By Kelly L. Goodridge and Oscar De Los Santos

OK finds it hard not to feel that we’re in survival mode.  Each day spent under President Barack Hussein Obama’s rule makes it clearer that our right to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness and property are no longer safe.   We’ve attended TEA Parties, local conservative events, called and written our senators, congressmen and Supreme Court justices.  We’ve supported conservative authors, written dozens of essays – and yet, the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives still passed its unconstitutional health care legislation Saturday night (October 7, 2009).

Call it anything you like – the House Health Care Bill, ObamaCare, Pelosi’s Health Plan or Communist Health Care – the bill is another government power grab that will further shrink our freedom and yield more debts and dead.

Pelosi’s 1900-page boondoggle insures that we lose our ability to decide whom we choose for our doctors and the care and treatments we’d like to receive.  With its massive baggage – 111 new government bureaucracies, steep cost, taxes, stiff penalties for those who don’t buy it, death panels, and coverage of illegal aliens – the bill promises more government control over our lives.  It also proves that Joe “You Lie” Wilson and Sarah Palin were right about everything they feared would be included in the bill.

Incredibly, some health care articles report that the bill also offers paybacks to unions and AARP and tax breaks for homosexuals.  And we know that small business owners will be slammed with penalties for not covering their employees.

The Democrats’ plan treads all over the Constitution, which does not give Congress the right to implement such legislation.  The bill also promises an unsustainable federal government.  Yet, it appears this is Obama’s plan – to turn our great country toward socialism.

Obama on Saturday called TEA party and town hall meeting attendees “teabag anti-government people” and “extremists" (The New York Times, November 7, 2009).  His using a slang sexual term for concerned American citizens underscores his penchant for crude Chicago-style bully tactics.  He’s right about being anti-government, though.  We’re anti- the form of government that Obama, his communist-loving czars and greedy Democrat socialist politicians are dishing out.

Obama took an oath to honor the Constitution of the United States of America, but he continues to demonstrate a lack of love for this country and its citizens.  His behavior after being informed of the Ft. Hood massacre – giving a "shout out” to someone in the Tribal Nations Conference audience and speaking in a light-hearted manner before discussing the attack – is as wrong-headed as his stubborn insistence that our nation is clamoring for socialized health care.

The health care bill’s clearing the House moves us ever closer to Communism.  Let’s hope that Senate conservatives stay their course and kill the bill. Otherwise, the most radical health care revision since Medicare will go into effect and clamp a tighter chokehold on our already suffocating American freedoms.

By Kelly L. Goodridge and Oscar De  Los Santos

Pelosi’s Bill: More Sludge in the D.C. Swamp

Yesterday (Oct. 29), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) praised Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) and Maxine Waters (D-CA) for their help in determining the finances and taxes that will be levied in the new souped-up 1900-page health care bill.  This “Affordable Health Care for America Act” (or H.R .3962) bill has been debated for months. It is a perfect example of liberal lunacy and promises reneged.

Pelosi’s “gargantuan beast of a bill” contains 13 new tax hikes (“Comprehensive List of Taxes in the House Democrat Bill,” atr.org, October 30, 2009). Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) points out, “One thing is clear. Your concerns about a government takeover of health care have been totally ignored by Speaker Pelosi and her allies, who worked behind closed doors to write this bill” (“Government Still Trying to Take Over Health Care,” biggoverment.com, October 30, 2009). Price also notes that Pelosi’s House bill means government-run insurance, higher taxes, a job-killing employer mandate and “countless provisions that set Washington bureaucrats firmly between you and your doctor.”

Oh, and Sarah Palin was right – the provision for death panels or “End-of-Life-Planning” is included in Pelosi’s bill.

She’s Clogging up the Congressional Works – and Rangel Isn’t Helping Things

When she was crowned Queen of the House, Madame Pelosi vowed to drain the D.C. swamp of corruption.  So far, she’s just further clogging up the works. Pelosi also promised, “We Will Create the Most Open and Honest Government in History” in a January 18, 2006¨Press Release (Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, California, 8th District, http://www.house.gov/pelosi/press/releases/Jan06/honest.html). Is that why Madame Speaker got Charlie Rangel, one of the most corrupt individuals in Washington D.C. to assist her with fact and figures as the new health care bill was drawn up?

