed contains a provision mandating end-of-life planning despite Obama's insistence that no one would visit you to explain that health care ends when you get a terminal illness and you have no quality years left.

(There actually is a formula for figuring out quality life-years, and if you're retired, you're on the short end of that list. Quality in governmentese=productivity, or $$$ in taxes that you can pay.)

I bring this up because Fox TV's Glenn Beck has aired a video of Representative John Conyers, D.-Mich., explaining that congressmen are too busy to read bills before they pass them; besides, they couldn't understand them anyway. (Translation: "So long as my pet earmarks are in the bill, I'm votin' yes!")

Here's what the esteemed gentleman (I use the term quite loosely had to say):

"To get up and say, 'Read the bill.' What good is reading the bill if it's 1,000 pages and you don't have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?"

Scary, isn't it/he?

Despite What He Says, Home Visits Are Coming

I guess Barack Obama hasn't even bothered to read the Senate's HELP (Health, Education, Labor and Pensions) Committee health plan.

Yesterday, Obama went on the offensive to deny that government stormtroopers, er, employees, would start visiting old people in their homes to ask them how they want to die. While that is not (to my knowledge, anyway) in the HELP bill, there definitely is a provision to allow home visits to make sure children get all their vaccinations.

I can see that now: "Mrs. Smith, is little Johnny home? We see on his electronic health record that he's behind on his vaccinations. We're here with all the necessary syringes and vaccinations to get him up to date. It shouldn't take more than five minutes."

That scenario is very definitely authorized by the Ted Kennedy underlings who wrote the HELP bill.

Here's what the Prez said to a town hall gathering of AARP members (i.e., old people):

"You know, I guarantee you, first of all, we just don't have enough government workers to send to talk to everybody, to find out how they want to die. I just want to be clear: Nobody is going to be knocking on your door; nobody is going to be telling you you've got to fill one out. And certainly nobody is going to be forcing you to make a set of decisions on end-of-life care based on some bureaucratic law in Washington."

Actually, they won't be forcing anyone to make end-of-life decisions. They'll just do it for you, so technically, he's right, and we all lose if we fall for his version of health care reform.

Painting 'The Doctor' Far From Today's Reality

Sir Luke Fildes lost his eldest son Phillip on Christmas Eve 1877 while a doctor spent a compassionate vigil at the child's side. In commemoration, Sir Fildes painted "The Doctor" (above) in 1891 to depict "the physician in our time."

This same painting was used by the American Medical Association (AMA) in 1949 to stop President Harry Truman in his attempt to nationalize health care. The message was "Keep Politics Out of This Picture."

The AMA can't use this picture or tactic this time around. Things have changed too much.

Some of us who've lived long enough can actually recall how doctors once did make house calls and could even be reached on weekends and evenings for emergencies. (Today, you get a voice recording commanding you to "Dial 911.")

To say the least, we've come a long way in our medical care, and in one sense Obama is correct--the system is broken if you're looking for compassion and home visitations.

But it's not really broken, just adapted to a new reality. We're now a nation of 300 million people with nowhere nearly enough doctors to even treat all of us, let alone make house calls (though some still do and swear by it).

Medical care is now like visiting an auto mechanic. "Doc, it hurts here." "Let me take a look." A few small probes and examinations later, and the doctor is ready. "Fortunately, nothing is broken. I'll prescribe you some painkillers. You should be fine in a few days."

Okay, so I've simplified things here a bit (I left out the two sets of x-rays and follow-up MRIs), but the general picture of "sick care" in America is just that. It's like taking your car into the shop, except it's your body--and your life.

Paucity of time and doctors can account for our new reality, but the biggest contributing factor to what Obama calls our "broken" health care system is Medicare and Medicaid.

Since most doctors won't accept the payment structure of Medicaid, leaving that to emergency rooms, your family doctor is modelling his or her practice on the Medicare payment structure--the more procedures he or she can perform, the more the office can bill for your visit. ("I also notice your car's belts are getting worn. We'd better replace those for $125 before you get stuck on the freeway." Get the analogy?)

