She replied that she agrees with that recommendation, but with health care reform we are trying to eliminate unnecessary tests, so the American Osteopathic Association recommends scans at age 60.

60!

Welcome to state-run medical care, folks.  Enjoy it while you can.  Before you die from something that is currently able to be detected early, but won’t be when we have to wait for basic care.

What?  I’m just using Republican scare tactics?

That’s what everyone said – including our truthful president – when the right claimed that private insurance would be driven out by the government.  Yet, Investor’s Business Daily reports that the House’s health care legislation goes so far as outlawing private coverage.

Of course, as Pres. Obama said, we can keep our current coverage.  We just can’t alter it or ever get another policy, if we move or change jobs.

Government monopoly, baby.

While you revel in it, check out Steven Crowder’s undercover look at Canada’s system.

I hope you have $900 for a check up at a private clinic.  That seems to be the standard advice given by the government run health providers, not once but thrice, in his video.

Hope and Change!

A “public option” would be a government payer (a la medicare or medicaid) as one of the menu choices. Obviously this makes subsidizing easier on the one hand, but also allows the feds more control over the types of coverage. Private insurers are afraid any public option would be too appealing and affordable and draw away business – and both opponents and proponents of a single payer system see this as a way to potentially facilitate a transition to such a model.

The bolded selection is my emphasis, obviously.  That’s the part that’s, let’s say, less than accurate.

How about this?

Private insurers are concerned that any public option will be given an unfair advantage and, as a result, look more appealing and affordable.

The public option will be artificially low in cost, as the current medicaid and medicare systems are.  There’s the obvious, that the public option has the advantage of tax payer funding, but that is not the only advantage.  The government does not pay fair market value for services rendered. This is possible because the rest of us are subsidizing it though our insurance or cash payments.

Once the public option entices unsuspecting consumers with her siren song of low, low prices, the private firms will be driven out of business and all of the sudden the public plan will be in a world of financial hurt, since there won’t be anyone around to offset the below-value payments.

Oh wait, the public option already is in a world of financial hurt.  How about we fix the public plan before we lure more people onto it?

Here’s an analogy the left ought to appreciate: The public option is like when Wal-Mart moves into a neighborhood and puts everyone else out of business with their artificially low prices.  And how does it get such low prices?  By forcing companies to charge them less, in exchange for doing business with the country’s largest retailer.  That’s exactly what the government does to doctors.

The public option: it’s the Wal-Mart of health care.

Sign me up!

Look, health care is expensive.  Next time you are at a hospital, take a look at all of the expensive equipment.  We have made amazing advances in medical science, all of which cost money.  If we want it, we need to pay for it.

Right now, private insurance is paying for most of it.  When private insurance is gone, the public plan will have to pony up the dough.  It’s either that or lower our expectations for care because it’s not going to come for free.

As P.J. O’Rourke says, “If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.”

First, we have the home mortgage borrowers, high risk-taking insurance giants, and the poorly-run auto makers.  Now, it’s the people who run up their credit cards and fail to pay them off.

And guess who pays for it?  The fiscally responsible.

Now that Congress is making it “fair” for people with massive credit card debt, allowing them to avoid high interest rates, the folks who use credit cards responsibly will help pay for it.

Banks are expected to look at reviving annual fees, curtailing cash-back and other rewards programs and charging interest immediately on a purchase instead of allowing a grace period of weeks, according to bank officials and trade groups.

“It will be a different business,” said Edward L. Yingling, the chief executive of the American Bankers Association, which has been lobbying Congress for more lenient legislation on behalf of the nation’s biggest banks. “Those that manage their credit well will in some degree subsidize those that have credit problems.”

Yeah, that’s fair.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to be fiscally responsible in this culture?  It’s hard.  You go without.  Not only that, but you go without while everyone else gets lots of stuff you wish you had.  It takes discipline and sacrifice.  But you do it because it is the right thing to do and you will be better off in the long run.

Until the government comes along with its bailouts and regulations and you end up paying for other people’s lack of responsibility.

Awesome.

What ever happened to rewarding good behavior and punishing bad behavior?

See what I mean?  Backward world.

FACT CHECK: Obama’s job, deficit claims are iffy

Could it be that the ban on reporting anything that might cast the president in a negative light has been lifted and the media is finally going to start doing its job?

One can only hope.

What is surprising, although I guess it shouldn’t be, is that everyone is saying this is bad for the Republican Party because it shows that they are no longer a national party.

This is bunk.  The last time the Republican Party was ideologically conservative, they had historic wins.  (Yes, I am talking about 1994.)  People like Arlen “Spendulus” Specter are obstacles to that end.  How is his leaving a problem?

The Democrats are trying to turn this into “the Republicans went too far to the right,” but even they haven’t been able to stop the truth from getting out that this was purely to save Specter’s own butt.

Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., said that in a private meeting with Republicans, Specter “gave a purely political explanation. … He said: ‘I’ve looked at the polls. I can’t win as a Republican, I can’t win as an independent. The only way I have a shot is to be a Democrat.’”

As recently as late winter, Specter was asked by a reporter why he had not taken Democrats up on past offers to switch parties.

“Because I am a Republican,” he said.

I fail to see how losing an unprincipled opportunist can be anything but good for the party that was brought down by its own political opportunism.

In my view, the Republican Party will never gain credibility with conservatives, or with anyone for that matter, until every last unprincipled opportunist, every member who betrayed ideology for power and political gain, is gone.

It was not conservatism that brought down the Republican Party; the Republican Party has not represented conservatism in years.  George W. Bush was not conservative, not in the limited government, fiscal conservative sense.  John McCain was not conservative, either.  To the extent he pretended to be on the campaign trial, he failed to articulate it well to the American people.

If conservatism is really dead, if it really is a losing political philosophy in 21st century America, then why have the left, the Democratic Party, and the President of the United States tried to marginalize it?  Why the feigned concern that Specter’s departure is bad for the Republican Party?  Why seek to marginalize Rush Limbaugh and FOX news?  Why classify mainstream conservative thinking as right-wing extremism?  Why mock the tea parties?

Why not let conservatism go head-to-head with liberalism, progressivism, social democracy, or whatever you want to call it?  Why not let America hear the best arguments on both sides and make a choice?

Answer: because conservastism is not dead.  Not even close.

There are tea parties planned all over the US for tax day, April 15.  Take a look at this map.  It takes a few seconds to load, but when it does the map shows flags indicating everywhere there will be a tea party.

I’m not so crazy about the name, but I think it’s a good idea for people to get together and let the government know that it is not on the right track.  We do not want enormous debt, expanded government powers, and loss of freedom.

There will be tea parties in Montpelier and Rutland on the 15th.  More info on the Vermont tea parties here.

I’ll be at the Montpelier event.

You can find out about tea parties in other states at taxdayteaparty.com.

Allies of Mr Obama say his weary appearance in the Oval Office with Mr Brown illustrates the strain he is now under, and the president’s surprise at the sheer volume of business that crosses his desk.

What exactly did he expect?  Did he think that being president was like running for president?  He did say that managing a campaign gave him more experience than Sarah Palin’s running of a small town (ignoring the fact that he was not actually the manager of the campaign and that she was, in fact, a governor).

What exactly did we expect?

This is a big deal.

The American source said: “Obama is overwhelmed. There is a zero sum tension between his ability to attend to the economic issues and his ability to be a proactive sculptor of the national security agenda.

Well, at least we are not in the middle of a war or anything.

“The one real serious flaw I see in Barack Obama is that he thinks he can manage all this,” the well-known figure told a Washington official, who spoke to this newspaper. “He’s underestimating the flood of things that will hit his desk.”

I guess being the wife of a former president does make you more qualified to be president after all – at least you know what the job entails.

I just hope that Pres. Obama finishes up with his on the job training before anything serious happens.

[The] START plan is a $170 billion “bare bones” pure stimulus approach that would put $100 billion immediately into the pockets of low- and middle-income Americans, then use the other $70 billion for basic infrastructure projects that create jobs. START requires that all funds not spent by 2010 be returned to the Treasury. START also stops stimulus spending when the nation’s Gross Domestic Product increases in two of three previous quarters, and all START payments are required to be posted on a public website.

Ooh, transparent, too.

Fat chance we would ever see anything like this pass.  There’s no pork, no expansion of government power, no liberal agenda attached to it.

I have a serious question, though.  Shouldn’t the issues like health care, energy, and education that were crammed into the stimulus bill, be discussed separately?  Are these issues not important enough to warrant their own bills, debates, and votes?

Is this what America voted for?

Speaking of what America voted for, remember candidate Obama’s big tax cut for 95% of Americans?  Well, here it is.

It would begin showing up in most workers’ paychecks in June as an extra $13 a week in take-home pay, falling to about $8 a week next January.

Was that what America voted for?

Here’s something you can spend it on, via this post on Wizbang.

But there is hope.  There is always hope.

This made my day.

Fifty-eight percent (58%) agree, too, that “no matter how bad things are, Congress can always find a way to make them worse.”

That’s my America, baby!

The era of big government is not here to stay.

Just keep repeating, this too shall pass.

Another funny from that link,

Forty-four percent (44%) voters also think a group of people selected at random from the phone book would do a better job addressing the nation’s problems than the current Congress.

I know it’s not a majority, but still, it’s funny.

That’s it for me.  I can’t deal with any more politics tonight.  I am going to go watch “24″ and imagine a world where Jack Bauer is keeping us safe, instead of Barack Obama.

I just cannot believe that this guy is for real.  I think this has to be some kind of prankster.  It seems too over the top, especially the revival moment when he closes his eyes and raises his hands to Heaven to thank God for Obama taking time out of his day to talk to them.

Discuss.