Steamd

Some time ago, I attempted to do a series of posts based on a series by Ann Coulter on the current health care debate^[1]. Well, as fate would have it, I didn’t exactly have time to really devote to is and, as such, never finished it. To finish this series, I’m topping it off with a response to Ann Coulter’s recent blog post entitled “My Healthcare Plan“. So let’s see what CoulterCare would look like…

CoulterCare is described as a “one-page bill creating a free market in health insurance” with an emphasis on the words “free market”. Ann claims that “nearly every problem with health care in this country…would be solved by my plan“.

Here’s her plan…

1. Congress will amend the McCarran-Ferguson Act to allow interstate competition in health insurance.

This is probably one of the only things I agree with that CoulterCare mandates. However, I do not agree that it will provide the level of competition that Ann thinks it will. Granted, it would allow for a greater degree of competition but, let’s face it, these are insurance companies we’re talking about. What will likely happen is that many insurance companies will merge together thus causing a flux of less competition rather than more. States that had only one or two insurance companies present would continue to have just one or two due to the fact that a lot of companies simply don’t want to try and compete.

More so, if an insurance company has already merged with companies that have a presence in that state then you won’t see new insurance companies move into those state. We saw this happen with banks and financial institutions back in the 1990’s. Once banks and financial institutions were given the right to compete more through mergers and acquisitions, a slew of mergers happened almost immediately. One would think that this would mean more competition within the banking and financial sector. However, many purported that this allowed for banks and financial institutions to get too big and thus create less competition and more problems.

If we allow the same sort of behavior with health insurance companies then it’s possible that what happened to the financial sector could happen in the health insurance industry: a full-on collapse of the system. Only way to protect against that is some common sense regulations and rules. Granted, it’s a good idea to allow for interstate commerce within the health insurance industry. But to simply tear down the fences and let them roam free isn’t a good solution. We still have to have some gates to keep from floods happening.

2. The exclusive regulator of insurance companies will be the state where the company’s home office is.

According to CoulterCare, “every insurance company in the country would incorporate in the state with the fewest government mandates, just as most corporations are based in Delaware today“. This would open up a big ole’ can of worms. Ann claims that having such a provision would keep insurance companies from having to follow idiotic state mandates that require all insurance plans to cover bogus things. That may sound great and all, but it also goes against the Conservative principle of allowing the states to decide on these kinds of issues.

For instance, let’s pretend that I live in a state where abortions are legal specifically in cases where the mother’s and/or child’s life is in danger. Pretend that my wife is six-months in and the doctor has given us the bad news and recommends that we abort the child immediately, else we run the risk of my wife and the child of dying due to complications. Now pretend that CoulterCare is in full effect and, since our insurance company is based in a state where abortions are not covered and aren’t legal, our insurance company has told us that they will not cover it. Thanks to CoulterCare, we’re stuck with a bill for thousands and thousands of dollars for something that was totally beyond our control. Not good.

Again, just like with interstate commerce, common sense rules and regulations can be put in place to ensure that insurance policies aren’t covering bogus things. Goofy state-based regulations need to apply. Let the states decide.

3. Prohibit the federal government from regulating insurance companies, except for normal laws and regulations that apply to all companies.

Freed from onerous state and federal mandates turning insurance companies into public utilities, insurers would be allowed to offer a whole smorgasbord of insurance plans, finally giving consumers a choice.

This sounds great, doesn’t it; until you realize that, other than the interstate commerce regulations, insurance companies haven’t really been regulated much by the federal government. Right now, consumers don’t have much choice.

Consumers don’t have a choice on what doctor they can go to. If the doctor you’ve been using for the past ten years isn’t a preferred doctor and in-network according to your insurance company then you will likely not get coverage or receive only a small percentage of coverage.

Consumers as well as doctors and hospitals don’t have the final say-so on what doctor visits, tests, procedures, medications, operations, and such get covered. Only the insurance company has the final word. While you may try to appeal their decision, good luck getting them to pay for it in the end.

Consumers have no say-so as to how much total coverage is provided by their insurance company. An insurance company can stipulate that you’ve maxed out your coverage at any time and refuse to pay any additional medical bills. You could be sitting in the hospital dying and in need of a life-saving procedure, but if your insurance company refuses to pay…good luck!

All of this has nothing to do with government intervention or regulations. It’s all behaviors from the insurance companies in an attempt to maximize profits and make share holders happy. Without some common sense rules and regulations from our government, insurance companies will continue with these behaviors and thus giving consumers less choice instead of more. When consumers aren’t in control over their healthcare, how can one claim that they have choice? That doesn’t make any sense.

CoulterCare claims that “in a free market, the government wouldn’t need to prohibit insurance companies from excluding ‘pre-existing conditions’“. It seems that CoulterCare is mixing the idea of ‘pre-existing condition’ with ‘charity’. That is not what we’re talking about here. Consider this…

I, myself, have a disease with no cure that every health insurance company would see as a ‘pre-existing condition’. If my wife were to loose her job, we would likely end up losing our insurance unless we take over the payments for our insurance plan. If we were to drop the insurance plan and go with another insurance company there is absolutely no guarantee that the new insurance company will cover my ‘pre-existing condition’ right away. As such, I would be forced to have to pay the full price for all my doctor’s visits, all tests, and all prescription. That adds up to a whole lot of money.

Prior to my wife getting a new job, I was without insurance between six months to a year. In that time, we’ve had to minimize doctor’s visits, find alternative medications that cost much less (not to mention less effective than the ones my doctor recommended!), and pay out our doctor’s bills over time. It put a serious dent in our finances and put a serious strain on my ability to maintain good health and get access to the preventative care I needed to avoid the possibility of landing in an emergency room.

Would CoulterCare consider me ‘charity’ case? I suppose so. All I wanted was to be able to pay a reasonable rate for a healthcare insurance policy so that I could get the preventative care I needed at a price I could afford. If CoulterCare were policy then insurance companies would continue with the same practices and thus would force me out of their pool since I would be considered a ‘high-risk’ customer.

Ann doesn’t get it. Ideology can’t fix the healthcare system. You can’t apply political ideology on how corporations run. Corporations don’t care about Conservative principles and ideals; they care about growth and profits for their shareholders. Thus CoulterCare would only help corporations find new ways to maximize profits and wouldn’t solve anything; rather it would make it worse.

I’m not anti-corporation; rather I’m a firm believer in free markets and capitalism. But there is a difference between creating a health profit and profiteering. In order to avoid abuse, you have to create a common sense framework of rules and regulations that everyone can follow. The current healthcare bill, while imperfect, at least takes some steps to creating that framework. CoulterCare does nothing to promote that framework.

Free markets are never ‘free’. Nothing is ever ‘free’. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. No one is entitled to a ‘free lunch’. Thus free markets can never be maintained and will never be sustainable without a framework of common sense rules and regulations. Sustainability and innovation are the keys to maintaining an open free market; an idea that Ann Coulter and other Conservatives are not talking about. They just don’t get it.

1. Health Care, Fiddle Sticks, and Ann Coulter: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four [↩]

As stated in part one and part two, this is an ongoing series based on an ongoing series by Ann Coulter (again, sounds confusing but what do you do). In part three of her series, she starts right off with some colorful comments about the state of Medicare and how that relates to the current health care reform debate:

(9) If you like Medicare, you’ll love national health care, which will just extend Medicare’s benefits to everyone.

Hey — I have an idea: How about we make everyone in America a multimillionaire by pulling Bernie Madoff out of prison and asking him to invest all our money! Both Medicare and Bernie Madoff’s investment portfolio are bankrupt because they operate on a similar financial model known as a “Ponzi scheme.” These always seem to run fabulously well — until the money runs out.

Ah, right! A “Ponzi scheme”! So, what you’re saying is that the government takes people’s money but doesn’t use the money to actually give people health care benefits? Wait a minute! Isn’t that what health insurance companies do too?  I’m so confused.

Not only is Medicare bankrupt, but it is extremely limited in whom and what it covers. If Medicare were a private insurer, it would be illegal in many states for failing to cover hearing aids, podiatry, acupuncture, chiropractic care, marriage counseling, aromatherapy and gender reassignment surgery.

This is funny because private insurers largely refuse to cover things like hearing aids, podiatry, acupuncture, and chiropractic care. Marriage counseling, aromatherapy and gender reassignment surgery? Where the hell did those come from? Last I checked, Medicare doesn’t really cover any of this stuff either so…err…what’s your point?

Moreover, Medicare payments aren’t enough to pay the true cost of those medical services it does cover. With Medicare undercutting payments to hospitals and doctors for patients 65 and older, what keeps the American medical system afloat are private individuals who are not covered by Medicare paying full freight (and then some). That’s why you end up with a $10 aspirin on your hospital bill.