The distinguished Chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, Rangel has been under investigation since the beginning of this year for multiple incidents involving tax evasion and failure to report income.  We’re not talking a few thousand bucks here (like Tim “Turbo Tax” Geithner).  Rangel is in deep you-know-what for hiding serious coin.  Peter Roff reports in U.S. News & World Report that “an ongoing investigation into Rangel’s finances reveals he has not been exactly candid with the IRS or, for the matter, his congressional colleagues about his real estate holding, sales of stock and his reportable income” (www.usnews.com/blogs/peter-roff/2009/09/08/for-the-democrats-sake-charles-rangel-must-go.html, May 12, 2009).

Back in May, further questions arose over the lord of the tax code’s conduct. Rangel’s “amended finance disclosure forms for the years 2002 through 2006, include his failure to report checking accounts at the Congressional Federal Credit Union and Merrill Lynch—each valued at between $250,000 and $500,000, tens of thousands of dollars in earning from stock dividends and mutual funds, and the proceeds from the sale of a townhouse back in his Manhattan-based congressional district” (Roff, www.usnews.com/blogs/peter-roff/2009/09/08/for-the-democrats-sake-charles-rangel-must-go.html, May 12, 2009). Yet this is the upstanding numbers man to whom Queen Pelosi turned in her hour of need.

Well, after all, Rangel is himself a big donor to the Democratic Party.

Maxine Waters – Another Inept Tax Plumber

As if Charlie Rangel weren’t enough, Pelosi also got Maxine Waters, a high-ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, to help draft the new hernia-inducing health care monstrosity.  Waters has her own tax disclosure issues. Michelle Malkin “spotlighted” Waters back in March for she and her husband’s “smelly involvement with minority-owned bank called OneUnited” (michellemalkin.com, October 30, 2009). On Thursday (Oct. 29), the House Ethics Committee announced that it is investigating whether “Waters used her influence to help a bank in which her husband owned stock, and whether the couple benefited as a result” (michellemalkin.com, October 30, 2009). Waters’ husband also sits on the bank’s board. What’s more, OneUnited received $12 million dollars in Stimulus bill monies. Barney Frank (D-MA) helped the bank to secure the funds (Kelly Cunnigham, http://www.sddt.com/Commentary/article.cfm?Commentary_ID=192&SourceCode=20090211tzd, February 11, 2009).

Pelosi+Rangel+Waters = Bad Sewage!

The results of such masterminds concocting a new health care bill are messy.  In fact, even though Pelosi claims the new bill is more streamlined in dollars (if not bulk), it’s potentially more damaging to Americans from the get-go.  If it passes, Americans will start to be taxed immediately in order to pay for it.   Keep in mind that it doesn’t take effect until 2013 (after Obama & Co. have been re-elected – they hope – and there’s nothing to do but suffer the consequences).

Pelosi claims that the $894 Billion dollar bill will insure an additional 36 million Americans.  She also claims that the bill will “cut the deficit by $30 million over 10 years, which means it would meet President Obama's budget requirements. It would also extend coverage to 96 percent of the population. Top Democrats say the numbers are based on estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, which has yet to formally score the bill” (Jason Plautz, NationalJournal.com, http://healthtopic.nationaljournal.com/2009/10/house-plan-will-cost-894-billi.php, October 30, 2009).

We’re left scratching our heads. What kind of magical numbers-out-of-the hat is Pelosi trying to pull?  Probably the same kind good ol’ Charlie Rangel uses to balance his tax returns.

Need a Plumber? Don’t Call One Named Pelosi!

“Poor Nancy, every time she tries to drain the swamp, she either catches a reflection of herself or she uncovers one of her friends. Drain a little, there's Charley Rangel wallowing in the mud” (chuckthings.blogspot.com, 5/12/09).

It’s all too obvious that Nancy Pelosi meant she was going to strip Republicans – corrupt and otherwise – of power when she boasted she would drain the D.C. swamp.  Liberals need not worry and are encouraged to continue contributing to the muck.

Madame Speaker has proven herself to be a poor sump pump. OK hopes to see major plumbing work – and House cleaning – done in 2010.

No matter.  Consider that even after Obama’s non-booster shot, fewer than half of U.S. citizens want the healthcare fixit the president is proposing.  We have the best heath care in the world and many who can afford it come to America to get treated for ailments and illnesses when they are denied or put on waiting lists for treatment in countries like Canada and England.  Logic says leave our healthcare alone, or offer real reform in the way of capping the dollar amount of medical lawsuit claims against doctors or allowing patients to shop for insurance across the country.

