"Unintended Consequences of Obamacare" Take One

This letter from a physician was posted on National Review online. She states that 100% of the patients who have contacted her have been supportive.

March 23, 2010

My Dear Patient,

As you must know, Congress has just passed extensive legislation governing health care delivery and insurance systems. Whether you agree with what it does or not, we are all now subject to this law and its sweeping changes.

I have always conducted my medical practice with my patient’s best interests as my first priority. Although not legally obliged to do so, I have routinely provided you with a receipt that has all the codes necessary to bill your own health insurance company for any reimbursement to which you are entitled. Until now, that insurance company was a free enterprise despite the fact that it was heavily regulated by state and federal laws. Now the situation is quite different. Through the new law’s mandates, regulatory powers and reform, health insurance is and will be largely a government activity which will have an ever larger jurisdiction over how doctors practice, make clinical judgments and are paid.

The new law provides for about 150 new government agencies, many of which are designed to be ‘oversight’ bureaucracies which will have the right to decide what medical care is legal to provide through insurance. Among other things, they will have the right to review my medical care of you and read your medical record. Now, as soon as you submit our economic transaction to your insurance company for reimbursement, you have involved me in these regulations and put me in the jurisdiction of government for my activities, decisions and behavior as your doctor.

No one can have two masters. Either I can serve you as my patient or I can serve the government. Either I can continue to make your welfare and health my only concern, including the protection of your privacy and medical records, or I can abide by ever-increasing amounts of government regulations and dictates to my decisions. I can’t do both. I choose to continue to follow my conscience and practice medicine to serve you.

For this reason, I am responding to the situation created by this new law by exercising my right not to participate in any health insurance program. I will still provide you with the same medical services that I always have, but the interaction will be exclusively and privately between you and me. This means that I will provide you only with a receipt for the services you have paid for, but without the additional information that is required to submit your receipt for reimbursement to your health insurance company. That is the only way I can make sure there will be no conflict between following the law and serving you. Because the law is now in effect, so must these changes be to my practice.

Sincerely,

Linda Johnston, MD

Response to Feeble DHS "Right Wing Terrorist" Report

Read this response from Senators Coburn, Brownback, DeMint, Burr, Murkowski, Inhofe, and Vitter to the latest, greatest work of fiction from the Obama administration--the Department of Homeland Security's outright attack on 50% of the American population.

Michelle Malkin has an excellent editorial on the subject.

My son was taught in ELEMENTARY SCHOOL that unattributed, wild-eyed assertions with no basis in fact do not belong in a work of non-fiction.

Our federal government is being run by a bunch of ideological amateurs with the worst possible combination of ignorance & arrogance.

Close to 5,000 People @ Madison Tax Day Tea Party

Great Tea Party Protest in Madison, Wisconsin today at the State Capitol. Initial crowd estimates are around 5,000 people. The crowds were peaceful, but fired up. Paul Ryan kicked things off...recurring themes were:

*Enough is enough
*Government needs to serve the people--not the other way around
*No more taxes
*This is only the beginning
*We need to mobilize after today to get the word out


Here are some of my favorite signs:

The Constitution: The Other Document They Never Read

Read My Teleprompter, Cut Our Taxes

Flush the Doylet (for Governor Doyle)

The Real Pirates are in Washington

We Can't All Be Democrats...Somebody has to pay taxes

Right Wing Extremists Pay Their Mortgage

Whassup with Paul Ryan?

Does ANYONE out there have a clue about why Paul Ryan voted FOR the "TARP Recipient Bonuses Act"? I tried to send him an email, but since I don't live in his district, the website blocked me. Tell me, is there something in the WATER in Washington????

If you live in his district, please give him an earful (or 'mail-ful', whichever is more convenient). Come to think of it, do BOTH!

At least we have ONE reasonable representative left in Jim Sensenbrenner.

As outraged as I am about the AIG bonuses in the wake of the bailout program, our 'leaders' are missing the point....

The problem is not the bonuses, the problem is the bailout. We have a number of ways to deal with these large, insolvent companies, including bankruptcy and receivership. These approaches have been around for a LONG time and have settled law that deals with contracts and other issues associated with a failing company.

Since a 'bailout' has virtually no rules associated with it, all sorts of 'unintended consequences' can result. We can't just jettison the Constitution and due process.....(ironic that libs want to give due process to enemy combatants on the battlefield, but not to law-abiding U.S. citizens).

Letting Congress selectively 'tax' citizens with no recourse is a BAD IDEA.

Check out Sensenbrenner's post on his website and send him your thanks. Send your raspberries to Paul Ryan here (if you live in his district).

Madison Wisconsin Tea Party Tax Protest

Americans For Prosperity is helping sponsor a Tea Party on the steps of the Capitol in Madison, WI on April 15th, Tax Day (although April Fools' Day would be equally appropriate). They are scheduling busses from many of the major metro areas in Wisconsin.

