H1N1 Vaccines, Breast Cancer, and the Congressional Health "Care" Bill

The Anti-Government Health Care Arguement: "Around the world, socialized medicine has resulted in a rationing of care. Governments have found themselves limiting access to services and establishing waiting lists. In Canada, patients wait an average of 27.9 weeks just to see an ophthamologist after referral by their GP ( http://www.fraserinstitute.org/researchandpublications/publications/2548.aspx )

Americans will end up with higher costs and less care as it is rationed."

Real? Or just fear-mongering? Those in favor of government-provided insurance and care say this is nonsense, and point to anecdotal incidences of friends receiving care in Canada and finding it just fine.

So let's stop talking "what ifs...," and look at Current Reality:

The H1N1 vaccine *is* a socialized, government program. The shot is free.
It is also in short supply everywhere, and doses are restricted to only the most at-risk patients. Conversely, the usual vaccinations, provided by the market, are readily available.

The Federal Government recently funded a study released by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which recommended that women of average breast cancer risk start mammograms at age 50, not 40, and have them every two years rather than annually. Breast Cancer is currently the leading form of cancer in women. Many of us know women who are alive today because they caught a vigorous form of breast cancer early (including my own mother).

But now, the feds are recommending that women reduce their preventative mammograms. Meanwhile, page 1,190 of the House health care bill specifically states that Government Insurance shall not pay for preventative care that exceeds the Task Force's guidelines - even though NOT ONE member of the Task Force specialized in cancer or women's health!

There is the reality of Socialized Medicine. Rationing. Less Care. But we can all feel 'good' because Government is Caring for us, right?

Health Care needs reform - but this bill must be defeated.

And if it is passed, it needs to be repealed.

ALL EUROPEAN LIFE DIED IN AUSCHWITZ

The following is a copy of an article written by Spanish writer Sebastian Vilar Rodrigez and published in a Spanish newspaper on Jan .15, 2008. It doesn't take much imagination to extrapolate the message to the rest of Europe - and possibly to the rest of the world.
=====================================================

REMEMBER AS YOU READ -- IT WAS IN A SPANISH PAPER
Date: Tue, 15 January 2008 14:30:20 -0500

ALL EUROPEAN LIFE DIED IN AUSCHWITZ
By Sebastian Vilar Rodrigez

I walked down the street in Barcelona, and suddenly discovered a terrible truth - Europe died in Auschwitz.. We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims. In Auschwitz, we burned a culture, thought, creativity, talent. We destroyed the chosen people, truly chosen, because they produced great and wonderful people who changed the world.

The contribution of this people is felt in all areas of life: science, art, international trade, and above all, as the conscience of the world. These are the people we burned.

And under the pretense of tolerance, and because we wanted to prove to ourselves that we were cured of the disease of racism, we opened our gates to 20 million Muslims, who brought us stupidity and ignorance, religious extremism and lack of tolerance, crime and poverty, due to an unwillingness to work and support their families with pride.

They have blown up our trains and turned our beautiful Spanish cities into the third world, drowning in filth and crime.

Shut up in the apartments they receive free from the government, they plan the murder and destruction of their naive hosts.

And thus, in our misery, we have exchanged culture for fanatical hatred, creative skill for destructive skill, intelligence for backwardness and superstition.

We have exchanged the pursuit of peace of the Jews of Europe and their talent for for a better future for their children, their determined clinging to life because life is holy, for those who pursue death, for people consumed by the desire for death for themselves and others, for our children and theirs.

What a terrible mistake was made by miserable Europe.

***********************************

A lot of Americans have become so insulated from reality that they imagine America can suffer defeat without any inconvenience to themselves.

Absolutely No Profiling! Pause a moment, reflect back, and take the following multiple choice test.  These events are actual events from history. They really happened! Do you remember?