So, the next time you hear politicians' bemoaning our "broken" health care system, remember it's only broken because Medicare made it into an assembly-line industry, with each nut, bolt, worker, and procedure along the line being billed for and paid separately.

This is the typical pattern with government: First break it, then blame it on others and come rushing to the rescue to garner votes for the next election, reality be damned.

Politicians just created the housing and credit crises by pushing banks to create "affordable housing." Now they're blaming the bankers and everyone one else in the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac food chain and claiming to have the solution with "more regulation."

If they really wanted to "fix" health care, all they have to do is fully fund Medicare and come up with a payment structure that rewards healthful results rather than procedures. That'll stop the cost-shifting to private insurers and build some efficiencies into the system.

Instead, they'll give us more regulation (read "rationing") and expand Medicare, the very cause of the crisis in the first place.

How Do 3.5 Million Promised Jobs Become 600,000?

Answer: When it was all BS to begin with.

Remember when the so-called stimulus bill was rushed through Congress to the tune of $787 billion? It was promoted as the cure for the Great Depression Part II that would "create or save" 3.5 million jobs.

Well, the official back-pedalling has now begun. First, Obama this past week said that 150,000 jobs had been or would soon be created from the stimulus, and now his right-hand truth fabricator Joe Biden said on Sunday that the stimulus would create 600,000 jobs by the end of summer.

Why the backtrack? As Biden says, "The economy was worse off than we thought."

Actually, statistics now show that the recession was milder that the Obamacrats had been portraying it (not that 15 million unemployed is mild).

Truth be known, the stimulus package a) had nothing to do with creating jobs and b) had everything to do with expanding government and government control over the economy.

So, if you're one of the 15 million looking for work, don't expect the stimulus dollars to create a job for you--unless you plan to work for the government.

No Republican Could Ever Get Away With Such Lies

Can you imagine if George Bush were president and he bragged about having "saved or created x [fill in the blank] number of jobs"? He'd be howled off the podium with scorn and derision.

So what happens when Barack Obama actually does that, as he did yesterday in claiming that he had "saved or created 150,000 jobs" with the stimulus bill? The lapdog, fawning liberal media sucked it all in and praised the great man for his accomplishment.

Meanwhile, remember how Obama promised that the stimulus plan would keep unemployment below 8 percent and that, without it, unemployment would rise about 9 percent? Got news for you, Obamaites, unemployment is now at 9.4 percent nationwide, and while you claim to have "created or saved 150,000 jobs," the economy has actually lost another 1.6 million jobs since inauguration day.

Nice job.

Though the media will never call the Obama administration out on this particular deceit, one from the Democrats' own ranks did during a hearing with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner:

"You created a situation where you cannot be wrong," said Senator Max Baucus, a Democrat from Montana. "If the economy loses two million jobs over the next few years, you can say yes, but it would've lost 5.5 million jobs. If we create a million jobs, you can say, well, it would have lost 2.5 million jobs. You've given yourself complete leverage where you cannot be wrong, because you can take any scenario and make yourself look correct."

Again, just imagine what would happen if some Republican tried to get away with such self-evident acts of deception?

Obama Budget: Punish Foes, Reward Supporters

There's probably nothing unusually (okay, let's take the "probably" out) about a president's slashing the budget in areas that his opponents favor and increasing it for items and programs his supporters favor. Witness Barack Obama, who has in his first budget has already cut defense, cut union oversight, cut abstinence education, and etc., etc. (though somehow the funding for E-Verify, bane of unions and liberals alike because it's so efficient and accurate in identifying illegals, got increased funding).

The author over at Sweetness and Light sums it up pretty well:

Defense, national security, prisons holding illegals, nuclear and coal production, farmers and those in rural areas – and anybody who might carp about his giveaways to his constituents are the ones having their funding slashed.

