Government Health Care Leads To Shortages

In April of this year the world was hit with a flu virus and it spread rapidly. The Swine flu (H1N1 variant) struck late in the year and was fairly mild. Concern over the virus reemerging during flu season and being even stronger led to rapid production of a swine flu vaccine. The private industry that developed the vaccine and got it to market quickly is to be commended. The efficacy and safety of the vaccine are a different issue (last time there was a rush the vaccine killed more people than the flu) and the decision to get it is one that should be made between a patient and a doctor. Suffice it to say that the private industry responded quickly.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius told us that there was plenty of vaccine, the government is distributing it, and that everyone who wants it will be able to get it. Sounds good so far.

The problem is, government is involved in getting it out and ensuring that everyone who wants it, gets it. There are now regional shortages of the vaccine and there is concern that it will not be available in time to be effective. There is a possibility that by the time some are vaccinated (or have the opportunity to be vaccinated) they will have gotten the flu or the threat will have passed.

Remember, the government is in charge of this. The same people who want to take over the health care system and run every aspect of it are not able to distribute a flu vaccine.

Someone on TV (I can’t remember who) said that he believes that Sebelius has the safety of our children in mind but it is not at the top of her list. The person said it might be number two but her number one thought is “Please don’t let this be our Katrina.”

That is probably accurate. The government is showing that it is not very efficient at the small task of distributing vaccine (it is small compared to running health care) but it expects us to believe it will be able to run all of health care. The Obama administration wants this to go well so that it can crow like a rooster about how well it did and that the government is capable of handling our health care. The reality is that the administration is failing in the mission it took on.

It is true that there are shortages of the seasonal flu vaccine each year but then again no one tells us that there is enough for every man, woman, or child who wants it. In the case if H1N1, the government assured us there is enough for everyone

We have already seen plans for a state government to ration care in the event of a severe flu outbreak. Those plans call for those in certain categories (like those with terminal cancer) to be denied care. That is how government run health care works everywhere it is tried.

The vaccine distribution is strike two in government’s latest attempt to demonstrate it can handle health care (it struck out with Medicare a long time ago).

In baseball, three strikes and you are out. Let us hope that the third strike of government is not demonstrated by failure after it passes a complete health care overhaul. Because then we will be the ones who lose.

Oppose the government takeover of our health care. It will add to the deficit, it will not cover everyone (which they said they would do) and it will lead to poor service and rationing.

Then again, if their ineptitude leads to a huge number of deaths they will be able to save some money.

ObaMao wants complete control and the health care takeover is one big way in which he will do it.

Wake up America.

Related Articles:
Suozzi lashes out at Feds, state over flu vaccine shortages
Swine Flu Vaccine: Enough to Go Around?
Swine Flu Vaccine: Too Little, Too Late?
H1N1 Running Rampant Amid Shortage of Vaccine
U.S. Faces Swine Flu Vaccine Shortage

Remember, they said we have enough. So, how are there shortages?

UPDATE: Illinois is denying the vaccine to the elderly who are not in the government’s target group. Vaccines canceled in parts of Illinois. [Thanks to Mike Radigan]

Big Dog

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The Stimulus And Jobs; A Visual Tutorial

Joe Biden was on Meet the Press where he said this about the failing stimulus:

Biden tells “Meet the Press” that “everyone guessed wrong” on the impact of the stimulus, economy was worse off than anyone thought.

Isn’t it nice to know the supposed leaders are guessing about how things will be? I know that much of what happens is based upon predictions and supporters are quick to point that out (since a prediction is an educated guess). They seem to have problems with reconciling the issue of what Obama said would happen with the Stimulus and what would happen without. While I realize jobs lag in any recovery, it was not I who said I would create or “save” so many jobs by certain points in time by spending nearly a trillion dollars.

Seems to me if you are going to spend that much money you really ought to have better people making the predictions. Obama predicted we would be at a certain place at a certain time and we are not there. Biden ducked that issue; “[Biden] Backs away from the estimate that the funds could create or save 3.5 million jobs, instead promises 600,000 by the end of the summer.”

Here is a video that shows this with training aids, for those who learn better that way:

Please feel free to comment (a penny for your thoughts…)

Source:
Time
Big Dog Salute to Stop the ACLU

Big Dog

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Ironies And Gall Surround Obama

It is interesting to watch the MEssiah as he goes about his business because he is a complete contradiction to what he presented during the campaign. I believe that if he had discussed all this spending and had actually said what he was going to do he would never have won. The guy is hailed as a gifted speaker but as soon as he is away from a teleprompter he stutters and stammers and sounds like the years of drug abuse affected the speech center of his brain.

I think it is like watching a folly and it would be rather amusing if it were not so potentially fatal. His policies and his aggressive, steamrolling tactics are sending us down the path to hell.

Look at the irony of Obama and his cronies coming after those who don’t pay their taxes. Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal report that Obama is putting together a panel to overhaul the tax system so that they can get the 300 billion dollars that is not paid as it should be. Does it strike anyone as ironic that this statement is made?

