BLITZER: Why not break down the state barriers and let all of these insurance companies compete nationally without having to simply focus in on a state by state basis?
AXELROD: Because we are trying to do this in a way that advances the — the interests of consumers without creating such disruption that it makes it difficult to to move forward.
BLITZER: Why would that be disruptive? If Blue Cross and Blue Shield or United Health Care or all of these big insurance companies, they don’t have to worry about just working …

Too Long, Costs Outrageously Minimized, Too Lachrymose on Teddy
Besides, Deficit, Foreign Crises Top Health on Public Agenda.

Reviewing the Obama speech last night.
Let’s take its style first.
President Obama’s much heralded speech…where he was supposed to “hit for the fences”…was only a one-base hit and fell far short of what it was intended to do. Give Obama credit as a first-rate salesman: he could easily replace the late Billy Mays huckstering Oxi-Clean and Orange Glo-but stylistically it was vastly imperfect.
First, it was much too long. I counted three distinct spots where he …

Obama said,
“Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan.”

And if we don’t pass this plan, does he intend to keep the waste and inefficiency, out of spite?
Arnold Kling
**
My question: Is America ready to believe that a politician from Chicago will eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse?
Glen Reynolds
**
Why not tackle waste, fraud, and abuse first, then see if we still need healthcare reform?

Maybe President Barack Obama, instead of portraying opponents of his version of heath-care reform as liars, should cast out the mote in his own eye. From him and his White House has flowed a never-ending stream of misinformation, disinformation, exaggerations and just plain baloney.
Take the oft-repeated claim that 50 million, 60 million or whatever — take your pick — Americans have no health insurance, as if our uninsured population is expiring in the nation’s gutters because no one (read: Republicans) cares. But what the Obama and Democratic operatives don’t tell …

When you boil off all the frothy rhetoric, what health reform is really all about is a power grab. It is 16 percent of the national economy and $2.7 trillion in annual spending. It is the biggest opportunity politicians and their cronies have ever seen for enriching themselves.

For a sneak peak at what lies ahead, look at the city where Barack Obama cut his teeth first as a community organizer then as a state legislator, then as U.S. Senator: Chicago. Extortion, bribery, back scratching, and nepotism are all coins …

The hit list is getting longer. Former Obama fundraiser Tony Rezco convicted.  Reverend Jeremiah Wright disowned.  Bill Ayers disavowed as a close ally.  Illegal immigrant aunt estranged.  Former friends Governor Rod Blagojevich and  US Senator Roland Burris iced out.
It’s getting crowded under the Obama political bus.  And now another person is taking a big fall under it – this one, Michelle Obama’s former boss in Chicago.  In fact, this is the man who approved raising Michelle’s salary in Chicago – for “Community Outreach” — from $150,000 to $370,000 – a …

The SEIU and its political affiliate contributed $3 million to America Votes, an advocacy organization that was headed by Cecile Richards, wife of an aide to SEIU President Andy Stern, at the time the payments were made. From the LA times 2008.
President Obama loves Planned Parenthood and why not? President Obama loves SEIU and why not? President Obama has made a career of courting Best Friends Forever (BFFs) who happen to be powerful muckety mucks. President Obama loves the quick ride in relationships, political experiences and in forcing Legislation on …

Dennis Miller likes to temper his praise for Sarah Palin by saying that he supports her because of the vile reaction she brings out in some of the biggest clowns in America.  I don’t think Dennis goes far enough, becuase Palin also gives fits to the English with the Economist, dubbing her “patently ridiculous” and the Financial Times, which ran an Op-Ed and a News Analysis piece from Edward Luce, both saying pretty much the same thing, “No amount of contrary evidence will puncture the view that Mr Obama plans …

From the Aug 13, 2009  New York Times
False ‘Death Panel’ Rumor Has Some Familiar Roots
By JIM RUTENBERG and JACKIE CALMES
WASHINGTON — The stubborn yet false rumor that President Obama’s health care proposals would create government-sponsored “death panels” to decide which patients were worthy of living seemed to arise from nowhere in recent weeks.
Advanced even this week by Republican stalwarts including the party’s last vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, and Charles E. Grassley, the veteran Iowa senator, the nature of the assertion nonetheless seemed reminiscent of the modern-day viral Internet campaigns that …

A “Death Panel” by Any Other Name
A debate on long-term cost control and end-of-life care–especially an emotional and acrimonious debate–is a highly useful debate to have. But it’s not a useful debate to have right now. Right now it is killing Obama’s universal care plans. … And it wasn’t a debate we had to have right now. It’s a debate Obama has brought on himself by framing health care as an attempt to “bend the curve” of long term costs decades from now. He could have just said “Here’s how I would guarantee health …