HERE'S THE TEST

1. 1968 Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed by:

a. Superman

b. Jay Leno

c. Harry Potter

d. A Muslim male extremist between the ages of 17 and 40

2. In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, athletes were kidnapped and massacred by :

a. Olga Corbett

b. Sitting Bull

c. Arnold Schwarzenegger

d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

3. In 1979, the US embassy in Iran was taken over by:

a. Lost Norwegians

b. Elvis

c. A tour bus full of 80-year-old women

d . Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

4. During the 1980's a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by:

a. John Dillinger

b. The King of Sweden

c. The Boy Scouts

d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

5. In 1983, the US Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by:

a. A pizza delivery boy

b. Pee Wee Herman

c. Geraldo Rivera

d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

6. In 1985 the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked and a 70 year old American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard in his wheelchair by:

a. The Smurfs

b. Davey Jones

c. The Little Mermaid

d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

7. In 1985 TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens, and a US Navy diver trying to rescue passengers was murdered by:

a. Captain Kidd

b. Charles Lindberg

c. Mother Teresa

d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

8. In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by:

a. Scooby Doo

b. The Tooth Fairy

c. The Sundance Kid

d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

9. In 1993 the World Trade Center was bombed the first time by:

a. Richard Simmons

b. Grandma Moses

c. Michael Jordan

d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

10. In 1998, the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by:

a. Mr. Rogers

b. Hillary Clinton, to distract attention from Wild Bill's women problems

c. The World Wrestling Federation

d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

11. In 2000, the USS Cole was attacked, and over a dozen sailors were killed by:

a. Captain Nemo

b. The Good Ship Lollipop

c. The Starship Enterprise

d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

12. On 9/11/01, four airliners were hijacked; two were used as missiles to take out the World Trade Centers and of the remaining two, one crashed into the US Pentagon and the other was diverted and crashed by the passengers.

Thousands of people were killed by:

a. Bugs Bunny, Wiley E. Coyote, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd

b. The Supreme Court of Florida

c. Mr Bean

d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

13. In 2002 the United States fought a war in Afghanistan against:

a. Enron

b. The Lutheran Church

c. The NFL

d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

14. In 2002 reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered by:

a. Bonnie and Clyde

b. Captain Kangaroo

c. Billy Graham

d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

15. In 2009 13 people (military and civilian) at Fort Hood, Texas were murdered by:

a. Santa Ana

b. Geronimo

c. Tonto and Little Beaver

d. A Muslim male extremist



No, I really don't see a pattern here to justify profiling, do you? So, to ensure we Americans never offend anyone, particularly fanatics intent on killing us, airport security screeners will no longer be allowed to profile certain people.. They must conduct random searches of 80-year-old women, little kids, airline pilots with proper identification, secret service agents who are members of the President's security detail, 85-year old Congressmen with metal hips, and Medal of Honor winner and former Governor Joe Foss, but leave Muslim Males between the ages 17 and 40 alone lest they be guilty of profiling.

Let's send this to as many people as we can so that the Gloria Aldreds and other dunder-headed attorneys from the ACLU along with Federal Justices that want to thwart common sense, feel ashamed of themselves -- if they have any such sense!

As the writer of the award winning story 'Forrest Gump' so aptly put it, 'Stupid is as stupid does.'

Another Open Letter to Ms Shea-Porter

Ms Shea-Porter,

Can you please tell me where all the jobs you promised are?  You took nearly a trillion dollars from our children to create jobs and since that time, the economy has only declined. 

I urge all of Ms Shea-Porter's constituents to let her know that she will be on the unemployment line come January of 2011.

We need change and the first step is to remove Ms Shea-Porter.

Platy

Is Obama an embarrassment to America?

Obama’s continual bowing and genuflecting in front of foreign leaders in highly unsavory.  His horrific response to the terror at Fort Hood is even worse!  

When the nation is in the midst of a national tragedy, Americans look to the president for calming leadership.  All president have shown this, Reagan (Challenger), Clinton (Oklahoma bombing), even GW Bush got high praise for his response immediately after 9/11 when he spoke at the site of the former Twin Towers.