If you are fed up with wasteful government spending and the disconnection between many of our elected officials and reality, plan to join this important event.

You can sign up at http://www.fightbackwisconsin.com/Feedback.php

How the Stimulus Package will Actually Work

It all makes sense now...

Three contractors are bidding to fix a broken fence at the White House.

One is from Chicago, another is from Tennessee , and the third is from Minnesota. All three go with a White House official to examine the fence.

The Minnesota contractor takes out a tape measure and does some measuring, then works some figures with a pencil. "Well," he says, "I figure the job will run about $900: $400 for materials, $400 for my crew and $100 profit for me."

The Tennessee contractor also does some measuring and figuring, then says, "I can do this job for $700: $300 for materials, $300 for my crew and $100 profit for me."

The Chicago contractor doesn't measure or figure, but leans over to the White House official and whispers, "$2,700." The official, incredulous, says, "You didn't even measure like the other guys! How did you come up with such a high figure?"

The Chicago contractor whispers back, "$1000 for me, $1000 for you, and we hire the guy from Tennessee to fix the fence." "Done!" replies the government
official.

And that, my friends, is how the new stimulus plan will work.

Hey, it worked in Chicago!!!

From: SodaHead

I Have a News Flash for Obama...

From Politico...

In a speech Wednesday in Mesa, Ariz., President Obama unveiled his plan to address the home foreclosure crisis, pledging $75 billion in federal aid to homeowners and mortgage lenders and outlining an expanded role for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in renegotiating mortgages on homes at risk of foreclosure.

"This plan will not save every home, but it will give families resigned to financial ruin a chance to rebuild,” Obama said, who described home foreclosures in the context of the broader economic crisis.

“Companies in your community that depend on the housing market – construction companies and home furnishing stores, painters and landscapers – they’re cutting back and laying people off,” Obama said. “In the end, all of us are paying a price for this home mortgage crisis.”

The crowd cheered wildly at the first mention of the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which the President signed yesterday in Denver. But Obama’s speech wasn’t a festive occasion, and the president had stern words for Americans who had made reckless or risky choices in their borrowing and lending practices.

The housing crisis, Obama said, was brought about by an “erosion of…common sense.”

“All of us need to learn to live within our means again,” he said.

I hate to break it to Barry, but there are a WHOLE LOT of us out here who are already living WITHIN our means. And how, exactly, will subsidizing those who have NOT learned to live within their means, help solve the problem?

Sounds to me like we are rewarding those who overextended themselves at the expense of those who live 'within their means.'

Call Your Senators Part II...Details of the "Spendulus"

Here is the latest list of pork in the Obama-Reid-Pelosi "Drunken Sailor" Spendulus Bill...from the website of Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. of Oklahoma.

Wasteful and Non-Stimulative Spending in Nelson-Collins Substitute

• $2 billion earmark for FutureGen near zero emissions powerplant in Mattoon, IL
• $39 billion slush fund for "state fiscal stabilization" bailout
• $5.5 billion for making federal buildings "green" (including $448 million for DHS HQ)
• $200 million for workplace safety in USDA facilities
• $275 million for flood prevention
• $65 million for watershed rehabilitation
• $200 million for public computer centers at community colleges and libraries
• $650 million for the DTV transition coupon program
• $307 million for constructing NIST office buildings
• $1 billion for administrative costs and construction of NOAA office buildings
• $100 million for constructing U.S. Marshalls office buildings
• $300 million for constructing FBI office buildings
• $800 million for constructing Federal Prison System buildings and facilities
• $10 million to fight Mexican gunrunners
• $1.3 billion for NASA (including $450 million for "science" at NASA)
• $100 million to clean up sites used in early U.S. atomic energy program
• $10 million for urban canals
• $2 billion for manufacturing advanced batteries for hybrid cars
• $1.5 billion for carbon capture projects under sec. 703 of P.L. 110-140 (though section only authorizes $1 billion for five years)
• $300 million for hybrid and electric cars for federal employees
• $198 million to design and furnish the DHS headquarters
• $255 million for "priority procurements" at Coast Guard (polar ice breaker)
• $500 million for State and local fire stations
• $180 million for construction of Bureau of Land Management facilities
• $500 million for wildland fire management
• $110 million for construction for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
• $522 million for construction for the Bureau of Indian Affairs
• $650 million for abandoned mine sites
• $75 million for the Smithsonian Institution
• $1.2 billion for summer jobs for youth
• $412 million for CDC headquarters
• $500 million earmark for NIH facilities in Bethesda, MD
• $160 million for "volunteers" at the Corp. for National and Community Service
• $750 earmark for the National Computer Center in MD
• $224 million for International Boundary and Water Commission – U.S. and Mexico
• $850 million for Amtrak
• $100 million for lead paint hazard reduction

Call 'em again....

Milton Friedman Says it All...

Watch this video as Milton Friedman defends capitalism.

Brilliant.

And I suppose that Phil Donahue did his show for 'free'.....