Originally published July 27, 2010
In order to make Obamacare a perfect copy of England's National Health Service, the president recently appointed Dr. Donald Berwick to preside over Medicare and Medicaid. Berwick, an enthusiastic proponent of wealth distribution, is also quoted as saying "I'm romantic about the NHS. I love it. She is such a seductress."
Which is why it's both ironic and frightening that the U.K. has just announced that it will soon be slashing and rationing even basic medical services - especially for the elderly and dying - because their healthcare system is economically unsustainable. Among the money-saying changes:
• Reduction in hip and knee replacements for the elderly.
• Reduction in cataract surgery, orthopedic surgery, and over 50 other common procedures.
• Slash care for the terminally ill, and offer them no pain management services on evenings or weekends.
• Close nursing homes for the elderly.
• Reduce treatment for the mentally ill, and penalize doctors who refer such patients.
• Reduce medical staff and number of hospital beds.
• Send patients home to die.
One expert is appalled that the revised healthcare plans "attempt to save money by leaving people in pain," and declared that it is “incredibly cruel to draw up savings plans based on denying care to the dying."
What's that, Dr. Berwick? There are Death Panels in your beloved National Health Service?
Apparently the seductress is also an executioner.
Update 4/30/2011
Today's cartoon from the vault offers a tip of the hat to jolly olde England on the heels of the Royal Wedding and reminds us that even though the United States lacks a monarchy, Obamacare promises to give us all a Royal Screwing.
Besides the ubiquitous waivers that the alleged president (we'll continue calling him that despite the birth certificate, as we're still not 100% satisfied that Hawaii is a real state) has handed out to political cronies and lobbyist-connected businesses, the Obama administration has just okayed $6.7 billion in temporary payments to Medicare Advantage plans...even though Obamacare specifically seeks to eliminate those plans. But why?
The answer is that if those very popular plans are ended, as Obamacare demands, senior citizens will get angry and show their resentment at the polls. So by artificially keeping those programs alive, Mr. Obama gets another 2 years (or, God help us, 6 years) to get Obamacare so deeply ingrained in our system that it will be impossible to remove.
At which point, seniors with serious medical conditions will be given a jolly "pip-pip, cheerio" from our UK-style health system as they're sent home to die.
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With all of the hubbub over Barack Obama's alleged birth certificate, the mainstream media has largely overlooked all of the latest good economic news for America. Assuming that, like a buzzard, your definition of "good" is synonymous with "sun-baked, maggot-infested roadkill."
The International Monetary Fund has just announced that they expect America's declining economy to take a backseat to that of China in just 5 years. The implications are huge and are well summarized by saying that, in an economic sense, the "Age of America" will be over on the world stage.
Combine that with Standard & Poor's recent decision to downgrade America's economic outlook from "Stable" to "Negative," and say there's a 1-in-3 chance that the United States will lose its AAA borrowing rating within 2 years.
Economic growth has dropped to 1.8% and inflation is rising, causing the cost of everything to rise.
Meanwhile, the actual value of the dollar drops every day while Tim Geithner keeps the printing presses busy spitting out imaginary money and shrugs off the insanity of raising the debt ceiling yet again.
So now that Barack Obama has produced proof of citizenship, we think America is overdue to see him produce some proof of leadership.
But despite the maggot-infested roadkill, we won't be holding our breath.
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Following the release of a poll that showed only 38% of Americans were sure he was born in the United States, and the dogged questions of Donald Trump (who has spent millions to prevent anyone from seeing his actual hairline), the alleged Barack Barry Hussein Soetoro Obama II finally displayed his long-form birth certificate yesterday.
Well, a copy of his long-form birth certificate.
Okay, a copy of a possible abstract of his long-form birth certificate.
And it seems like such an innocuous and boring document that people are wondering why it was withheld for so long. After all, there's nothing embarrassing in it, is there?
Granted, it specifies that his parents didn't live on a plantation, which sounds a bit funky to anyone who isn't familiar with Hawaii's third-world culture and sweltering fields filled with spiritual-singing ukelele pluckers.
And it shows that the last date that his teenaged mother worked was, well, never. And that his father's "usual occupation," at age 25, was student...although it might have been more accurate to describe his "usual occupation" as bigamist and kiddy diddler.
Still, the release of this impressive and at least conceivably authentic document should be enough to finally get people to drop questions about whether or not Mr. Obama is American and get back to the more important questions.
Like why he's anti-American.
Without little inky footprints, we'll still never know his number of toes.
