Pelosi: Oil companies should pay royalties [“They’re taking your oil without paying any royalties.”] Interesting - the Dims consider it to be the People’s oil, but all the earnings of the same people is subject to confiscatory taxation because it is really the Gubmint’s money...
Health care reform may have receded slightly as a campaign issue this year, as focus shifts to even more immediate concerns like the cost of filling our cars with gas. Although a bad employment picture can cost some Americans their health care coverage, it may also be true that the goal of guaranteeing coverage to every American sounds more like a luxury and less like a moral imperative during bad times.
Nonetheless health care reform remains a central issue this year, as it should, given that the election of Barack Obama would likely pave the way for socialized medicine in this country.
In her Sunday Examiner editorial, Sally Pipes demonstrates how tragic this development would be. She does so by comparing the health care outcomes in leading nations that have adopted forms of socialized medicine -- with the accompanying restrictions on access to doctors, hospitals, medical procedures and drugs -- and health care outcomes in the U.S. For example:
According to an August 2008 study published in Lancet Oncology, the renowned British medical journal, Americans have a better than five-year survival rate for 13 of the 16 most prominent cancers when compared with their European and Canadian counterparts.With breast cancer, for instance, the survival rate among American women is 83.9 percent. For women in Britain, it’s just 69.7 percent. For men with prostate cancer, the survival rate is 91.9 percent here but just 73.7 percent in France and 51.1 percent in Britain.
American men and women are more than 35 percent more likely to survive colon cancer than their British counterparts.
It’s no wonder then that foreign dignitaries living in countries with socialized health care systems routinely come to this country when they need top-flight medical treatment.
When Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi needed heart surgery in 2006, he traveled to the Cleveland Clinic — often considered America’s best hospital for cardiac care. When Canadian Member of Parliament Belinda Stronach, who had denounced a two-tier health care system for Canadians, needed breast cancer surgery herself in 2007, she headed to a California hospital and paid out of pocket.
So much for the “free” health care they could have received at home.
But what about the cost advantages of socialized medicine? According to Pipes, the are "illusory":
True, other developed nations may spend less on health care as a percentage of gross domestic product than the United States does — but so does Sudan. Without considering value, such statistical evaluations are worthless.And one of the primary reasons health care costs more in America is that we are a wealthy country that demands the best. And, we’re investing a lot more in medical research.
The United States produces over half of the $175 billion in health care technology products purchased globally. In 2004, the federal government funded medical research to the tune of $18.4 billion. By contrast, the European Union — which has a significantly larger population than the United States — allocated funds equal to just $3.7 billion for medical research.
Between 1999 and 2005, the United States was responsible for 71 percent of the sales of new pharmaceutical drugs. The next two largest pharmaceutical markets — Japan and Germany — account for just 4 percent each.
Pipes concludes:
While no one can deny that there are significant problems in the American health care system, overall it provides exceptional value. The ideologues who claim we’d be better off under socialized medicine are massively wrong. Government-run health care has proven to be heartless and uncaring — and the inferior treatments it provides come with a very steep price tag.
The Democratic convention is getting underway, and so far the focus has been on all the wrong places. A crowd of demonstrators has showed up, marched around Denver, confronted policemen, and generally made fools of themselves:
The invaluable Zombie has much more:
I keep wondering when the voters are going to start noticing that the Left has gone stark raving mad.
The world of show business has united almost monolithically behind Barack Obama, but he might want to consider asking Madonna to get off his team. The McCain campaign denounced her yesterday for including in her stage show, which is just beginning a world tour, a video that linked McCain with Adolf Hitler and Robert Mugabe, while grouping Barack Obama with Gandhi, Al Gore and John Lennon.
It remains to be seen how much play the demonstrators will get over the next four days, but the danger to Obama's campaign is real. From the Democrats' perspective, the demonstrators' slogan, "Recreate '68," is ominous. In that year, chaos outside the convention hall--and, to a lesser degree, inside--branded the Democrats the party of weakness and disorder. If the same thing happens this year, neither Obama nor Joe Biden is the sort of candidate to reassure nervous voters.
The other craziness surrounding the convention, of course, involves the Clintons. Bill Clinton is the Democrats' only successful Presidential candidate in the last 32 years. That gives him a unique status in the party, and he and Hillary have made it clear that they don't intend to exit the stage quietly. Here is how Michael Ramirez sees the Dems' convention shaping up:
A number of the Clintons' top advisers are refusing even a pretense of unity and have announced that they will leave Denver without staying for Obama's acceptance speech:
Clinton will deliver her speech Tuesday night. She will hold a private meeting with her top financial supporters Wednesday at noon, and will thank her delegates at an event that afternoon. Former president Bill Clinton will speak that night. Several of Hillary Clinton's supporters are then planning to leave town. Among them, Terry McAuliffe, Clinton's campaign chairman, and longtime supporters Steve Rattner and Maureen White.
Congressional Quarterly thinks the rails may be starting to come off for the Democrats:
The Democratic convention now teeters on the brink of a media disaster thanks to real news that threatens to distract reporters from the scripted show.And wouldn't you know, it's all about the Clintons. ... With more than enough to fuel the storyline about a rift between Barack Obama and the Clintons on the convention's opening day, the media frenzy is on.
Polls showing restlessness among Clinton voters. Behind-the-scenes reports of arguments about the theme of Bill Clinton's speech later this week. A Wisconsin Clinton delegate endorsing John McCain in a television advertisement. And more.
How did this happen? Many factors are in play. But central to the apparent breakdown was Hillary Rodham Clinton's failure to publicly and forcefully dispel the notion that she was snubbed by Obama's failure to vet her as a running mate.
All of which has the McCain campaign in high spirits. It would, of course, be terrific if the Democratic convention turns into a fiasco, whether because of the the Clintons, the demonstrators, rain on Thursday night, radical speeches from the podium by Jimmy Carter or others, or any combination of the above. But that isn't likely to happen. Once the real event gets going, the television networks will help the Obama campaign get things back on track. Realistically, the best the Republicans can hope for is that Obama's "bounce" from the convention is minimal.
LOADS OF PHOTOS from the DNC protests, with more to come.
IT MUST BE BECAUSE THEY'RE RACIST! USA Today: Poll: More than half of Clinton backers still not sold on Obama. Who knew the Democratic party still had so many anti-black members?
Barron's: 'It's Almost as if Obama Wants to Repeat the Mistakes of Herbert Hoover'
Obama Campaign Threatens Jihad Against TV Stations That Air Weathermen Ad
Live from DNC: Obama Says Gays ‘Crucial’ to Democratic Victory
Yep, just two quaint, seventy-ish old batchelors, trying to tend a garden, in the sunset of their lives...