No, you end up with a $10 aspirin not because the hospital doesn’t get paid enough by Medicare but because they don’t get paid at all by the ones without insurance or have claims denied by the patient’s insurance company. It’s easy to blame Medicare for why hospital bills are so damn expensive but that’s simply not the truth. There are a myriad of other factors as to why medical bills are so expensive. The American medical system stays afloat mainly due to the large profits health insurance and pharmaceutical companies receive. The ones who suffer the most are the doctors and hospitals who have to put up with denied claims, failure to pay, a shortage of qualified nurses, a confusing mess of contracts from the insurance companies, and a slew of other things that make the business of practicing medicine downright difficult.

National health care will eliminate everything outside of Medicare, which is the only thing that allows Medicare to exist.

Considering the insane profits insurance and pharmaceutical companies are getting, is that such a bad thing? I don’t know about you but I really don’t like the idea of Mr. CEO of Aetna being able to pay for another yacht just because my dad got a heart bypass. Doesn’t make sense and neither does your statement.

Obviously, therefore, it’s preposterous for Democrats to say national health care will merely extend Medicare to the entire population. This would be like claiming you’re designing an apartment building in which every apartment will be a penthouse. Everyone likes the penthouses, so why not have a building in which every apartment is a penthouse?

It doesn’t work: What makes the penthouse the penthouse is all the other floors below. An “all-penthouse” building is a blueprint that could make sense only to someone who has never run a business and has zero common sense, i.e., a Democrat.

That would be a great analogy indeed if it really worked that way. The thing is that what is being proposed isn’t merely an extension of Medicare to the entire population but rather a segment of the population. In other words, no one is looking to give a penthouse to everyone, just access to an apartment to those who are stuck in the rain with no where to live.

One thing you did get right is that it would make sense only to someone who has never run a business, which is what the current health care industry is…a business. Problem is that that business is profiting severely off the sick and injured of others. So what you could have said was that it would make sense to someone who actually has a conscience but would be confusing as hell to someone who only understands business terminology like growth and profitability. The more we continue to look at our health as nothing more than just a business the more we continue to overlook the very problem. While I agree that doctors and hospitals should be paid for what they are worth, I do not agree with how the rest of the industry is ran. Lots of gross mismanagement and greed at play.

10) National health care won’t cover illegal aliens — as the president has twice claimed in recent radio appearances.

Technically, what Obama said is that the bill isn’t “designed” to give health insurance to illegal aliens. (That bill, the “Health Insurance for Illegal Aliens Act of 2009,” was still being drafted by Ted Kennedy at the time of his death, may he rest in peace.)

First of all, none of the bills were written by Obama. He has laid out his own proposals of what he’d like to see in the bills but it’s up to Congress to shape the bills to reflect his plan. Here’s what Obama actually said in his recent address to Congress:

There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants.  This, too, is false – the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.

Which, as we all know, was followed by a rather loud “You lie!” from Senator Wilson. I think the keyword here is insure, meaning that no illegal immigrant will be eligible to obtain any government sponsored health care insurance plans, period. In other words, if a bill hits Obama’s desk that would allow an illegal immigrant to gain access to health insurance he isn’t going to sign it.

But unless the various government bureaucracies dispensing health care are specifically required by law to ask about citizenship status, illegals will be covered. We can’t even get employers and police to inquire about citizenship status, but liberals assure us that doctors will?

Right now, any illegal immigrant can walk into a public hospital and receive care if they are injured or sick. That’s not likely to change any time soon either. The reason is that to deny anyone health care in this country regardless of whether they are a legal citizen or not presents a moral dilemma: Would you want to live in a country that turns away treatment to someone even if it could mean saving their life?

Not only that but I think Ann is confusing access to health care with access to health insurance. These are two separate disparate things. Anyone can get access to health care when they are sick or hurt. But whether they can afford it is a different matter. That’s where health insurance comes into play. When it comes to the debate over whether illegal immigrants can receive health benefits, we’re talking about access to health insurance here, not access to health care.

And by the way — as with the abortion exclusion — the Democrats expressly rejected amendments that would have required proof of residency status to receive national health care.

Umm, probably because it’s not really required in the bill. I mean, if you have to be a citizen of the United States to get health insurance anyways then why would you need to state that you have to show proof of residency status to receive care in the bill?

Beyond that, can you imagine all the problems that would occur in an emergency room if you had to verify every incoming patient and require proof of residency status? A guy shows up after a heart attack and requires immediate medical attention. But, wait! We can’t let him in yet till he proves he’s a legal resident! It’s a moral question: Do you force the issue and run the risk of him dying? Or do you provide him the medical attention he needs and deal with that issue later?

(11) Obama has dropped his demand for the ironically titled “public option” (i.e., government-run health care), which taxpayers will not have an “option” to pay for or not.

Liberals never, ever drop a heinous idea; they just change the name. “Abortion” becomes “choice,” “communist” becomes “progressive,” “communist dictatorship” becomes “people’s democratic republic” and “Nikita Khrushchev” becomes “Barack Obama.”

Yeah, but then again, some names just don’t change. “Bitch” is still “bitch” last I checked. Look, Obama has never dropped his demand for a “public option”. Just the opposite. And he has made it clear that in his own proposals that the “public option” would only be available to those who can not afford health insurance. As he stated in his address, “The public option is only a means to that end – and we should remain open to other ideas that accomplish our ultimate goal.”

It doesn’t matter if liberals start calling national health care a “chocolate chip puppy” or “ice cream sunset” — if the government is subsidizing it, then the government calls the shots. And the moment the government gets its hands on the controls, it will be establishing death panels, forcing taxpayers to pay for abortions and illegal aliens, rationing care and then demanding yet more government control when partial government control creates a mess.

Which happens to be exactly what liberals are doing right now.

First of all, the “public option” is not something that will result in the government calling the shots. Ironically, when it comes to death panels and rationing of health care, that’s exactly what health insurance companies are doing right now. They don’t want to give policies to those who are old and sick. They’d rather give policies to those who are young and healthy. To them, that’s just good business because it means less claims paid out and more profits. So as far as death panels and rationing of care those two things already exist due to the fact that it is tied into the profitability of insurance companies.

I think it’s highly irresponsible to claim that our government would go out of its way to kill off old people and make taxpayers pay for every abortion and the health of illegal aliens in this country. I would presume that most of the folks in Washington are people who know the difference between right and wrong; people with morals and values. Conservatives like Ann keep telling us that this is a “Christian nation”. If that’s the case, then why all the talk about the government doing evil things? I mean, our government is operated by people, right?

Granted, someone has to pay for the care illegal aliens receive at public hospitals. I wouldn’t want to live in a country that denies anyone health care just because they’re not supposed to be here. Unfortunately, most of the cost for providing health care to illegal immigrants is already taken out of taxes like property taxes and the like.

As for abortion, I’m sorry but there are legitimate reasons for why certain abortions should be covered. If a private insurance company is willing to cover the cost of an abortion under certain circumstance then there should be no reason why a “public option” insurance plan shouldn’t do the same. Now, whether you’re pro-life or pro-choice, that’s a different conversation.

Bottom line is that we’re already in a mess as it is and, quite frankly, it’s a mess that wasn’t 100% caused by government control. While one could argue that certain government restrictions have caused the industry to falter, the majority of the problems within the health care industry were cause by the very thing that most “conservatives” keep harping about: free enterprise.

For the past 20+ years or so companies within the health care industry have had free reign to shape the industry as they see fit. As such, costs kept going up as publicly traded companies demanded more growth and profitability. And when it comes to health insurance companies, profitability is far more important than whether your grandpa should be able to get that new heart valve put in. Same applies to pharmaceutical companies. They’re more concerned with getting as big of a return on their investment on a new drug before the patent runs out than whether you can afford to shell out $500 a month for it.

According to Ann, it would seem that either way we’re screwed. Damned if we do, damned if we don’t. If it’s not the government telling us what to do then corporate America will most certainly pick up the slack.

Continuing on in an ongoing series based on an ongoing series by Ann Coulter (sounds confusing doesn’t it!), Annie regurgitates additional talking points about health care in part two of her series. It’s worth mentioning that in part one, I took some time to setup exactly how the health care industry has impacted me. If you haven’t read it, be sure and read it before moving on. It’ll help in understanding where my point of view comes from.

(6) There will be no rationing under national health care.

Anyone who says that is a liar. And all Democrats are saying it.