And this is just on-the-books funding. Think of all extra-budgetary funding for TARP and other programs that rely on conjured (i.e., printed or fake) money. And what about billions and billions every year to run Obama's new plaything, Government Motors (formerly General Motors) to proceed imaginary green cars that no one wants?

Welcome to the Great Repression (of freedom and capitalism).

Obama Billionaire Backers Nix EFCA--Surprised?

Warren Buffett, the sage of Omaha, was the first Obama-aire to come out against the EFCA (Employee Free Choice Act) and its card-check unionization. Now he's been joined by three other Obama-backing billionaires (did you realize that the Democratic Party has a much higher concentration of voters who make more than $100,000 a year than the GOP has?). The three nay-sayers all hail from Chicago.

One, Penny Pritzker, a Hyatt zillionaire, actually ran Obama's campaign finance committee, the one that racked up about $750 million (with nine-figure contributions from unions) for the presidential campaign and another $53 million just for the inauguration.

Neil Bluhm, founder of the private equity firm Walton Street Capital and gatherer of $160,000 for the Obama campaign, just says no as well, and is joined by another billionaire, Lester Crown, who runs an eponymous investment firm. Crown gave the max personal contribution allowable under the law to Obama.

What took them so long, or did they just notice Obama's true stripes?

Merging and Purging Their Way to Billions

I'm no fan of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), but the principle of organizing for better wages and benefits is a sound one--until it's abused. And union abuse is largely what doomed (along with better products from foreign competition) the so-called Big Three automakers in Detroit.

So, in unions you have a good thing in principle, and a bad thing in practice. Look at the routine corruption and power hunger at just about every union in America, and you'll see that the free pot of cash that unions blackmail out of the employees they bargain for affirms Lord Acton's observation that "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Anyway, the picture on the other side isn't any prettier. As much damage as the unions have done to industry in America, corporate chieftains have sent to their workplace graves millions of employees over the years.

Joseph Schumpeter called capitalism "creative destruction," and in any act of destruction, something is obviously destroyed--and that something in capitalism is workers' lives and livelihoods.

The sad fact is, for CEOs, destroying workers' lives through downsizing pays off big time. A study by the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy (admittedly, two left-leaning groups) shows that CEOs for the 50 companies that did the most downsizing in 2001 averaged 44-percent pay raises the next year. In fact, compensation for downsizing CEOs grew seven times faster than for CEOs in general.

The CEO for Hewlett-Packard since 2005, Mark Hurd, over the years eliminated 40,000 jobs through 31 mergers and acquisitions and reaped a cool $60 million-plus in 2008 alone. Larry Ellison of Oracle, with a personal net worth of $22.5 billion, eliminated 5,000 good jobs with his acquisition of PeopleSoft in 2005 and looks to axe another 5,000-10,000 this year through his acquisition of Sun Microsystems.

Now, to change the subject a bit and return to the plight of the Big Three: When I read over the weekend that the government would end up owning 50 percent of General Motors and the United Auto Workers most of the rest, it brought to mind this perceptive observation of Ronald Reagan's:

"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."

In the case of the Big Three, Washington and the Democrats not only ruined them with taxes but also with ridiculous regulations like CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy), which forced the automakers to build cars no Americans wanted to buy. Now with the Obamacrats owning GM, we'll end up with an American version of the Yugo--and with an automaker (or two) that will be forever subsidized by the federal government (in reality, by you, me and all the taxpayers, who will have no say whatsoever in the matter).

Reagan was and always will be right about taxes and government.

To preview GM's future, just take a gander at these Soviet-mandated cars for the masses now lying in a Russian boneyard:

Personnel Concepts' White Paper Predicts Future

Well, not quite, but Personnel Concepts--the labor law poster pioneers--has added a white papers section to its home page, and one of the featured papers looks at labor law changes coming under Barack Obama.

Prominent among the anticipated pieces of legislation is something called the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has christened "Armageddon"--the end of free enterprise in America.