By Kelly L. Goodridge and Oscar De Los Santos

Under the guise of compassion and concern for others and health care for everyone, the Democrats are proposing a reform of US health care.  Obama’s agenda appears in a bill backed by the House and another issued by Sen. Edward Kennedy’s Health committee.  However, these two bills undermine our Constitutional liberties, freedoms and rights.  The push for reform is not about health, it’s about control – it’s a power grab.

ObamaCare is about removing our choice of doctor, insurance plan and privatized healthcare.  “Obama has repeatedly reassured Americans that they can keep their existing health plans – and that the benefits and access they prize will be enhanced through reform” (“5 Freedoms You’d Lose in Health Care Reform,” Fortune on CNNMoney.com, 7/27/09).  However, a close reading of the bills reveal “a web of restrictions, fines, and mandates that would radically change your health-care coverage” (Fortune on CNNMoney.com).  The fine print in the Congressional plans contradicts President Obama’s assurances.

ObamaCare is about a single-payer government-run system.   Obama asserts that a government-run health option would drive down costs by breaking down monopolies of private insurance companies.  However, ObamaCare will put private insurance companies out of business.  We the People will only have one healthcare option, the government-run option.

In addition, the bills propose a raid on Medicare.  In his weekly GOP address yesterday (8/29/09), Senator Enzi, a Banking Member of the Senate’s Health Committee, stated that such a raid “will result in cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from the elderly to create new government programs” (gatewaypundit.blogspot.com, 8/29/09).

ObamaCare is about creating 53 new government bureaucracies and controlling every aspect of our nation’s health care system.  Do we need a more bloated and intrusive government?  Here are just a few of the new bureaucracies that will be created: Health Benefits Advisory Committee (Section 123, p. 30), Health Choices Administration (Section 141, p. 41), Qualified Health Benefits Plan Ombudsman (Section 144, p. 47), Program of Administrative Simplification (Section 163, p. 57), Retiree Reserve Trust Fund (Section 164(d), p. 70), Health Insurance Exchange (Section 201, p. 72), Mechanism for insurance risk pooling to be established by Health Choices Administration Commissioner (Section 206(b), p. 106), Special Inspector General for the Health Insurance Exchange (Section 206(c), p. 107), Health Insurance Exchange Trust Fund (Section 207, p. 109),  State-based Health Insurance Exchanges (Section 208, p. 111), “Public Health Insurance Option” (Section 221, p. 116), and that’s just the first eleven comittees that the House bill proposes (“HR 3200- Obamacare Creates 53 New Federal Bureaucracies,” rightsoup.com August 10, 2009).

ObamaCare is about invading our medical and financial privacy.  An editorial in today’s (8/30/09) The Washington Times reports that under Obama’s health care reform, “The innermost secrets of people's personal lives would be made available to thousands of government bureaucrats” (www.washingtontimes.com). Apparently, the bill requires the Internal Revenue Service to give taxpayer information to the new health choices commissioner and state health programs under Section 431(a).  Besides an individual’s income, dependents and filing status, “The IRS would be commanded to provide whatever information about individual taxpayers the health choices commissioner deemed necessary” (www.washingtontimes.com, 8/30/09).

ObamaCare is about funding unions.  The Detroit Free Press reports that the health care reform bill being pushed by the Left “includes a provision that would supply up to $10 billion to shore up the UAW’s Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association (VEBA) fund, which was established in the last round of labor negotiations to allow the union to control and administer the health care benefits of retired autoworkers” (Ed Brayton, “Health care reform bill includes billions for union fund” michiganmessenger.com, 8/24/09).  Didn’t we already give the auto industry a bailout?

ObamaCare is about rationing care and forming death care panels.  The privileged late Sen. Edward Kennedy was provided with the best of care as he battled brain cancer.  The cancer-fighting drug Avastin that was among the arsenal Kennedy used to fight his disease bares an estimated cost of over $100,000 a year.  Yet, studies show that “it [Avastin] prolongs life by only a few months” (Gina Kolata and Andrew Pollack, “Costly Cancer Drug Offers Hope, but Also a Dilemma,” New York Times, July 6, 2008). Access to such a drug and treatment plan is not the kind of care that Obama has in mind for taxpayers.