Got proof? No, you don’t. Instead you rattle on with a bunch of conclusions based on a few unsubstantiated facts that have little to do with the actual debate:

Apparently, promising to cut costs by having a panel of Washington bureaucrats (for short, “The Death Panel”) deny medical treatment wasn’t a popular idea with most Americans. So liberals started claiming that they are going to cover an additional 47 million uninsured Americans and cut costs … without ever denying a single medical treatment!

That would be true if the government was responsible for deciding who gets treatment and who doesn’t. But it’s not. What uninsured Americans will receive isn’t a government health care program but rather a government sponsored health care insurance plan. In other words, uninsured Americans will be dealing with health insurance companies, not the government. So it won’t be the government denying medical treatment, it’ll be the health insurance companies which, ironically, isn’t at all different than what is going on now. Insurance companies deny medical treatments every single day.

Under national health care, you’ll have no choice about how to ration your own health care. If your neighbor isn’t entitled to a hip replacement, then neither are you. At least that’s how the plan was explained to me by our next surgeon general, Dr. Conrad Murray.

Again, if it’s through an insurance company how can you call it rationing? If you want to get technical, insurance companies are rationing health care as we speak. The government can’t tell insurance companies which claims are covered and aren’t covered. The only thing the government can do is put forth some regulations that keep the insurance companies honest, which is exactly what is at debate here. Besides, how is it any different if an insurance company rations your health care than the government doing it?

The only way that the government could potentially ration health care is if we were on a single-payer system, which we aren’t and won’t be for a long, long time. Hell, I’m willing to bet that the United States won’t ever transition to a single-payer system in even my lifetime.

What Coulter presumes is illustrating here is a fictitious scenario that doesn’t even exist right now and isn’t even up for debate. Besides, her joke about Dr. Conrad Murray, the doctor who is suspected of possibly giving Michael Jackson the drugs that killed him, is such that I can’t really take anything she has to say seriously about this.

(7) National health care will reduce costs.

The last time liberals decided an industry was so important that the government needed to step in and contain costs was when they set their sights on the oil industry. Liberals in both the U.S. and Canada — presidents Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter and Canadian P.M. Pierre Trudeau — imposed price controls on oil.

There is very little or no difference at all between the health care industry and the oil industry. They are two very different industries with completely different rules on how they are operated. Making this kind of comparison does little to support a valid point other than “Carter bad. Reagan good.”

Freedom not only allows you to make your own rationing choices, but also produces vastly more products and services at cheap prices, so less rationing is necessary.

Incorrect. Insurance companies make decisions for millions of Americans as it is. You call that allowing others to make their own rationing decisions? Even if we were to lift the restriction that disallows insurance companies from providing service on an interstate level, that still will not stop them from denying claims for pre-existing conditions and other reasons. There is no freedom when you have a corporation who will deny you service in an effort to maintain profitability.

I think what Annie is trying to say is that Democrats are claiming that a public option in and of itself will lower health care costs. That would be incorrect. Providing some sort of a public option that allows Americans to gain access to affordable health care insurance isn’t the only thing that will aid in lowering costs. You also have to lift some of the restrictions that don’t allow insurance companies to compete. That much is true. But you also have to put in place a different set of restrictions that keep insurance companies honest, the biggest one being a denial of health coverage due to pre-existing conditions. Not only that but there are definitive ways for which health care costs can be reduced by implementing some simple common sense guidelines for which doctors and hospitals can prescribe to.

(8) National health care won’t cover abortions.

No need to quote Annie here because, quite frankly, her little diatribe about this makes little sense.  Here’s what Obama had to say about this:

…Under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place.

As it stands, there are loads of restrictions on abortion. In fact, in most states its actually quite difficult to walk into a clinic and get an abortion without going through a long, arduous process to ensure that a patient looking to get an abortion is making the right choice. Beyond that, if the patient is covered under a health care plan through an insurance company then it wouldn’t be the government providing funding for an abortion. Even then, I would bet that an insurance company wouldn’t cover an abortion except for very strict cases when the mother’s and/or child’s life is in question.

More to come in part three…

Before I go off into a rant, let me first describe to you my current health care situation. I’ve touched on this in the past so I won’t repeat myself too much.

I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis around March of this year. Anyone who knows about this disease will know that it’s an anti-immune disease with no real cure. The only thing you can do is take maintenance drugs that help keep flare-ups from happening. The problem is that the most popular drugs used to treat ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, and other similar ailments can be quite expensive. There is a cheaper option but the side effects aren’t all that great.

I started off taking Asacol and purchased a three month supply while I still had insurance. Even then the cost after deductible was still quite high. I think I spent darn near $200 for the three month supply and that was even with a bulk discount. Recently, I started to run out of Asacol and started to shop around for more. What I found out shocked me. Without insurance, a one month supply (that’s 180 pills; 6 pills per day for 30 days) would cost me around $300. Simply put, I can’t afford that. $300 per month may be chump change to some folks but, to me, that’s a lot of money. I simply do not understand why any drug would cost this much. My only alternative was to either seek out a new insurance policy or buy a cheaper alternative drug.

So, off I went to look for another insurance policy. Unfortunately, due to my pre-existing condition, no insurance company in the state of Texas will cover me for my ulcerative colitis for at least a year. So much for that. Aside from that, the rates for insurance plans weren’t all that great. While the cheapest PPO plan was just over $100, the deductible left a lot to be desired: $10,000. Good plan if all you care about is coverage for cases when you get terminally ill or hurt but that’s about it. For me, a deductible around $2,500 would be ok, which brings the plan to around $162. That’s still pretty good but, even then, only provides 80% coverage plus deductible. Thing is that if I can’t get coverage for my ulcerative colitis then what’s the point? I’m pretty much paying $100 a month into something that is only good if the shit really hits the fan. Even then, there’s still no guarantee that the insurance company will cover me for every claim. I know this because I’ve been through it. I’ve had plenty of claims denied for various bullshit reasons.

I ended up deciding to buy a cheaper alternative to Asacol in the form of sulfasalazine. Even without insurance, I got a 3 month supply for around $30. While it does treat the disease as well as Asacol, it’s still not as good. The side effects leave a lot to be desired. First, it causes infertility, which means my wife and I definitely can’t have kids while I’m on the stuff. Second, I have found that it can cause some light numbness in my toes. That part has my wife kind of freaked out right now. There are some other mild side effects but those are my top two right now.

So I’m in a weird position where I have a disease that no insurance company will cover for a year and I can’t afford the outrageously expensive drugs for. For all the pundits out there, tell me, what should I do? Am I supposed to just grin and bear it like a good little American? Or do I hope for change in the system that will allow me some relief from the shitty business practices that health insurance companies hammer average citizens with every single day? I’d much rather go with the later option.

Sigh! That’s a lot off my shoulders! Now on with my rant…

A lot about health care has been said by those on the far-right and when I hear it my head just wants to explode. Much of it is just fear mongering, misinformation, and lies. Ironically, that exactly what the far-right says, that’s its all just fear mongering, misinformation, and lies. To show you what I mean, I’ll be writing a multi-part series of posts based on Ann Coulter’s recent series called Liberal Lies About National Health Care.

In the first part of Ann’s series, Ann starts right off with commentary on her first point:

(1) National health care will punish the insurance companies.

You want to punish insurance companies? Make them compete.

Umm…duh?

U.S. health insurance companies are often imperious, unresponsive consumer hellholes because they’re a partial monopoly, protected from competition by government regulation. In some states, one big insurer will control 80 percent of the market. (Guess which party these big insurance companies favor? Big companies love big government.)

Ironically, President Obama touched on this very thing in his recent speech to Congress:

My guiding principle is, and always has been, that consumers do better when there is choice and competition.  Unfortunately, in 34 states, 75% of the insurance market is controlled by five or fewer companies.  In Alabama, almost 90% is controlled by just one company.  Without competition, the price of insurance goes up and the quality goes down.

I would presume that this means he’s well aware of the government restrictions that disallow insurance companies from providing interstate coverage. But, quite frankly, that is but a small percentage of the overall bigger problem with insurance companies. More on that later.

Liberals think they can improve the problem of a partial monopoly by turning it into a total monopoly. That’s what single-payer health care is: “Single payer” means “single provider.”

While I will admit that many Democrats, including Obama, were for a single-payer system at one time, that is simply not the case now. Why? Well, I’ll let Obama explain it:

There are those on the left who believe that the only way to fix the system is through a single-payer system like Canada’s, where we would severely restrict the private insurance market and have the government provide coverage for everyone.  On the right, there are those who argue that we should end the employer-based system and leave individuals to buy health insurance on their own.

I have to say that there are arguments to be made for both approaches.  But either one would represent a radical shift that would disrupt the health care most people currently have.  Since health care represents one-sixth of our economy, I believe it makes more sense to build on what works and fix what doesn’t, rather than try to build an entirely new system from scratch.  And that is precisely what those of you in Congress have tried to do over the past several months.