EFCA, also derisively called "card check" because it enables employees to unionize simply by signing unionization cards and shunning any secret ballots, looked to be a shoe-in at the start of the Obama administration, but recently speculation has surfaced that some previous supporters are having second thoughts.

The bill is reportedly going to be introduced in the House of Representatives today. Passage in the House, which is wildly stacked in favor of the Democrats, is almost a sure thing, but the Senate--with its 60-vote cloture rule--is more iffy, and that's where the reported defections have taken place.

We'll just have to wait and see. Meanwhile, I'm sure Personnel Concepts will keep us posted.

A Liberal Economist Who Makes Sense

I actually had never heard of economist James Galbraith until I stumbled upon his testimony before Congress in an article in, of all places, Mother Jones. So you gotta figure the guy is pretty liberal, but in his testimony, he comes across as having some solid answers that the Obama team overlooks or rejects.

Actually, most of our problems--except for foreclosures--could be solved quickly and simply if we just resurrected the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Since that was a Bush initiative (see Bush, George Herbert Walker), however, the Democrats are loath to give it any credit, let alone emulate it. They'd rather let the economy go to hell and stay there--and then blame it forever on the other President Bush (see Bush, Dubya).

Meanwhile, the stock market continues to tank in the face of governmental indecision and inaction, taking with it the retirement dreams of millions of Americans. (Will they still vote for Obama if their savings remain wiped out for years--or forever?)

Anyway, back to Mr. Galbraith. He actually broaches an RTC-type solution in his testimony.

Galbraith sees no alternative to putting "several very big banks" that are "deeply troubled" into receivership, breaking them up, firing existing management, and selling them in parts or relaunching them as "multiple mid-sized institutions."

So RTC-ish.

Galbraith also tackles the foreclosure problem on two fronts. The first front is to establish a modern version of the New Deal's Home Owners Loan Corporation. Since the New Deal, to me, was nothing but a complete failure and only exacerbated the depression, I'm not sure about that idea, but his other idea has merit. He proposes having the government buy up all foreclosed homes and renting them back to their foreclosed owners, even with the option of future repurchase. This would at least keep the housing stock from further deteriorating. (Of course, this is not something you could do retroactively either.)

In sum, it's refreshing to find an economist, especially a liberal one, with solutions that hold promise. Now, I wish I could say the same for Obama's twin pillars of indecision, Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers. Then again, it's probably the unrealistic expectations that Obama and his liberal operators place on the whole economic dialogue that leads to the indecision in the first place.

After all, the head man and his team are still looking for that magic wand to wave over the economy--and health care--that will make all the problems disappear while a pile of loot arises magically from the top five percent of taxpayers in America. More likely, "Rome burns while...."

Stimulus: $789B, But Just 18.5 Percent* for Jobs

I just went through the list of items covered in the final version of the stimulus plan (so called) and added up all the sums that were targeted at projects that could actually lead to jobs. I came up with $146.2 billion, which figures out to be 18.5 percent of the whole pie. The rest goes to what could be called the welfare state.

The implication here is pretty obvious: The Democrats decided to expand their favorite federal programs (some implemented by the states with fed dollars) while masquerading the whole thing as a "job-creating" stimulus package.

The question remains whether the targeted projects will "create or save" three million jobs (I also heard that Obama had raised that promised figure to four million). I've got a feeling that the $146.2 will just go to support unionized workers who are already working. At any rate, how does one prove that something "saves" four million jobs.

Here are the areas where money will be spent on job-creating or -saving projects: 1) Create a new "smart" power grid (to replace our current "dumb" one, I guess), $30 billion; 2) Repair and make energy efficient public housing, $6.3 billion; 3) Extend broadband services, $7 billion (again, does this create or save jobs?); 4) Implement electronic health records (EHRs), $19 billion; 5) Modernize roads and bridges, $29 billion; 6) Improve public transit and rail, $16.4 billion; 7) Restore lean water and modernize flood control, $18 billion; and 8) Modernize federal and public buildings, $9.5 billion (again, already-existing union workers who will now get triple-time).