Obama has suggested painkillers for the terminally ill and has even questioned his grandmother’s decision to have a hip replacement when she was told that she had terminal cancer and had only six to nine months to live after suffering what doctors believed was a mild stroke (ABC Health Care infomercial and town hall meeting, June 24, 2009).  In a May 3, 2009 interview in the New York Times Magazine, Obama addressed end-of-life care costs.  He agreed that the elderly in their final weeks of life are a “huge driver of cost” and that they account for potentially 80% of the nation’s total health care costs.  Obama has since denied that his plan would pull the plug on grandma.  He’s even mocked the idea – but in May he told the New York Times that a “conversation guided by doctors, scientists and ethicists, needs to take place.”  Weeks later, he repeated the warning:  “there’s going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place . . . it would be best served by independent groups [death panel] that can give you guidance – it’s not determinative, but it has to give you guidance” (The Steve Malzberg Show, www.wor710.com, 8/24/09).  Obama proposes a panel that would slow the costs of medical advancement and consumption.  That sounds like an end-of-life panel – aka, a death panel – to OK.

In Europe citizens are asked to accept fatal diagnoses.  We don’t need a group to decide our end-of-life care here in America.  We should retain the right decide on surgery and treatment, in consultation with our doctors.  Senator Kennedy was able to do.  We the People need to retain this right.

ObamaCare is about letting the government decide whose life is worth living.  “That feels dishonest to me,” said President Obama when asked about death care panels in the health care reform bills.  However, Joseph Ashby in The American Thinker asserts that the death panel is already in Stimulus Bill, HR1.  He notes that the bill contains $1.1 billion dollars to fund “The Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research.”  The Council’s function is to empower an “unelected bureaucracy” to make decisions about end-of-life health care.  This Council has the power to make decisions about our health, the treatment and care we receive and basically whether we get to live.  Ashby writes, “Daschle's stated purpose (and therefore President Obama's purpose) for creating the Council is to empower an unelected bureaucracy to make the hard decisions about health care rationing that elected politicians are politically unable to make” (‘“Death panel’ Is Not In the Bill . . . It Already Exists,” The American Thinker, 8/15/09, www.americanthinker.com).

Here’s an immodest proposal from OK: The GOP and various conservative groups should start the Obamacare Town Hall Kitty.  All Americans concerned about preserving individual liberties and keeping privatized health care should contribute a few bucks and send the Dems – including Obama, Nancy Pelosi and anyone else who wants to ride the Obamacare Town-Hall Bus – anywhere in America that they want to make their pitch. 

Why?  Because Obama & Co’s town hall meetings have become the biggest boost to American conservatism in months.  Rather than bolster their position and convince the American people that our country needs socialized medicine, the president and his liberal lemmings are running into conservative dissenters who oppose such a move. And the dissenters are fighting with the best weapons: informed positions, passion and anger. 

In fact, conservative opposition has been so great that liberals have had to re-write history as their position unravels.  They’re calling conservative protestors “an unruly mob” being fueled by “Right-wing extremists.”  They’re blaming Rush Limbaugh for raising the specter of the Nazi party when in fact it was Nancy Pelosi who first brought the Nazis into association with Obamacare protestors when she said protesters were arriving to town hall meetings bearing swastikas. 

Other libs snatched the strategy of linking conservative town hall attendees with the worst of the worst.  Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) decided to align conservatives with the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacists. He claims that “the last time I had to confront something like this was when I voted for the civil rights bill and my opponent voted against it. At that time, we had a lot of Ku Klux Klan folks and folks in white sheets and other things running around causing trouble” (Jim Geraghty, “Rep. John Dingell: Health Care Opponents Remind Me of the Klan & White Supremacists,” August 11, 2009, National Review, http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjdlZmRiNGRhYjkyMDYyNzQxMGQwZjk5YTE3OGM1ZGE=).

In other words, anyone who opposes any aspect of the various socialized medicine plans Obama and the Dems are pitching is either a Nazi or a racist. What a double standard. Pelosi and Hillary Clinton were pro-dissenters during Bush’s time in office. According to Pelosi, calling George W. Bush a Nazi was okay. When those on the far Left depicted Bush as Hitler and wished him dead, they were just citizens exercising their First Amendment rights.