Nope. Nothing about making it a total government takeover of the health care system. Besides, doing so in a down economy would be extremely stupid, if not futile.

(2) National health care will “increase competition and keep insurance companies honest” — as President Barack Obama has said.

Government-provided health care isn’t a competitor; it’s a monopoly product paid for by the taxpayer. Consumers may be able to “choose” whether they take the service — at least at first — but every single one of us will be forced to buy it, under penalty of prison for tax evasion. It’s like a new cable plan with a “yes” box, but no “no” box.

Again, I’ll let Obama explain this one:

…if you’re one of the tens of millions of Americans who don’t currently have health insurance, the second part of this plan will finally offer you quality, affordable choices.  If you lose your job or change your job, you will be able to get coverage.  If you strike out on your own and start a small business, you will be able to get coverage.  We will do this by creating a new insurance exchange – a marketplace where individuals and small businesses will be able to shop for health insurance at competitive prices.  Insurance companies will have an incentive to participate in this exchange because it lets them compete for millions of new customers.  As one big group, these customers will have greater leverage to bargain with the insurance companies for better prices and quality coverage.  This is how large companies and government employees get affordable insurance.  It’s how everyone in this Congress gets affordable insurance.  And it’s time to give every American the same opportunity that we’ve given ourselves.

Gee, Ann, that doesn’t sound at all like government-provided health care. Sounds more like a health care fair where the government gets a little kickback fee for bringing the insurance companies new customers. As for your cable plan analogy, I akin this to being like the digital box that replaces the old antenna ears. While it may not be cable television, it’s still better than nothing.

(3) Insurance companies are denying legitimate claims because they are “villains.”

In his speech, Obama mentioned a story about a man who died due to lack of treatment:

One man from Illinois lost his coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because his insurer found that he hadn’t reported gallstones that he didn’t even know about.  They delayed his treatment, and he died because of it.

For which Coulter replies:

Well, yeah. That and the cancer.

Assuming this is true — which would distinguish it from every other story told by Democrats pushing national health care — in a free market, such an insurance company couldn’t stay in business. Other insurance companies would scream from the rooftops about their competitor’s shoddy business practices, and customers would leave in droves.

So, basically, what you’re saying is that a health care insurance company’s ability to make a profit and please their stockholders is more important that doing the moral, right thing? Am I getting this right? Seems to me that they could find a much better business model that doesn’t require screwing over people’s health to protect the bottom line.

If only customers had a choice! But we don’t because of government regulation of health insurance.

What does government regulation have to do with an insurance company’s ability to accept or deny a claim? Nothing. The government doesn’t make those decisions, the insurance companies do. And when it comes to the acceptance or denial of those claim, no, the customer has no choice. While you can appeal any denial of a claim, good luck getting it appealed with any expediency. Insurance companies are practically worse that the very government that you bitch about, Ann!

(4) National health care will give Americans “basic consumer protections that will finally hold insurance companies accountable” — as Barack Obama claimed in his op/ed in theTimes.

You want to protect consumers? Do it the same way we protect consumers of dry cleaning, hamburgers and electricians: Give them the power to tell their insurance companies, “I’m taking my business elsewhere.”

Umm…Ann…I can’t get full coverage from any insurance company right now. Thus, I can’t simply tell an insurance company that “I’m taking my business elsewhere”. Pre-existing condition limitations are the very “basic consumer protections” Obama was talking about and I welcome it. Telling customers that they aren’t covered due to a pre-existing condition is a shitty business practice plain and simple. So much for your hamburger analogy.

(5) Government intervention is the only way to provide coverage for pre-existing conditions.

The only reason most “pre-existing” conditions aren’t already covered is because of government regulations that shrink the insurance market to a microscopic size, which leads to fewer options in health insurance and a lot more uninsured people than would exist in a free market.

Bullshit. Blue Cross Blue Shield is available in just about every state, including Texas, and insures more than 100,000,000 collectively. They aren’t exactly a microscopic size company. So why would they not cover pre-existing conditions? Because just about every health insurance company follows this practice. Not because of government regulations, though I will admit that it might play but a fraction of the reason. No, I think the real reason is that it cuts down on the number of claims paid out in a huge way thus boosting the bottom line and satisfying an ever greedy stock market.

Show me a health insurance company that is in danger of being in the red. Most publicly traded insurance companies are highly profitable and, quite frankly, will deny coverage to anyone if they can get away with it if it means maintaining Wall Street expectations.

So, what’s the bottom line here? Are “liberals” really all that evil for wanting to inject fairness and more competition into the system? Or is the “status quo” still the better way? Ask yourself a question: With all that has been happening in the financial markets, would you allow a company to invest and barter your health as stock on Wall Street?

It’s been a little while since I’ve blogged about Ann Coulter. Not because I didn’t want to but because I haven’t had the time or the energy to do it. Trust me, reading through her blog posts and responding to them takes a lot of energy. I bet wading through a mine field is easier than interpreting your typical Ann Coulter blog post. 

Part of the reason for the delay was due to a recent bit of news that I ran across last week. According to the Huffington Post, Ann Coulter is under investigation for voter fraud. Now, whether this is legitimate remains to be seen, especially when you consider that the reason she is under investigation is due to a formal complaint being filed by Coulterwatch.com blogger Dan Borchers. Seems Dan really has it in for Ann Coulter. So either she’ll get busted for voter fraud or the case will go nowhere.

What’s interesting is that this isn’t the first time Ann Coulter has been investigated for voter fraud. Two years ago, Ann was under investigation for voter fraud in Florida. The case was dropped but according to The Brad Blog there was quite a bit of evidence that showed that she deliberately registered under the wrong address on her voter registration, which is a felony under Florida law. 

Again, whether this is all just bullshit or not remains to be seen. Of this though I will say this: Should Ann Coulter be found guilty of voter fraud, what would that say about her credibility as a conservative pundit? If anything, it would only show how hypocritical she really is. After all, the rules apply to everyone. Just because you think you’re “special” doesn’t mean that you’re immune to certain rules of law. Nobody is above the law.

With that out of the way, let’s move on to Ann’s latest blog posts. She has written two since my last “Ann” post so this’ll be a two-parter, starting with her latest post entitled Goodbye, America! It Was Fun While It Lasted.

With the stimulus bill being passed, it was only a matter of time before Ann would mention something about it and try to tie in her “motherhood” thesis into it. The problem I have with Ann’s post is that she tries to inject a preconceived abstract idea into something that has little to nothing to do with her thesis. For instance:

For half a century, the welfare establishment had the bright idea to pay women to have children out of wedlock. Following the iron laws of economics — subsidize something, you get more of it; tax it, you get less of it — the number of children being born out of wedlock skyrocketed.

See what I mean? You get this sort of preconceived notion that somehow, because of how our welfare system has worked in the past, somehow women decided that they didn’t need a man or a job and started pumping out babies in order to get a big welfare check. The question is: How many women? How big of a problem is this?

The stimulus bill goes a long way toward repealing the work requirement of the 1996 Republican Welfare Reform bill and rewards states that increase their welfare caseloads by paying unwed mothers to sit home doing nothing.

Where’s the proof of this? What part of the stimulus bill show this? And why target just unwed mothers? How many unwed mothers do we have sitting at home doing nothing? Does anyone really know? Are they really the problem? Or does the problem stem from something much bigger? After all, what situation would cause any woman to want to purposely have kids for the sole purpose of receiving a larger welfare check? Has the thought ever crossed anyone’s mind? I fail to see the logic in Ann’s argument.

Think of it like this: Since 1995, Republicans have controlled both the House and the Senate (with the exception of the Sentate in 2001-2003). In that time, why haven’t Republicans pushed to reform the welfare system and promote a more balanced and fair system? For a party that promotes traditional values and the protection of individual rights, wouldn’t a reform of the welfare system be a part of that creed?

Welfare is supposed to be about providing financial aid to those who find themselves unable to support themselves. It’s not about giving free handouts. There’s no doubt we have folks in this country who have been taking advantage and abusing the system. If there are problems with the system then we need to fix it. But to put all the blame on unwed mothers who are abusing the system is just silly. They are only a fraction of the problem.

The real problem we face is getting people back to work so that they don’t have to rely on welfare and unemployment checks. Unless you’re disabled or have a really legitimate reason for why you can’t work, welfare is supposed to be temporary. As such, we need to find ways of getting people jobs rather than worrying about how many unwed mothers we’re going to blame for our welfare problems. Painting the problem with broad brush strokes leads to putting blame in the wrong place.