“There are hundreds of billions of dollars in uncollected taxes each year,” Orszag said in a conference call. The Volcker board “will be examining ways of being even more aggressive on reducing the tax gap.” [Bloomberg]

The irony is that Tim Geithner was not the one who made the statement, Orszag was. Is it because Geithner was one of the tax cheats the overhaul is looking to detect? How ironic is it that Obama wants to go after tax cheats when the guy he picked to run Treasury is a tax cheat? How ironic is it that Charlie Rangel is a major tax cheat and is not being aggressively investigated? Obama wants new rules to crack down on YOU while the Democrats are full of tax cheats. How many of this guy’s picks had to bow out because of some tax problem?

It is amazing. It is like having a doctor who smokes tell you to give up cigarettes because they are bad for you or your pastor telling you to be faithful to your swife while he is having an affair. It is just wrong, it is hypocritical, and it is unmitigated gall.

I believe everyone should pay their fair share of taxes but I think members of government should be beyond reproach and this bunch is anything but.

Look at Obama’s press conference last night. I told you this guy would continue to blame Bush for as long as he could. It is interesting that he continues to blame Bush for the bad stuff but takes credit for the good stuff. If something good happens in Iraq we never hear Obama say that George Bush is responsible.

No, instead Obama will go on national TV and LIE. He said he inherited a 1.3 trillion dollar deficit. That is an absolute lie. Forgetting for a moment that Congress controls the purse strings, let’s look at the deficit numbers. At Gateway Pundit there is a chart that shows the deficit under Bush was slightly over 400 billion dollars at its highest point. The projected deficits for Obama are over a trillion dollars for the first two years and never drop below about 600 billion. The projection out to 2019 is just as bleak.

The numbers are only public debt and don’t include government to government debt or the numbers for everyone are enormous. Obama was lying when he said what he did or he was using a different set of numbers in order to make his case. The information comes from the Heritage Foundation and they report that Obama has quadrupled the debt with his stimulus package.

Obama also defended his reduction of the charitable contribution tax deductions for wealthier Americans saying that it would not lead to less money being donated basing this on some kind of evidence. I don’t really know what plant he hails from but on Earth the opposite has been demonstrated. As pointed out at Just One Minute (from a 2005 analysis):

The authors compile and contrast the results of a vast number of studies looking at the interplay of tax rates and charitable giving. Although people have many motivations for their philanthropy the conclusion of almost all of these studies points in the same direction – on net people give less when it costs them more.

Maybe on Krypton that is not a problem but on Earth people, even those who are very charitable, don’t give as much if it will cost them more. The Obama plan is a disincentive to give but then again, why would a liberal understand charity? It isn’t like they actually give much…

Finally, the lynch mob has taken its toll on one AIG executive. The New York Times published the letter of resignation of Jake DeSantis. Be sure to read his entire letter. The guy worked for a $1 a year based on the bonus that AIG was legally obligated to pay. Now Congress wants to take 90% of it as a punishment for a guy who had nothing to do with the problems and who stayed on to help.

I see more of these coming. In the end AIG will fail and we will be on the hook for billions of dollars. If we had let them fail in September we could have saved that money.

Big Dog

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Carville Wanted Bush To Fail

There has been an ongoing debate here about the idea that a group of people would want any president to fail. The liberals have taken offense to Rush Limbaugh saying he wanted Obama to fail. They claim that the left did not feel this way about Bush and only “called” him a failure after he actually (in their minds) failed. When I pointed to a Fox poll that asked whether the respondent wanted Bush to succeed in which 51% of Democrats said “no”, I was told that it was a poll taken 5 years after he was in office and that the poll is different than a major figurehead saying the same thing. Randy, a likable commenter stated:

So, 193 people polled, almost five years after George W. Bush took office hoped he didn’t succeed. That is a lot different than a major figurehead of folks identifying as conservatives saying about the President-Elect, “I hope he fails” before the man is even sworn into office.

September 11th, 2001 was only 8 months after Bush took office. We will remember it as a terrible day that changed America forever. Well, the right will. The left keeps trying to get back to pre 9/11.

On the morning of 9/11, James Carville talking to a group of reporters and told them; “I certainly hope he doesn’t succeed.” For those on the left, this is the same as saying; “I hope he fails.”

Carville is a major player for the Democrats. He is a strategist, a pollster and a pundit. He is on all the talk shows and he is very far left. This major player said that he wanted Bush to fail.

Right after Carville told the reporters this they all received word of the attacks. Carville told them to forget what he said because this [the attacks] changes everything. Carville knew if they printed that he wanted Bush to fail the timing would be bad and it would not look good. Think of how it would have looked if this came out along with the stories of the attacks.

Then again, it probably would not matter to the left. During that time unrepentant terrorist William Ayers gave an interview (I think it hit the stands on 9/11) in which he stated that his group did not do enough [terror] and the article featured a picture of him jumping on an American flag. The left ignored this and continued to ignore it even though Ayers and Obama are buddies.

The reporters did as they were told and did not print Carville’s desire for Bush to fail. But the fact is, he said it and it is no different than what Limbaugh said.