This is the way the Democrats are trying to re-write history and this is the extent to which they are unraveling as a party. Americans are wisening up. Many see right through the liberal propaganda.  In spite of the spin of the mainstream media; in spite of anything anyone in the Obama camp wants us to swallow without scrutiny, Americans are becoming more hawkish.  The majority of our citizens don’t want Obamacare.  In fact, study after study shows that most Americans are pleased with their coverage:

CNN/Opinion Research: 74% of the polled are happy with their current coverage. (July/August ’09 poll)

Employee Benefits Research Institute: 58% of the polled are happy with their current coverage. (July 2009 poll)

FOX News/Opinion Dynamics: 84% are happy with their current coverage. (July 2009 poll)

Source: Campaign for American Solution, August 18, 2009 (http://www.americanhealthsolution.org/fact-check-americans-are-satisfied-with-their-health-plans-2/)

Proof that Americans are growing more critical lies in the ruckus raised over the House bill’s deathwatch provision. The libs said no such thing was in the bill, but now it’s been taken out.  (How can you scrub something that wasn’t there to begin with?) 

And what about the health care for illegal aliens that’s been carefully folded into the bill? Conservatives have ferreted that beast out too. 

Mark Levin claims that American conservativism is on the rise.  He’s right.  First there were the Tea parties. Now look what’s happening at the at town hall meetings.  A substantial portion of the American public is mad as hell and essentially saying no to further liberal lunacy. 

Oh, and conservatives aren’t behaving like an “unruly mob” but rather, like an informed public who wants its dissenting voice heard.  That’s more than we can say for the thuggish liberals. Democrats are running scared. Some are refusing to physically attend their own town hall meetings and are showing up as ghostly voices emanating from loudspeakers – or on milk cartons under the heading “Missing” (see gatewaypundit.blogspot.com).

OK, so we won’t fund the Dems’ town hall meetings – but let’s hope they keep going a little longer.  We believe that in their own way, they’ve been as effective at drawing conservatives together as some Tea parties.  The town hall events are forcing Obama’s soldiers to confront their constituents and make decisions.  Either they begin to oppose the health-care bill in its various incarnations and perhaps – perhaps – get re-elected, or they vote for Obamacare like lemmings and go over the election cliff, never to be heard from again. If it’s the latter, let’s hope they take this corrupt Democratic administration with them.

By Kelly L. Goodridge and Oscar De Los Santos

“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” – Barack Obama

We the People are Under Attack 

Obama’s infusion of socialism is destroying American liberty. His totalitarian regime tactics fly in the face of our Constitution, Declaration of Independence and free-enterprise system.  Obama took an oath to defend the principles of liberty on which America was founded.  Yet, during his first six months in office he has fed the American people a steady diet of anti-Americanism.  Those who speak against Obama’s agenda are targeted, intimidated, demonized and harassed by the press, the DNC and pro-Obama groups such as ACORN and SEIU (groups which Obama funds with taxpayer dollars).  Such attempts to silence free speech are about control, as is socialism.  Obama and his Democratzi's are recruiting the "brown shirts" of America and quashing any opposition.   

First, those who opposed Obama’s agenda were called racists.  Then, in an effort to prevent constituents and activists from attending and voicing their concerns at town-hall meetings, Democrats filled the halls with members of ACORN and union groups. They AstroTurf, yet Obama's Democratzis accuse tea party participants of such tactics.  Some citizens have been turned away from town-hall meetings, and thugs wearing SEIU shirts have attacked others.  Michelle Malkin reports that the DNC is now decrying “mob rule,” and “lefty bloggers are comparing grass-roots conservatives to Holocaust deniers” (<http://michellemalkin.com/2009/08/04/this-is-what-mob-rule-looks-like/>. Aug. 4, 2009).  House Speaker Pelosi accused citizens of carrying images of swastikas outside town-hall meetings.

Obama has encouraged citizens to get in the face of the opposition. He established an Internet snitch brigade last week: a White House-run website for neighbors to report any persons that espouse “fishy” information or opposition to Obama’s health care/insurance reform plan.  These bully tactics by Obama and Democrats are designed to muzzle the American people (Hannity, Fox News, Aug. 7, 2009).  