…Bureaucrats at Health and Human Services will electronically collect every citizen’s complete medical records and determine appropriate medical care.

And the problem with this is what?

HHS bureaucrats will soon be empowered to overrule your doctor. Doctors who don’t comply with the government’s treatment protocols will be fined. That’s right: Instead of your treatment being determined by your doctor, it will be settled on by some narcoleptic half-wit in Washington who couldn’t get a job in the private sector.

Again, take a preconceived notion about this bill and automatically Ann will find something wrong with it. This is a part of the bill that has received some attention lately and has been stretched, distorted, and twisted to mean something other than what it really is. Ann is playing the “fear” card. The problem is that nothing could be further from the truth. 

From what I’ve read, the idea is to create a central database for health records that, in theory, would help reduce costs and errors. After all, insurance companies and the government already have most peoples medical records anyways. Since they’re the ones paying most of the medical bills in our country, it’s easy to see why standardizing on how medical records are handled is so important. Granted, privacy is important and no doctor, insurance provider, and/or the government should hand out your medical records to anyone.

For instance, I recently had a doctor visit and schedule a procedure for this week. However, due to a problem with my insurance, I have to get the procedure done elsewhere. The problem is that the new doctor’s office wants me to come in for a doctor visit before doing the procedure; something about “not having anything to do with the other doctor’s office”. Not only that but I have to fill out a form and wait for the other doctor to transfer my medical records. Basically what this means is that I’m starting from scratch and have to pay for yet another doctor’s visit just to get a procedure done. I’m being double-tapped for no reason.

My thinking is that if there was a standard electronic medical records system then the new doctor would be able to access my records and pretty much allow me to schedule the procedure on the spot without any need for “yet another doctor visit”. This saves me, my insurance company, and my doctor both time and money. Why wouldn’t this be a good idea?

And a brand-new set of bureaucrats in the newly created office of “National Coordinator of Health Information Technology” will be empowered to cut off treatments that merely prolong life. Sorry, Mom and Pop, Big Brother said it’s time to go.

No, the government is not going to stick their nose into your business and tell your doctor what treatments you should receive. That’s completely ridiculous. There is absolutely nothing in the bill that suggests that the government has any right to tell your doctor what to do in regards to your health. That is between you and your doctor and no one else.

However, what the ”National Coordinator of Health Information Technology” can do is monitor what your doctor does to ensure that what he/she is doing is appropriate and cost effective. We’re not talking about regulation here; just some appropriate oversight here. The medical industry is really screwed up and there is no doubt that we have a handful of doctors and insurance companies that are abusing the system. I think what the office of ”National Coordinator of Health Information Technology” is for is to bring back fairness to the system and bring about some long overdue standards in the industry for handling electronic records. Again, why is not a good idea?

At every other workplace in the nation — even Wal-Mart! — workers are being laid off. But no one at any of the bloated government bureaucracies ever need fear receiving a pink slip. All 64,750 employees at the department of Health and Human Services are apparently absolutely crucial to the smooth functioning of the department.

I’m willing to bet that most of the 64,750 workers at the department of Health and Human Services make an average salary of $40-50k per year plus benefits (I could be wrong). It’s not like you have a whole bunch of government workers making six-figure salaries. Given our population, 64,750 workers in that department isn’t all that much. Ann makes millions of dollars per year on her books and owns one or more million dollar homes. I think she would do well to shut up and not be such a hypocrite.

The stimulus bill has a lot to do with infrastructure. After all, the problems we face with our economy encompass just about every facet of our society. Everything is related. Education, health, roads, bridges, technology, environment, jobs, homes, cars, banks, and much, much more. These are things that all of us use every single day and they’re all interrelated and dependent on one another.

Even if we save the car industry, who’s going to lead us into the next millennium with fresh ideas?

Even if we jump-start the path towards energy independence and new energy technologies, will future generations receive the education they need to continue that path? 

What happens when the next bridge collapses or the next levee breaks? Who do we blame?

Infrastructure. You can’t fix a myriad of broken systems and a broken economy unless you address the real problem: a lack of infrastructure.

It’s funny because, even before Obama got elected, I’ve been talking about this very thing for nearly two years now. I see how all these problems are related and how a lack of infrastructure caused them. Why can’t Ann see that? Because her preconceived notions prevent her from seeing the truth.

A couple of days ago, Ann Coulter posted another blog post called Liberal Victimhood: A Game You Can Play at Home. After reading it, some thoughts came to mind that I think help explain what the real problem is with Ann Coulter.

I think most of the problems with Ann Coulter stem from ignorance. Now, I’m not talking about a lack of knowledge here. It’s not like Ann Coulter isn’t smart because she is. You can’t skate through college if you’re a moron. It takes some brains to graduate. Ann Coulter is ignorant because she fails to see things how they really are. 

All of us pretty much perceive things in the same way. We all hear the same words, see the same images, and read the same words. What changes is when our mind and emotions come into play. When that happens our conception of things changes. Wisdom comes when you’re able to conceive things as they are without any precepts. As such, if you have a highly biased point of view from the very beginning then everything you perceive ends up becoming a series of misconceptions.

By now, if you’re asking yourself whether this is a very Zen-like way of looking at things, you’re not far off. 

Ann Coulter labels herself as an unapologetic, unwavering Conservative. As such, her view on things is automatically biased and skewed. Her misconceptions come in the form of labels. Ann Coulter is constantly categorizing everyone and everything: Liberal, Conservative, corrupt, victim, left-wing, right-wing, hypocrite, godless, hopeless, just to name a few. In the end, her mind is made up even before a politician opens up their mouth.

In her mind, virtually all Democrats are Liberals. Do most Democrats lean more on the Liberal side of things? Maybe. I don’t know. Personally, I do not believe that all Democrats are Liberals and all Republicans are Conservative and vice versa. Labels like this don’t serve any purpose. There are many Democrats and Republicans who share similar values and principles and have ideas that can fall on both sides of the fence. It’s a common misconception that has no base in reality. 

Borrowing from one of my favorite comic books, The Sandman, I would describe Ann Coulter’s game of labels as “a game of you”, a game played only within herself. Rather than seeing things as they are, Ann would rather fabricate her own reality in an effort to define her own identity. It’s a game that, in the end, only leads to a brick wall.

In her latest blog post, right off the bat, Ann starts off with a few misconceptions:

I notice that liberals have not challenged the overall thesis of my rocketing bestseller, “Guilty: Liberal ‘Victims’ and Their Assault on America,” which is that liberals always play the victim in order to advance, win advantages and oppress others.

I guess that would be hard to do when the corrupt Democratic governor of Illinois is running around comparing himself to Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi.

Indeed, you can’t turn on the TV without seeing some liberal playing victim to score the game-winning point.

As usual, liberals are the problem. They’re corrupt and they’re always playing the victim. Labels.

The reality is that Rod Blagojevich wasn’t much of a Democrat. In fact, he really didn’t get all that much support from his fellow Democrats in Illinois. To say that he’s a poster child of a typical Democrat, much less a liberal, is a complete misconception. He stood out on his own and didn’t in any way reflect the views, opinions, and/or values of the Democratic party. Rod Blagojavich was a turd, plain and simple. Thick, brown, and full of shit.

Ann then goes on and on about the ridiculousness of the Caroline Kennedy Senate seat debacle, accusing the media of painting her as a victim (there’s that label again!):

The Kennedys are the textbook case of victims who go around victimizing others.

Look, the Kennedy family has had it’s fair share of tragedies for the past 40+ years. John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Robert Kennedy was assassinated. Edward Kennedy died in a car crash. Robert Kennedy’s son, David, died of a drug overdose. Robert’s other son, Michael, died in a skiing accident. John F. Kennedy, Jr. died in a plane crash. You think this family has been through enough? Maybe this family has a serious omen on it. I don’t know, but I don’t think the Kennedy’s are ones who go around victimizing people. That’s just ridiculous.

The reality of the Caroline Kennedy situation was that a select few Democrats wanted to see her take the New York Senate seat. I mean, obviously someone wanted her to be seated otherwise the topic would have never been brought up. What I got out of it was that plenty of Democrats instantly said “Noooooo.” Caroline Kennedy simply wasn’t qualified to be a Senator. She simply didn’t have any real political experience. As such, most people viewed the idea as ridiculous. Just because she is a Kennedy doesn’t automatically make her qualified to be a Senator.

The topper comes at the very end of Ann’s post, when she says this:

Throughout Obama’s entire life, doors were opened for him, his college applications smiled upon and favors bestowed simply because he is black — the original victim category in America. Being black is the highest victim caste because of blacks’ authentic victimhood: The nation once tolerated slavery and Jim Crow.