I guess that's why White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel warned early on that "this is no time to waste a good crisis."

*N.B.: I loosely included the health IT's portion, $19 billion, but as I further thought about it, this really doesn't create any jobs; it just goes to buy equipment and services that are already available. If I delete this sum, the total going to "jobs" is reduced to $127.2, or 16 percent.

Obama Plays the Exec Order Cat-and-Mouse Game

Nothing new here, as both Democrats and Republicans do it. When Dubya came to office, he reversed Clintonian mandates, and now Barack Obama has taken a few swipes at George W. and his executive orders.

First, under the Rahm Emanuel rule, all government agencies have been forced to place on hold any directives that hadn't taken hold by Jan. 20, inauguration day of the new administration.

This has affected important labor issues such as the E-Verify system and the change in documentation for employment verification. You can read about these in the News Alerts section of Personnel Concepts.

This past Friday, Obama wielded his pen to crack the union code, or rather the Bushian anti-union code, by reversing some Bush decrees.

One reversal told federal contractors they could not (as in DON'T) post notifications of workers' rights to withhold the portion of their union dues that go to political activity. A second mandated that federal contractors could not use federal payments to support or oppose unionization efforts (the thrust here is obvious since no employer would bother to pay for pro-union activities). The third ukase forces successor government contractors to offer jobs first (only?) to workers employed by the predecessor contractor.

All three edicts reverse Bush, who reversed Clinton, who was either original in these or reversed the elder Bush. Either way, you get the idea--and we all get to pay for their caprice when things backfire or produce unintended consequences.

President to Sign Ledbetter Fair Pay Act Today

No doubt emblematic of his entire time in office, President Barack Obama will sign his first piece of legislation today--a labor law that overturns a Bush-era Supreme Court decision.

Lilly Ledbetter, who was the subject of that Supreme Court ruling, will be there when Obama inks the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law.

The legislation reverses the court's decision in the Ledbetter case that the 180-day statute of limitations on pay discrimination cases starts ticking when the initial decision is made to pay unfairly. The Fair Pay Act amends the 1964 Civil Rights Act and mandates that the statute starts ticking again every time a paycheck is issued to the victim.

(Pay discrimination is defined as an employee's being paid less for the substantially same job and same set of job responsibilities, figuring in length of service, etc., based on age, race, gender and factors besides experience.)

Opponents fear that this will just open up the spigot for lawyers to march an endless stream of employees into court and win two years of backwardly adjusted pay.

They're probably right.

N.B.: Catch this, the law is worded to "take effect as if enacted on May 28, 2007." This is curious for a couple of reasons. First, I believe there's a Constitutional ban on ex post facto laws (backdated laws), and this date is one day before the Supreme Court heard the Ledbetter case. Evidently, it's been so written to enable Lilly to go back to the Supreme Court and reopen her case. If so, I hope the court rules that the start date is unconstitutional.

A Compassionate People We Ain't, Maybe...

Or it could be that the spirit of Howard Jarvis (California's infamous Proposition 13 tax measure author) lives on in most Americans.

I came across a great survey done this past October about health care reform in the U.S., conducted by Deloitte LLC, which showed that only 25 percent of the public favors higher taxes to provide health insurance for the uninsured while 43 percent are outright opposed. The rest are labeled "mixed" or "lukewarm."

The survey also found that 63 percent oppose an individual mandate forcing all people to have health insurance either through work or on their own, while 53 percent favor an employer mandate. Finally (there's more but you can hit the link above to read it), two out of three said health care would be a prime factor in their presidential vote.

(Two-thirds also opposed evidence-based medicine, which means they didn't understand the concept or they saw right through it and realized it's just a code term for rationing. I hope the latter is the case.)

Reading through the results, I concluded (but I had this opinion before reading the survey, to be honest) that the American public still believes that somehow Obama et al. can create a health care system that is free while offering freedom of choice and quick access.

If pipes can dream, then that's what they'll get, but show me that pipe dreaming first.