We the People Want the Same Care that Politicians Get 

Obama has lied to the American people about transparency and accountability.  There is none in his White House.  He’s circumvented the vetting process and appointed 30+ czars. At least two of those czars have criminal records.  And The One hides the White House’s guest list from the public.

Obama’s teleprompter promises regarding health care don’t match what’s written in the bill.  The health care bill targets our elderly; rations care for patients (the government will decide who gets what drugs and services) and assures health coverage for 12 million illegal aliens.  It taxes both businesses and employees, and in effect forces individuals to accept a government run health care plan.  There’s no way out of it because under Obama’s plan, citizens and businesses will be fined for not having government-run health care.  At the same time, Obama and all members of Congress will continue to have a choice when it comes to health care. Why doesn’t this crowd want what they’re voting on for We the People?

A frightening aristocratic attitude permeates our country these days. But what’s scarier is that it doesn’t stop at creating factions of haves and have-nots. Obama is assuring that the have-nots will remain without, thanks to a socialistic and increasingly threatening culture.

Don’t Tread on America

Obama has spent us trillions of dollars into debt, and power grabbed our banks, insurance companies and the automobile industry.  He’s filled his cabinet with tax cheats, cronies and czars, and has flown over the pond to bow to kings, declare his Muslim heritage, and visit with former KGB.  He’s sided with dictators Chavez, Ahmadinejad, Ortega and the Castro Brothers rather than support the people of Iran, who are still fighting to get out from under a brutal regime, or the people in Honduras who overthrew a corrupt leader that was trying to negate their Constitution.  Obama has virtually given away blueprints of our warplanes to communist China, revealed our interrogation practices for terrorists to terrorists, and given millions of taxpayer dollars to fund the extremist group Hamas. 

But that’s just for starters. Recall that he’s also gutting our defense budget, pushing to control every area of our lives through health care/insurance reform - another power grab - and plans to tax all energy consumption through Cap and Trade, which equates to the largest tax in American history.

Our nation’s history, currency, health care and energy systems, its courts and capitalism, the individual and Amendment Rights are all under attack.  Obama and his thugs are using totalitarian regime tactics to silence any informed electorate or concerned citizens that oppose his unapologetic move from liberty to socialism.  Obama and his practices are most definitely not “change we can believe in.” 

Concerned Americans need “to fight for everything that is good and true in America” (Margaret Thatcher, Former Prime Minister of Great Britain).  For the sake of our children, grandchildren and the rights of individualism, we need to stop those who are hostile to liberty.

In spite of the current power structure’s push for socialism and the brainwashed thugs who aren’t opposed to using bully tactics to keep the current administration in power, we need to fight back with our voices and votes. It’s the only way to preserve the great country that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and all the Founding Fathers worked hard to forge.  If we keep out of this fight, Obama will kill America.

By Oscar De Los Santos and Kelly L. Goodridge

Over the past few days, we’ve heard various stories about the Obama administration’s attempt to revamp military veterans’ healthcare benefits. Rumors are flying but one element that carries from tale to tale is the notion that the government can save about $540 million if it reconfigures veterans’ medical insurance. Considering the fact that the government just passed a trillion-dollar stimulus package, the half billion in assistance that would go to injured veterans is chump change. So is a reversal of healthcare assistance for returning veterans really the issue? What’s true and what’s tall tale?

While Team Obama is not responsible for conjuring up this lunacy, it can be faulted for tossing gasoline into the growing conflagration.

It’s the Congressional Budget Office that wants discharged veterans covered by other medical insurance to use it to treat injuries sustained while in the service. In other words, those who have put their lives on the line to defend our freedom are in danger of being further penalized for their efforts. Service-connected disabilities need to be covered for our veterans – they fought, sacrificed and earned it. To not do so is an insult to every living veteran.

In the interest of fairness, we reiterate that neither President Obama nor his administration had anything to do with this proposal. This is the brain(dead) child of the Congressional Budget Office and it was proposed before Obama took office.

It should also be noted that President George W. Bush recognized the proposal as a gross insult to all military personnel and their families. He refused to sign such a bill into law.

Will President Obama do the same thing? He should. Yet during a White House meeting with Commander David K. Rehbein, head of the American Legion, Obama refused to rule out the signing of such a bill. Instead, he tried to make it seem as if he was acting in the best interest of the very soldiers who would be left holding the tab for their own healthcare. He claimed that having private insurance cover such expenses could be used “as a way of generating $540 million for the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2010” (Adam Levine, “Veteran’s group irate at Obama’s private insurance proposal,” www.cnn.com, March 17, 2009).