I actually had to re-read that paragraph multiple times. I thought, “Is she really saying what I think she’s saying?” I think so. Black is another label. Couple that with victim and you end up with a real slap in the face. 

You mean to tell me that Obama got into Columbia University and Harvard Law School because he was black? I suppose that every teacher he ever had passed him even when they should have failed him, right? I’m sorry, but you don’t get a Juris Doctor, Magna Cum Laude from Harvard just because you’re black.

Obama didn’t get everything he received by being black; he got it the hard way: he earned it. People didn’t vote for Obama just because he was black. They voted for him because he was the right person for the job. Obama earned the respect of the American people and got voted into office because of it.

To sum up, Ann Coulter’s ignorance stems from a never ending array of misconceptions and labels. What she sees as the truth and what is reality are two completely different things. While she may think she is winning the game, what she doesn’t know is that she is only playing against herself.

I think the reason why Ann Coulter is so upset in her latest blog post, More Boos Than Balls, was that she wasn’t invited to any of the balls.  Hmm…I wonder why.  Maybe it’s because, like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter wants Obama to fail. After all, her buddy Bush Jr. failed miserably, so it’s only fitting that she wishes Obama to do the same. Such an American sentiment, huh.

It will not be easy for President B. Hussein Obama. More than half the country voted for him, and yet our newspapers are brimming with snippy remarks at every little aspect of his inauguration.

Here’s a small sampling of the churlishness in just The New York Times…

Obama said in his speech that ”the time has come to set aside childish things”. Ironically, Ann, you mention this very thing at the end of your post. And yet you do the exact opposite. This whole bait-and-switch bullshit is old. It’s not even clever anymore. It’s just…well…childish.

Obama’s inaugural address tracked much of Reagan’s first inaugural address — minus the substance — the main difference being that Obama did not invoke God as stoutly or frequently, restricting his heavenly references to a few liberal focus-grouped phrases, such as “God-given” and “God’s grace.”

And just how much God do you want in an inaugural speech? Obama uses the word God three time. Reagan used it five times. So what? Why does it matter? Should we break out the measuring stick while we’re at it?

And as far as substance goes, you obviously didn’t listen. Obama mentioned many things, all of which are highly substantive. Among the most important points was religion. I think Obama said it best when he said this during his speech:

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness.  We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus – and non-believers.  We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

 Maybe you’re just pissed because Obama is a better writer than you. I don’t know. But one thing I do know is that you’re sour, Ann. You just don’t get it. (There’s that New Year’s motto again!)

Under Carter, more than 50 Americans were held hostage by a two-bit terrorist Iranian regime for 444 days — released the day of Reagan’s inauguration. Under Bush, there has not been another terrorist attack since Sept. 11, 2001.

Yeah, but then again Carter didn’t stomp all over the Constitution. You’re buddy Bush did. Next line of bullshit:

So maybe liberals can stop acting as if the entire nation could at last come together in a “unity of purpose” if only conservatives would stop fomenting “conflict and discord” — as Obama suggested in his inaugural address. We’re not the ones who booed a departing president.

Yeah, but you certainly didn’t mind it when “conservatives” kept spreading lies like “Obama is a Muslim” and “Liberals are Godless” and other crack-pipe ideas that do nothing but stir the pot. People booed President Bush because he shit all over the Constitution. There is irrefutable proof that he allowed illegal methods of torture to take place as well as illegal wire taps. He basically said himself the very thing that Nixon said a long time ago during the Frost interviews, that the President can decide to do something if it’s for the greater good of the country because when the president does it that means that it is not illegal. Bush may not have said those exact words but he has said many things that imply that very thing. His actions speak for themselves. Ann, even the President isn’t above the law. Period. And that’s why he was booed.

When will the first reporter ask President Obama to admit that he has made mistakes? Try: Never.

No, that question will disappear for the next four years. It will be replaced by the new question for conservatives on every liberal’s lips these days: Do you want Obama to succeed as president?

Answer: Of course we do. We live here, too.

So, you’re saying that, unlike Limbaugh, you want Obama to succeed? I’m sorry, now I’m just confused.

And, yes, reporters will definitely be asking Obama to admit that he’s made mistakes. Already, both the President and his staff are getting drilled like crazy by the press. Trust me, someone will ask him to admit his mistakes. And I’m willing to bet that, unlike Bush Jr., Obama will be humble and will be honest about the mistakes he’s made. To err is human.

I guess it depends on the meaning of “succeed.” If Obama “succeeds” in pushing through big-government, terrorist-appeasing policies, he will not have “succeeded” at being a good president. If we didn’t think conservative principles of small government and strong national defense weren’t better for the country, we wouldn’t be conservatives.

Yeah, cause torture is such a great policy. I think Obama made it very clear in his speech that he’s going to continue battling terrorist. However, what he’s not going to do is allow our Constitution to be trampled on in that quest. Nor will he allow our values to be diminished. A strong national defense shouldn’t require us to have to give up any of our values or our Constitutional rights. Wouldn’t you agree, Ann?

Oh, that and the lovely “conservative” idea of a free market. I really do enjoy watching big banks have free reign to do whatever the hell they want to with our tax dollars. Don’t you? 

Honestly, I’m not so sure that Obama is about big government. The more and more I hear him talk the more I think he’s more of a moderate. I don’t think he want’s extreme regulation which, to you, is big government. I don’t like “big brother” looking over my shoulder and neither do you. Nor do I like the idea of my government constantly telling a free market what they can and can’t do. What I do think is necessary is some oversight. What we do need is for our government to oversee our markets to ensure that they remain free, fair, and balanced. Right now, our markets are so screwed up and skewed and it’s all because some really greedy bastards took advantage of an unregulated market. 

And why was that question never asked of liberals producing assassination books and movies about President Bush for the last eight years?

Any President who takes the oath of office says the following words: 

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

If you asked any person who wrote a book or screenplay depicting the assassination of President Bush, just about every single one of them will tell you that the reason they did it is because they felt that Bush failed to uphold his oath. He failed to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. Instead he chose to ignore it at times. 

Hell, I could ask you the same question. Why do you continue to write books calling “Liberals” godless? Why did you compare one of Obama’s books to Hitler’s Mein Kampf? The difference between what you say, Ann, and what so-called “Liberals” say is that they actually did their research.

Even Pat Buchanan makes more sense than you, Ann! On the very same website you post to, Pat said this about the recent inauguration of Obama:

A first sign this was not to be another windy progressive spiel came with his statement that our crisis is due not just to the “greed and irresponsibility” of some, but to our own “collective failure to make hard choices.”

All of us are at fault, Obama was saying, in what became a stern and severe sermon to the nation.

Indeed, “greed and irresponsibility” are the two main factors but also our inability to make proper choices. It’s not about being right or wrong. It’s about making the right choices and not being so damn selfish.

… this inaugural was the work of a mature and serious man who knows his county is in deep water, who seems to understand what got us there and who appreciates that, on some things, the right has indeed been right from the beginning.

I don’t agree with Buchanan all that much. With this statement, I don’t exactly agree with the idea that the “right” was right from the beginning. If the “right” was right then why did they make such poor choices? Granted, the so-called “left” made bad choices too. I’m not pointing fingers here. But in a Republican dominated Congress, why were so many bad choices made? Doesn’t make sense to me.

Hope and unity, apparently, can only be achieved if conservatives would just go away — and perhaps have the decency to kill themselves.

No, Ann, hope and unity can only be achieved when conservatives learn that there are other Americans in this country other than just them. You don’t have to kill yourself. Just gain some tolerance and find some common ground rather than constantly pick at all the differences. I’m sure if we were to have a conversation, I’m willing to bet even we might actually agree on something. Might not be much of anything. But any common ground, any at all, is a good start. And that, Ann, is exactly what Obama was talking about in his speech.

I’m a bit gobsmacked by Ann’s latest post entitled Murder Spree by People Who Refuse to Ask For Directions. I mean, I’m always perplexed by what Ann writes most of the time but this one…well…it just makes me wonder if this woman will ever stop.  As such, I akin Ms. Annie No-Hart Coulter to an Everlasting Gobstopper: ”You can suck ‘em and suck ‘em and suck ‘em, and they’ll never get any smaller”, as Wonka himself said. Plus, if you bite too hard you’re liable to break your teeth.

In her post, Ann talks about how the New York Times (or The Treason Times as she like to call them) wrote a series about Iraq and Afghanistan veterans accused of murder. It would help if she told us exactly what article she’s talking about. If I had to guess, I think she’s talking about the Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles article. According to Ann, the New York Times doggedly refused to provide any statistics comparing veteran murders with murders in any other group:

What, for example, is the percentage of murderers among veterans compared to the percentage of murderers in the population at large — or, more germane, in the general population of young males, inasmuch as violent crime is committed almost exclusively by young men?