I know this story has already circulated but I wanted to address Randy’s comment and the comments of others who think the Democrats would never do such a thing.

The funny thing about this is that Carville is one of the talking heads who chastised Limbaugh for saying he wanted Obama to fail. This is another example of the hypocrisy of the left.

Big Dog

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Auto Bailout Fails, Moonbats Come Unhinged

The plan to provide the US auto industry a bailout (bridge loans) failed last night when the Senate could not muster enough Republican support to get the bill through. I am glad the bill failed because taxpayer money should not be spent propping up companies. They are private businesses and they should succeed or fail on their own. The foreign companies that manufacture cars in the US are doing much better than the Big Three and at least part of that has to do with the companies having more affordable labor because the labor pool is not unionized.

Many years ago the foreign auto makers (particularly the Japanese) made terrible products. They got good gas mileage but they were not very good cars. Detroit was putting out better products (but they used a lot of gas) and the companies were making money hand over fist. During this time the unions made a number of demands and the companies capitulated. When the union started talking about strikes they got what they wanted because the company needed the labor to keep making huge sums of money. The union labor costs the companies about $70 per hour when wages and benefits are figured in. This is 20 or 30 dollars more than non union companies.

Over the years, the Japanese started making better cars (as did other countries) and they eventually took a bite out of the US business. The Big Three still account for about 50% of sales in our country but they are selling fewer cars and they take a beating because they cannot compete on cost. The foreign companies make more money because it costs them less to produce their products. The companies now have huge union overhead but much less income. The problem is, the union hates to make concessions.

The Republicans in the Senate wanted the union workers to take an hourly wage cut. Since they get great benefits the cut would not be as bad as it might for workers in other industries that pay a higher share of the benefit costs. The union said they would take a pay cut but not until 2011, when their current contract is up for renegotiation. This is unacceptable because the problem is NOW. They were willing to wait until 2011 because they feel the economy will have rebounded and they could negotiate for higher wages and never have had to suffer the cut. The Republicans want the cut now. Besides, if the Democrats pass card check the non union companies might be unionized by then and they will all be paid inflated wages.

As one might expect, the moonbats have become unhinged. Christopher Dodd railed about how it was going to hurt the working class and that it was wrong to keep the companies from getting the money. Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm said that it was un-American for the Senators to vote against the bailout and Michael Moron said that the blood sucking Republicans stuck it to the Blue Collar workers while discussing all the ways the government could have voted to fix this problem. These ideas were expressed earlier by him when he opined that the government should buy the auto companies and run them. Michael also expressed his outrage at the idea that Wall Street was bailed out but not the workers as he intimated that the Republicans were only interested in helping the wealthy. Barney Frank weighed in but does he have any credibility left?

Dodd did not care about the middle class when he was helping his criminal friends enact laws that caused the financial meltdown and made them very rich. Governor Granholm thinks it is un-American for our government to stay out of private business when it is truly un-American (and extremely Socialist) for the government to get involved in private business and that includes buying private businesses. Michael Moron is a Socialist so he would like to see that happen. As for blood sucking, the union blood suckers have been bleeding the companies dry for decades and now they are paying for their own greed. Certainly management has a lot to do with the demise of the companies but the union is just as guilty. The foreign companies seem to be doing better with lower wages and they still seem to be turning a profit. Perhaps the lack of union overhead is the difference.

More than 50% of the country does not want to see the auto makers bailed out. An even larger percentage did not want to see Wall Street bailed out. That did not stop them from doing it and that might have cost some on election day. The reality is, the money does not belong to the government. It is taxpayer money and it is the duty of government to spend it wisely. It does not matter what Michael Moron or Governor Granholm think because it is not their money to spend and it is not government’s to spend. It is money that has been confiscated from hard working people who cannot be put in a job pool receiving 95% of their wages when there is no work like the UAW workers can (Moore thinks it is bad they had to give this practice up). It is typical of liberals to want to pay people not to work and job banks are no different than welfare except the pay is better. One Chrysler employee spent his time with no work on the beach in Hawaii.

The screams from the moonbats are now in the direction of George Bush. They want him to intervene and use the financial bailout money to help the auto industry. That money was not intended to be used to bailout the auto industry but they want Bush to use it for that and he is considering doing just that. For eight years moonbats called Bush the dumbest man on the planet and they criticized everything he did. Now they want him to use his wisdom to find a way to fix the auto industry by circumventing the law. I would not be surprised if they investigated him for it when all is said and done.

The auto companies should make it or break it on their own. If they go under and people lose their jobs it will be rough but that is what happens in business, especially when the business is saddled with high labor costs and government mandates to build cars people do not want (who really wants an electric car that only gets 40 miles on a charge).

It is not up to government to meddle in private business. We need to get back to having them do what they are supposed to do under the Constitution and nothing more but FWIW, I don’t think there will be rioting if the bailout somehow succeeds as Senator DeMint does.

I am no Constitutional scholar but I am sure that Dodd, Moore, Frank and Granholm will not find anything in the Constitution that allows the government to involve itself in private business.

Big Dog