Does anyone else see the flaw in this reasoning? The Commander in Chief is making his troops pay for their own treatments and fund the organization that’s supposed to help them. This is the same Commander in Chief who supports mortgage bailouts, corporate bailouts, gifting money to Gaza, and paying for abortions around the world.

“It became apparent during our discussion today that the President intends to move forward with this unreasonable plan,” Rehbein said after meeting with Obama. The Commander said the President “refused to hear arguments about the moral and government-avowed obligations that would be compromised by it” (“The American Legion Strongly Opposed to President’s Plan to Charge Wounded Heroes for Treatment,” Yahoo! News, March 16, 2009). 

By Oscar De Los Santos and Kelly L. Goodridge

The notion that America needs a national health care system has become an old Democratic chestnut. Hillary Clinton tried to crack it. Thankfully, it never happened under her husband’s presidency. More recently, Senator Ted Kennedy has been working on a new national health care system even as he battles brain cancer. Insiders say it’s his dying wish to see his health care package passed.

President Obama promised to revamp health care in his first Congressional address (Feb. 24, 2009). The reality is that America doesn’t need another national health care program (yes, another; we’ll get to that in a moment). In fact, national health care will only diminish the quality of existing health care and likely make it impossible to return to what we have in place today – the best health care system in the world.

Another name for a national health care program is socialized medicine. The socialism resonating in the alternate title is all too real. Gone will be an American citizen’s choice to see any doctor she wants to see; to choose her own surgeon; to have most medical procedures taken care of in a relatively timely fashion.

Truthfully, a good portion of medical testing is already sluggish. Socialized medicine will only make test and surgery waits longer. Don’t believe us? There are countless horror stories centering on delays from countries that practice socialized medicine. Not surprisingly, patients are frequently shipped to America to undergo necessary tests and operations. Other socialized medicine patients resort to going to veterinarians to get tests (such as x-rays) faster than their human waiting list would accommodate.

The recently passed stimulus bill has $117 billion allotted for healthcare spending, which includes:

•$87 billion dollars to help states pay the costs of Medicaid, which provides medical care for the poor and disabled

•$20 billion to implement new healthcare technologies, such as electronic medical records, aimed at improving care and cutting costs (http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0130/p03s03-ussc.html).

As Christian Science Monitor staff writer Alexandra Marks points out in her article “House Stimulus Bill Widens Healthcare,” Medicaid provisions to the uninsured and the subsidies for private healthcare are being described as temporary. “But some healthcare reform advocates hope they will serve as building blocks to bring about a reform of the healthcare system. Opponents worry they could be the start of the nationalization of healthcare” (http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0130/p03s03-ussc.html).

It’s coming. Teddy Kennedy wants it, but more important, very little President Obama pushes for has been denied him. Witness his push for standardized electronic health care records. This will move America one step closer to socialized medicine.

There is other troubling material found in the stimulus bill. Unfortunately, it’s being discovered now, after Congress passed it, since few if any had a chance to read the monstrosity before they voted on it. Phyllis Schafly credits Betsy McCaughey for sounding the alarm in a Bloomberg.com article (“Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan”). Schafly explains that McCaughey “described how stealth provisions provide massive new funding of billions of dollars to an Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology to monitor treatments and decide which are cost-effective and which will be permitted or denied. Currently, patients make that decision without government interference as long as the care is safe and effective” (“Obama Gives What the Doctor Did Not Order,” www.townhall.com). This won’t be the case much longer. Government will soon tell us what the doctor ordered – or order the doctor.

Bottom line: we already have a national health care system in place. It’s a point that’s seldom mentioned but a fact nonetheless. No hospital can turn away an individual in need of emergency medical treatment, regardless of whether or not the person is insured. So those who don’t have insurance – be they poor, negligent, tightwads or illegal immigrants – will continue to use the current system. (Never mind that emergency rooms get clogged as a result; even those with health coverage often have to wait for hours to receive medical attention. One of us speaks from experience.) The rest of us will continue to purchase plans we can afford.

Teddy and Obama should keep plans for socialized medicine in the planning books, where they’ve resided for years and where we hope they continue to reside for decades to come.