I was completely embarrassed by Obama’s response to the terrorist attack at Fort Hood. For those of who have not seen Obama please look at this.

http://usat.gannett.a.mms.mavenapps.net/mms/rt/1/site/gannett-usatoday-206-pub01-live/current/launch.html?maven_playerId=immersiveproduction&maven_referralPlaylistId=8e268cb11203908ddaf61de8af24b4e3f6b392e8&maven_referralObject=1320547486&maven_referrer=staf

He is an embarrassment to American for sure!

Time For Skinflint Yankeeism

By Maynard Thomson

The proposed Carroll County nursing home shouldn’t be a political issue.  There may be voters wanting to put sick, old people on ice floes, but I doubt that’s a constituency either party’s courting.  No, if Carroll County citizens think owning a nursing home’s the best way to serve the need, I assume everyone merely wants it done efficiently.

Which is why we all need some answers.   I recently learned that the proposed structure has a projected construction cost per square foot roughly twice the national average—the data are readily available on the internet. (See, for example, www.reedconstructiondata.com/rsmeans/models/nursing-home/ ).

The building endorsed by the Building Committee is estimated to cost about $23 million dollars, or $277 a square foot; the national average in 2008, the latest year for which I have data, is $133 a square foot.  In a survey of the 2008 construction costs for nursing homes in twenty-five cities, not one, including New York, Boston and Los Angeles, broke $200 a square foot.

County Commissioner Dorothy Solomon, who serves on the Building Committee, assured me that these data comparisons are “apples and oranges,” and that the proposed facility will be built at a cost well within the national averages.  I’ve no reason to doubt her.

Still, some of the members of the Building Committee, who once favored the project, are expressing second thoughts.  Some say they didn’t have this other data, and are troubled by it. I’m troubled they’re troubled.

It isn’t enough if a majority of the Building Committee remains committed to this building.  It’s going to be paid for by our children and grandchildren, and we owe it to them to see to it that the case for this particular design, at this price, is DEMONSTRABLY the most efficient way to accomplish carefully-defined, explicit goals.  Good governance requires more than reasonable action by the people we hire to do our will; it requires the wide-spread public PERCEPTION that our government employees are acting as careful stewards of the resources with which we entrust them.

Make no mistake:  while the nursing home shouldn’t be a political issue, it will be, a year from now, if concerns about the cost aren’t dispelled NOW.  The divide won’t necessarily be Republican vs. Democrat, and I hope it won’t be; it will pit those who are indifferent to public perception, and perhaps to the public purse, against those who are no longer willing to burden our descendants with the tab for the Most Spoiled Generation’s (mine) life-long debauch.

Thanks in large part to policies being pursued in Washington, we’ve moved into European-style, long term economic sclerosis:  endemic high unemployment rates, slow growth, suppressed incomes, staggering public debt.  It would be unconscionable to lay on people with no say in the matter the additional financial burden of a Carroll County facility costing one cent more than necessary to meet the most compelling public need.

An adequate presentation will be one convincing a majority of Carroll County taxpayers that A) the means selected for caring for the target population is no broader than necessary (ie, that public ownership and operation is superior to all other options, including public financing of  private care) ; and B) the preferred building is the most efficient that will serve that end—that is, that there is no less expensive design, over the life of the building, that would be adequate to the purpose—bringing us back to the cost of other, newly-built nursing homes around the country:  they can’t ALL be hellholes.

Of course, members of the public should remember that our local elected officials are hardly the overpaid slackers too often found in government.  Assume good will.  Questions should be civil and designed to elicit information, not score points.  Accusations and hyperbole add nothing.

There’s a County Commissioners’ meeting on Nov. 18, at 7 PM in the Administration Building in Ossipee; a good time for the Commissioners, at least, to address these concerns—and you might want to be there.  There’s a meeting of the Building Committee at the same location, at 9 AM on Nov. 30.  I gather this is when project financing will be voted on; it shouldn’t go forward until these questions are answered.