Why does it matter, Ann? That’s not even the point of the article. The point was to shed light on the fact that we have veterans committing homicide due largely in part to untreated combat trauma and post-tramatic stress. What part of that do you not get? Who cares about the percentage of murderers among veterans compared to the percentage of murderers in the population at large. That’s not even the issue here. You complete missed the point. Here’s the point (in case you missed it):

Why do we have so many veterans committing homicide? 

Forget the fact that they represent a small number compared to the many other people who have committed homicide in this country. I’m talking about veterans that, for the most part, were fairly normal before they went to Iraq and/or Afghanistan and probably would never have committed homicide had they not have joined the military.  As illustrated in the NYT article, the main reason for this is due to veterans not receiving a proper psychological evaluation when they return from a tour.

Have you ever been to war, Ann? Do you know what it’s like? You don’t, and neither do I. But I do know one thing: war can have a very dramatic effect on one’s mind. It can cause the mind to snap and enable folks to do things they normally wouldn’t do up to and including homicide. Many of the people profiled in the NYT series showed signs of post-traumatic stress after evaluation and even had signs prior to committing homicide. All this New York Times article tells me is that these veterans were not given the proper care prior to their release from tour. Given the proper evaluation and help, many of these homicides could have been prevented. 

Instead, Ann, you decided to beat a dead horse and talk on and on and on about something else:

Consider the harmless fantasy game, Dungeons and Dragons — which happens to be played almost exclusively by young males. When murders were committed in the ’80s by (1) young men, who were (2) Dungeons and Dragons enthusiasts, some people concluded that factor (2), rather than factor (1), led to murderous tendencies.

Seriously, what the hell does Dungeons and Dragons have to do with anything? So what? So a bunch of idiots in the 80’s claimed that Dungeons and Dragons was causing young men to commit crimes. Just because a few screwed up kids took their D&D too seriously doesn’t mean that everyone else who play it will to. My wife likes to play Manhunt, a highly violent video game, on our Nintendo Wii. Does that mean she’s likely to want to go out and chop someone’s head off? No, it doesn’t. It’s a baseless argument, so why even mention it?

From there, Ann continues to go on and on and on in a diatribe of statements to support her argument: that single mothers are the cause of social decline in our country:

But as long as the Times has such a burning interest in the root causes of murder, how about considering the one factor more likely to create a murderer than any other? That is the topic we’re not allowed to discuss: single motherhood.

I could go deeply into this and debunk all of this with statistics that show how homicide rates are close to half of what they were in the 80’s. I could also go on about the number of single mothers who have kids in prison compared to the total number of single mothers. To be honest, that would be pointless and a waste of time because that’s not even the issue with Ann’s blog post. 

Look, Ann Coulter is a writer. That is her job. Commentary, blog posts, interviews, and everything else she does are just ways to further promote and sell more books. The problem I have is the topics she writes about and the methods she use to sell more books. 

Take her current blog post for instance. She takes an article by the New York Times about veterans who have committed homicide, makes a connection with it to the total number of homicides in the country, and then links that to single motherhood as to one of the reasons why we have homicides in our country. It’s sick because she twists the context of the story around just to validate her argument. I find it quite disgusting because it means she’s completely ignoring the fact that these veterans needed help and our government wasn’t there to provide them with that help. It’s completely irresponsible. There’s just no logic or common sense to connecting this story with her argument at all. In the end all it does is further discredit her due to the total lack of regard for veterans of this country by making a connection with this story.

It would seem that Ann cares little about context or facts unless they help to support her argument. She cherry pick the parts she wants in an effort to support her argument just so she can sell more books. That’s what Ann Coulter does. She twists, distorts, and lies all just to rile up controversy in an effort to sell more books. Common sense, logic, proper research, Ann Coulter doesn’t care about any of these things. Instead, she just plays a game of randomly connecting dots between seemingly disparate things to drive an argument.

Frankly, I think anyone with Conservative viewpoints who actually believes what Ann Coulter says is an idiot. Hell, I’m not even sure if you could call Ann a real Conservative. To me, Ann Coulter is just a character, someone who treats life as if it were her stage. The part she plays is a caricature of a far right-wing neo-con woman. I don’t know if Ann Coulter really believes in the crap she says. If she does then she must be mental. If she doesn’t then it’s a hell of a good act.

Lately, a barrage of controversy has been surrounding Ann Coulter with the release of her latest book, Guilty, and recent appearances she has had while promoting the book. Ann is the queen of spin so it’s no surprise that a big steaming pile of dung was created…all just to sell more books!

A friend of mine recently sent me an email about an opinion column on Creators.com by a gentleman named L. Brent Bozell. His post entitled Coulter v. The Counter-Coulters is, for the lack of a better word, complete bullshit:

The Drudge Report caused a firestorm when anonymous NBC insiders leaked the word that Coulter had been “banned for life” from that network. CBS featured her on “The Early Show,” and a combative Harry Smith tried to insult her to the extreme. He called her “goofy,” “simplistic,” “sophomoric” and a “whiner.” “You should have a cross,” he said dismissively. “You should put yourself up on a cross.” Why are they so upset?

Uhh…Coulter was never “banned for life” from NBC, CBS, or any other network. Sounds to me like either The Drudge Report or Ann herself made that up. Sure does make for a great story to sell more books, don’t you think? More on that in a sec.

The so-called “objective” media clearly feel threatened because they are the very liberals Coulter is attacking. If they weren’t liberals, none of her mockery of liberals would bother them. Oh, they might not appreciate her style, as some conservatives don’t. But they wouldn’t have pitched debates inside their walls about how they will savage her in interviews — and I defy the networks to deny this — or how they would remove her from their airwaves altogether.

Threatened? Really? If I were part of the so-called “Liberal media” I wouldn’t feel threatened. I highly doubt Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow or anyone else for that matter feels threatened either. After all, why should we feel threatened? There isn’t anything that Ann says that remotely reflects any common sense or anything that can be deemed as an educated argument. If I was running a network, I probably wouldn’t have her on either.  Not because she’s a threat to my ideology but rather I simply wouldn’t want to kill more viewer brain cells with a display of idiocracy.

Later, I read Ann’s latest post where she says this right at the very beginning:

After NBC canceled me “for life” on Monday — until seven or eight hours later when the ban was splashed across the top of The Drudge Report, forcing a red-faced NBC to withdraw the ban — an NBC insider told The Drudge Report: “We are just not interested in anyone so highly critical of President-elect Obama, right now,” explaining that “it’s such a downer. It’s just not the time, and it’s not what our audience wants, either.”

Here’s what I think about that:

Don’t piss on my boots and tell me it’s raining. NBC no more canceled you than you flew. And then you go on to claim that someone at NBC wasn’t interested in you because you’re so critical of Obama? Bullshit, Ann! I’m not even going to comment on the rest of your post, which is nothing more than an excerpt from your book and filled with just as much bullshit as well. 

You sat right there on the Today show and agreed with Matt Lauer on the Today show that you didn’t get banned:

Did you say you got rescheduled twice?  That happens all the time with talk shows. You didn’t get banned! Why do you continue to insist that somehow you got banned? Just because The Drudge Report said it doesn’t make it so. 

And then you claim that you didn’t say that “the liberal mainstream media hates conservatives”. You may not have said those exact words but you sure as hell have implied it time and time and time again. 

Then you act all so “I don’t know! Why would I do something like that?”. Yes, you are fanning the fire to sell more books. How else can you sell a book that is so controversial? By creating more controversy! Duh!

And what kind of results prove that Liberals are destroying America? The exultation of single motherhood?

It, it’s promoted in the New York Times and all the glossy women’s magazines and Hollywood movies. And we now know, after 30 years of promoting single motherhood, of the courts destroying the institute of marriage, that children raised without fathers are filling up the prisons, are 70 percent of the teenage runaways, of, of teenage pregnancies, of rapists.

Seriously? Are you out of your ever-loving mind? Ann, what you’re describing is just a part of life and the result of decades of evolution in this country. Single parents are NOT the result of Liberals destroying America. That’s just complete and utter bullshit.  

You want to know the thing that really gets me about this? It’s the way you present it. You talk as if you’re an authority on the subject and that everyone else knows the facts. You claim all of these outrageous things and yet you don’t have anything to back them up with. No facts. No hardcore research. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

David Neiwart on Crook And Liars summed it up Ann Coulter quite well:

Yes, we know it’s a schtick. Ann Coulter gets paid millions of dollars to say outrageous things. She has to keep coming up with new ones or she’ll be out of work. And it would be best if we all could just ignore her.

