A Visit to the White House!

I visited the White House website today. It's chock full of blogs, articles, blurbs, words, and pictures that are meant to convey happy happy joy joy.

Here's what one of the blurbs said:

"The President's position on health care insurance reform is informed by the ten letters he reads every day. Watch a behind-the-scenes video showing how these letters are chosen from the tens of thousands he receives daily."

There are only 26 letters in the alphabet, so I don't know how he gets tens of thousands everyday, but I'll assume some of those are repeat and double letters.

I wonder which ten he usually picks? I know which ones I would pick for him:

L-O-A-D-O-F-C-R-A-P

Watching Obama pour through tens of thousands of letters sounds as exciting as watching grass grow. I'd rather see a behind-the-scenes video of his speechwriters uploading his audacious speeches onto Sir Teleprompter.

There's a little blurb at the bottom of the front page asking people to tattle on other people who are spreading rumors and disinformation about the health care reform bill. They want the tattle tales to email them with the rumor-monger's blog or chain letters (not to be confused with chain mail which is what I wear under my clothing everyday - made of mithril, of course), links, or whatever.

I think I'll send them all of their own propaganda. They want to know who's putting out misinformation, I'll happily let them know it's them. Using an anonymous email address on a public computer in an internet center 100 miles from my hometown, of course.

There's an article about "Green the Block" and the "Hip Hop Caucus." Is that cool sounding or what?

Us racist Redneck backwoods right-wing nutjobs should come up with something snazzy like that. The "Hoedown Caucus?" Or maybe the "Astroturf Caucus?" I think it's best to make fun of the terms the left comes up with to make fun of us by using those terms to make fun right back at them by making fun of ourselves, therefore rendering their taunting powerless.

Speaking of green... Has anyone, besides me, noticed that whenever anything "Goes Green" the actual "green" disappears and the whole venture ends up going into the "red?" If Obama really supported "green," he would tell people to "Go Black!" No business wants to see their green disappear and the bottom line go red because they've "gone green" - they want it to be in the black, whether they're green or not. Of course, we all know today's "green" really means yesterday's "Red" - eh KGB, nudge, nudge, wink, wink?

Personally, I fully support the "greening" of America. After all, if the entire population has a lot of green, we can become the power brokers behind the puppets and we could then control their movements. We could oust those nasty money-grubbing, power-grabbing, back-stabbing creepy bankers.

When I think about creepy bankers, I can't help but picture Dick Van Dyke in "Mary Poppins." And Mr. Potter in "It's a Wonderful Life." Do you suppose they based those characters on the Rockefellers and J.P. Morgans of this world? I know the movies were filmed before George Soros became the slimy slug that he is today, but he does bear a striking resemblence to Mr. Potter.

Back to the White House...

The Prez signed a new bill called the Lily Ledbetter Act. I think all bills should have a "Harry Potter" (no relation to Mr. Potter mentioned above) type of name given to them. I'll address this frivolity in another blog.

Anyway, here's his quote:

"Ultimately, equal pay isn't just an economic issue for millions of Americans and their families, it's a question of who we are -- and whether we're truly living up to our fundamental ideals," President Obama said. "Whether we'll do our part, as generations before us, to ensure those words put on paper some 200 years ago really mean something -- to breathe new life into them with a more enlightened understanding that is appropriate for our time."

One might think the 200 year old paper he's talking about is the United States Constitution, but he's actually talking about Mrs. Washington's grocery list:
1. 50 lbs. of flour
2. 100 lbs. of sugar
3. 100 lbs. of lard
4. Fine grit sandpaper for George's teeth

You have to admit, the rhetoric contained in the above quote is breathtaking in the extreme. In fact, it's so rhetorical that I am bound by the Law of Grammar to not actually respond.

As a side note, we are indeed a much more enlightened people. We no longer use lard. Oh, and I do like the idea of "equal pay." Mr. Prez: I want to earn as much as you earned last year. That's my fundamental ideal.

I ended my tour of the White House website by checking out the link to "A New Era of Responsibility." Obama's quote on this page:

"A budget is more than simply numbers on a page. It is a measure of how well we are living up to our obligations to ourselves and one another."

I always thought a budget went something like this:
Money coming in: $1,000.00 per month
Money going out: $750.00 for rent and car payment
Money left over: $250.00 - put $100.00 in savings, use the rest for food, etc.

Obama's budget goes something like this:
Money coming in: A couple hundred billion
Money going out: A couple hundred trillion
Money left over: None, borrow a couple hundred more trillion from China

You'll notice Obama's budget doesn't actually have "numbers" - just letters. Tens of thousands of them, in fact.

Emergency! Triage Health Care!

Let's say you have a car. All in all, the thing runs fine and gets you where you need to go. However, the brakes are starting to squeal, the battery won't hold a charge, the rear passenger window won't roll down, and the radio isn't working.

Do you take your car to a mechanic and have the entire thing rebuilt because of the few broken parts? No, you fix the broken parts, leave the working parts alone, and start driving the car again.

Why, then, do so many people think it's okay for our government to rebuild the entire health care system when many parts of it are working just fine?

Our Congress is approaching this problem from the wrong perspective. They need to use a medical diagnosis approach as their guide to fixing the health care problem:

TRIAGE

1. Identify and treat the most dire problem first, just as in an ER they take care of the most serious problem first. Those who are bleeding out take precedence over those who have a sore throat.
- Right now, Medicare and Medicaid are failing. They are bankrupting our nation as they are bankrupting themselves. Before adding more tax/spend burden on an already vulnerable situation, fix the programs that are not working FIRST.

2. Identify and treat the people who are uninsured because they can't afford private insurance and are not qualified for public aid.
- Those who can afford their own private insurance, but chose not to, should not be required by law to participate in the public option. Conversely, they should not be mandated by law to purchase their own private insurance. The government has no business dictating what Americans may or may not choose to do with their health. To interfere in this way is unconstitutional.



3. Identify and deport illegals who have been accessing health care at others expense. They are draining an already weak patient. It must stop.

4. Do not offer the public option to anyone who is currently insured through their employer. They should be excluded from the public option as long as they are working; however, in the event that they lose their job, they should then be eligible for the public option until another job with health coverage benefits is secured, or another job with wages high enough to purchase their own insurance is secured (in the event that the employer is unable to contribute to a health insurance plan).

5. Allow small businesses to participate in the plan, offering their employees the option of the public plan, with each party contributing a nominal fee in order to offset costs. However, it should be an option for the small business to participate - not a mandatory law. Just as auto insurance works, those fees are collected and invested, and a pool of funding is created.

6. The law should be written so as to offer a smorgasbord of benefits for the participant, rather than a "one size fits all" type of plan. Those people who are healthy have different medical needs than those who suffer from chronic ailments, such as diabetes, asthma, or high blood pressure.

7. The public option should be designed as a safety net - not as a government health insurance single payer system. People would be much more willing to invest their tax dollars in a system that doesn't create dependency on the government, but that helps those in need during exceptional times of financial distress.

8. Most importantly, none of these steps should be rushed. They need to be carefully examined (just like a patient), ruling out all other options (just as diagnosis are ruled out in order to reach the correct diagnosis), and a prescribed treatment that is efficient and effective should be applied.


There is no reason to throw out the good parts of American health care with the bad. Leave the good parts in place - and leave them alone so they can continue to function and expand with innovation and technology.

Just as Clouseau said while resuscitating Chief Inspector Dreyfus: "Out with the bad! In with the good!"