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.

Recovery in Slow Motion at Republic Windows

I somehow bought into what turns out to be a bunch of hype about the reacquisition and reopening of Republic Windows and Doors in an earlier post.

Veep Joe Biden, not one to shy away from spinning tales if not outright lying, even ventured to Chicago to grandstand in front of the Goose Island factory and caw on and on about the great victory of the stimulus plan in resurrecting Republic Windows and Doors. Of course, his grinning mug was then splashed all over the media, promoting and prolonging the hype that the factory would soon be back in operation with all 250 workers back on board.

Turns out that it's true that a California firm, Serious Materials, did indeed buy Republic Windows and Doors (read the story of its closing), and did promise to hire back the laid-off workers to get everything in full swing by May or June.

Those months have passed, and now it's almost August. At last count, about 15 former employees had been rehired while the factory sits mostly idle.

Serious Materials was--and is--gambling on a part of the Obamian stimulus plan that targeted money toward weatherization, which in turn would (Serious hoped/hopes) materialize in orders for green windows and doors from Republic.

Was Serious just being too optimistic? Time will tell, but you can read the full story here.

Meanwhile, I'm kicking myself in the butt for not doing my due diligence when the hype-filled story first appeared. I should've known that, if Joe Biden took credit for something, it was a pile of made-up manure to begin with.

Igor At It Again--Develops Own Health Plan

This guy Igor, who's produced the only known copy of Obama's birth certificate, has now solved the health care riddle with his own plan.

Go and get a good dose of reality with "Obama Care v. Igor Care."

To Save Their Factory, They Had to Destroy It

Or some such reasoning, if such a thing (reasoning) can be said to apply to French workers and politics.

I've blogged before about how terminated French employees will often hold their bosses hostage until a more suitable severance package is offered. As it turns out, "more suitable" has now been defined as 30,000 euros ($53,000) and hostage-taking has been replaced by explosive-wielding-and-threatening, to wit:

A French construction equipment plant owned by U.S.-based Oshkosh Corporation has agreed to boost severance packages for laid-off workers who threatened to blow up machinery, employers say. While only 53 workers are affected, each was guaranteed up to 30,000 euros ($53,000) in severance pay. The incident occurred during a week in which unions at three different French factories used threats of explosions to get their complaints heard.

In other such violent encounters, as at this one, French police refused to intervene.

If Obama and the laborcrats get their way, this is what America will soon be like, except here you can expect the bombs will actually be exploded.

Michael Moore Was Right: Card Check Was a Ruse

Mockumentarian and far-left spokesperson Michael Moore was right in saying several months ago that you could strip card check from the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) and still have businesses where you want them--on their knees and begging government to bail them out.

That's because the mandatory arbitration clause in EFCA lives on without card check, and it's those faceless bureaucrats running arbitration who are the unions' best friend. They'll be more than happy to split the difference between a 3,000-percent pay raise demand and a 3-percent pay raise offer--and come up with 30 percent or more.

That's why it's not surprising that the Democrats pushing EFCA are now more than willing to jettison card check and instead mandate elections within five or ten days of getting 30 percent of employees to sign up for a union. That's the current state of "compromise" in the Senate. Card check, it turns out, was just a Trojan Horse to get contracts dictated by bureaucrats to Mom-and-Pop businesses, to say nothing of the ultimate goal, the total take-down of Wal-Mart.

"First, Detroit, and now Benton, Arkansas" may as well be the union battle cry.

They won't stop until there is no private enterprise left--and government runs everything.

Oh, sad, sad day.

AHRQ Proves that Cold Weather Cures...

...the health care system anyway.

In its just-released comparative study on health care quality in the 50 states, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) ranks most states as average, but those few that came in as strong seemed to be--from my unscientific review of the data--located in the northernmost midsection of our nation.

Specifically, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa were deemed as having "strong" quality health care. Massachusetts slipped into the category too, which of course will have liberals shouting that "See, health care reform [socialization] works!" (Actually, Massachusetts has always had an advanced health care system even before Commonwealth Care, which may well end up destroying it.)

It also appeared almost axiomatic that the bigger the state, the worse the health care. Also, Sunbelt States didn't pan out too well either.

I'm doomed.