But as I learned long ago, ignoring these people away doesn’t work — especially when, like Coulter, she can team up with her pal Drudge to maumau NBC into putting her back on-air even after they’d come to their senses and realized they were being had. Well, she did it again. More importantly, she can go on all these national talk shows — as she did today, appearing not just on NBC but also CNN with Lou Dobbs and on Fox with Bill O’Reilly.

In other words, Ann Coulter is a joke, a caricature of a right-wing conservative wacko which, if it is indeed an act, is a pretty damn convincing one. But the sad part is that it isn’t an act. It’s Ann being Ann.

What folks like Brent Bozell don’t understand is that the so-called “Liberal media” don’t like, not because she’s a threat, but rather because she’s ignorant. The only enemy Ann Coulter has is…umm…Ann Coulter. She is her own worst enemy. Every gaff that comes out of her mouth and every book she writes does nothing more than just sink her credibility lower and lower and lower.

My advice? Quite while you’re ahead, Ann! Go back to doing something more productive rather than making millions off of telling lies! Hate-mongering and making money off of lies is far more damaging to America than the shit you claim “Liberals” are doing.

I tried. I tried real hard at the beginning of the year to ignore the pantomime’s of Ann Coulter. After getting her jaw wired shut, I figured Ann might cool it for a bit. Nope. Another email with her name on it landed on my inbox. I tried to ignore it but skimmed over it and read this from the summary of her latest blog post entitled Teaching Democrats New Tricks:

Ravens can learn to snatch fishermen’s untended lines to get fish. Worms learn not to eat harmful bacteria (as opposed to the tasty nutritious bacteria they normally feed on). Fruit fly larvae can learn to detect the scent of predators.

But liberals cannot learn that the Aug. 6, 2001, Presidential Daily Briefing titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S.” had not a speck of what we call “useful information.”

Seriously? No “useful information”?  Then why the hell do they even bother writing these briefings?  What’s the point of them if they don’t actually contain anything “useful”? Off I go to read the original declassified briefing and find out. 

The problem I found with the briefing isn’t that it didn’t contain anything useful as it relates to 9/11.  No, the problem is that the most useful information is right at the end, some of which is on the second page:

We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a [classified] service in 1998 saying that Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of “Blind Shaykh” ‘Umar ‘Abd al-Rahman and other US-held extremists.

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

Nope. Not useful whatsoever…or is it? That last paragraph seems to make it pretty clear that there was “patterns of suspicious activity” to suggest that a hijacking would indeed occur, right?

Or maybe the problem isn’t that the intelligence isn’t useful but rather that the briefing itself is poorly designed. What if Bush had received a briefing that looked something like this?

With a threat level indicator and more emphasis on the most important parts of the briefing, do you think maybe President Bush would have taken it a bit more seriously? Yes, design can make that much of a difference…even for someone like President Bush.

So after reviewing this little gem of a blog post, I went back to read a few other prior ones I ignored. As expected, I was greeted with a massive barrage of bullshit thrown in all directions.

Terrorists’ Restless Leg Syndrome

This is another one I read and thought, “You’re kidding, right?”  Nope…she’s not:

I thought the rest of the world was going to love us if we elected B. Hussein Obama! Somebody better tell the Indian Muslims. As everyone but President-elect B. Hussein Obama’s base knows, many of the Guantanamo detainees cannot be sent to their home countries, cannot be released and cannot be tried. They need to be held in some form of extra-legal limbo the rest of their lives, sort of like Phil Spector.
    
And now they’re Obama’s problem.

This is the only part she gets half-ass right. Yes, there are detainees that are basically in legal limbo right now. However, she’s dead wrong in thinking that somehow everyone in Obama’s base doesn’t know this. I know it. Many others know it. Obama knows it. He basically wants to shut Guantanamo down. And why? Simple. Because it’s effectively been running outside of the law. 

Detainees are getting a half-ass degree of constitutional rights given to them.  That’s not right. Regardless of whether we think they are guilty or not, every detainee deserves to be tried with the perception that they are innocent until proven guilty. If you can’t prove it then let them go. Regardless of whether a detainee is a proven terrorist or not, if you can’t prove it then you don’t have any right to hold them. Our government has no right to think that they are somehow outside of the law, that international laws and the Constitution do not apply to them or to certain people.

There’s a right way and a wrong way when it comes to gathering intelligence and dealing with suspected terrorists. If our government does it the right way then we’ll stand a chance and maintaining good intelligence and promoting better relations with other countries. If they continue to do it the wrong way though then we’ll continue to see the same level of bad relations with other countries and will only promote more terrorism and more bad intelligence in the long run. It’s bullshit to say the least.

After being captured fighting with Taliban forces against Americans in 2001, Abdullah Massoud was sent to Guantanamo, where the one-legged terrorist was fitted with a special prosthetic leg, at a cost of $50,000-$75,000 to the U.S. taxpayer. Under the Americans With Disabilities Act, Massoud would now be able to park his car bomb in a handicapped parking space!

Rather than talk about the real issue here, Ann would rather spend her entire blog post talking about what could very well be a figment of her imagination. I searched and searched for confirmed sources about Abdullah Massoud and his $75,000 artificial leg and did find squat. Virtually all reports I found point back to (you guessed it!) Ann’s blog post! Forget about the confirmed reports of torture and complete disregard for the law. No, Ann, you’d rather ignore all of that and talk about a damn artificial leg!  Ugg!

Wanna know what the real problem is? The Bush administration has never been able to define the detainees at Guantanamo as POW’s and follow the laws of the Geneva conventions. That’s the problem. The Bush administration from the very beginning deemed the “War on Terror” as an un-conventional war and thus figured that the detainees at Guantanamo were not subject to the same laws as POW’s. Nor is the prison at Guantanamo Bay considered a province of the U.S. so detainees are not subject to the laws of our Constitution. Oh, and the evidence on them can’t be talked about in open court rooms because the evidence may be too “sensitive”. So exactly what rights do these people have?

And someone like Ann talks about tax dollars spent on an artificial limb? There isn’t any real hardcore information on that nor is that even the problem. The real problem has everything to do with how truly screwed up the Guantanamo situation really is and who caused it to get that way. Why didn’t Ann address that rather than spending 90% of her post talking about a terrorist with an artificial limb. That’s just crazy!

Now, you could argue that similar circumstances happened in WWII, however, what happened in WWII was much different. There are some similarities though. There were legal German-American and Japanese-American people and families sent to camps and held against their will simply because they were German or Japanese. Not everything was perfect even during WWII.

Sarah Palin: Conservative of the Year

Sarah Palin wins HUMAN EVENTS’ prestigious “Conservative of the Year” Award for 2008 for her genius at annoying all the right people. The last woman to get liberals this hot under the collar would have been … let’s see now … oh, yeah: Me!

Oh, Jesus, is she seriously this screwed up?

So Palin had one more child — and a lot more executive experience — than the guy at the top of the Democrats’ ticket. (I suspect what liberals were really mad about was that if Palin became Vice President, she probably would have hired a nanny who was a U.S. citizen.) 

Yep, she is! The nanny thing alone is enough to make me scream. The rest of her post just made me want to hit a baby (if you’re a Dane Cook fan, you’ll get it).

I’ll be brief with this cause I really don’t have the energy to rant about this one.  Makes my brain hurt.

Anyone who really knows me knows that I am the least prejudice, least racist person you’ll ever meet. There are only two things I cannot stand and will not put up with: ignorance and stupidity. 

The problem with Sarah Palin wasn’t because she was a mom or that she didn’t have the experience to be Vice President (she really wasn’t that experienced…but that’s beside the point). The problem was that Sarah Palin was just too damn dumb to hold the second highest office in the land. Time after time after time through the election she stumbled and fell on her words with a complete lack of any common sense or a degree of knowledge on things that are too damn important for her not to know. By comparison to Obama, she’s practically a Kindergartner in politics. McCain would have probably lost the election anyways but he really lost the election with Palin on his ticket. 

Ann Coulter: Idiot of the Year

Like Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter is too dumb to be taken seriously. Rarely does she exercise any common sense or degree of knowledge with her punditry. It’s hard to take her seriously at all. Her words spread like a virus with no cure in sight. How can anyone have such a one-sided argument without facing the facts? Doesn’t make any sense to me.

What Ann fails to realize is that there are three sides to any story: your side, their side, and the truth. To ignore the truth or just absorb the parts of the truth that you like is highly ignorant and stupid.

It is for this reason that I award the first ever Steamd.net Idiot of the Year award to Ann Coulter! Congratulations Ann!