The answer is unmistakably and resoundingly NO.  Americans do not want a health care system resembling that of Canada or the U.K.  We the people are saying no every way we know how to; in polls, at rallies, with elections.

The time for talk is over.  It is clear that the vast majority of Americans do not want this health care legislation passed.

Any sane and logical congress would say, “Ok, thanks for letting us know.  We represent you the people, and you have made your voices clear.  Let’s toss out this 2000 plus stack of paper and get started on something else.”  But nope, not our congress.  Our congress says, “We know you don’t want it, and we don’t care.  We’re going to find every loophole we can so we can slam you with the largest most unconstitutional tax ever created, all in the name of ‘helping the poor.’”

The poor will not be helped by this bill.  Just look at any other country with government run health care.  It’s the poor that suffer.  Only the rich can afford timely and reliable care.  Why does anyone think it will be different in the US?

I’m absolutely going to go bonkers if I keep hearing, “health care is a right.”  It is not a right.  It isn’t a privilege either.  It’s a service.  You are not entitled to the labor of a doctor.  Just like they are not entitled to free oil changes from the mechanic.  We all work for a living, some of us harder than others.  Call me crazy, but I believe that the people that spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on education, work 90 hour weeks, and make life and death decisions on a daily hourly basis deserve to be paid more than my mechanic, and I’m happy to pay it.  I am not happy to pay for other people to see that doctor because they spent their money elsewhere.  We all have to make sacrifices.  Deal with it.  And here’s the thing about Americans- for the most part, we are an extremely charitable group.  If someone really was in a bad situation, I bet there would be a doctor somewhere willing to treat them, or benefactors willing to pay for the treatment.

I have faith in the American people.  I have faith in every single person who wants to better their life.  I have faith in the single mom struggling to make ends meet, the newly graduated college student looking for a job, the father of two teens that just got laid off after 20 years.  I have faith in those people to do what it takes to get through these rough patches of life, and I have faith in their friends and neighbors to help them as they’re able.  I do what I can to help those in need.  I’m grateful for all the times others have been there for me.

But oh this congress.  This congress does not have faith in us.  This congress does not want us to feel the triumph of overcoming adversity, the joy of accomplishment.  This congress wants to enable us with the most massive entitlement program our country has ever seen.  We are better than that.

I want this congress to stop taking my money and giving me back a paltry sum and expecting me to jump for joy.  I know what  you took.  Don’t tell me to be grateful for the $10 check when you snuck $100 out of my back pocket.  I’m wise to your tricks.  A lot of us are.  Which is why you will be voted out this November.  This health care bill and any other crap you manage to sneak through in closed-door deals will be repealed.

Who knew that it would take a violation of Constitutional principles by our leaders for America to stand united in a way we haven’t for generations?  Wonders never cease.

Yesterday the Republicans and Democrats finally met together to discuss health care reform.  I guess Scott Brown (R-MA) really scared the crud out of the progressives, so much so that Obama actually made good on one of his campaign pledges.  That brings us to three promises fulfilled.  1) Take Michelle on a date, 2) Get a dog for the First Daughters, and 3) Air the health care debate on C-SPAN.  Actually, let’s strike number 2. The President promised to rescue a shelter dog, but instead accepted Bo as a gift from Ted Kennedy.  Which I don’t really care about, but it just goes to show that this guy has a really, really hard time staying true to his word.

My favorite moment was when Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) became my new hero.  He flat out explained that the CBO scores weren’t real, and explained exactly why.  The best part is the look on the President’s face as Ryan is explaining that “hiding a deficit is not reducing a deficit.”  I almost felt sorry for the guy, he looked so confused.  No wonder he’s racked up our debt- he does not understand that you can’t print more money.  Now I really want to see his transcripts.  He probably failed econ 101.

I always love hearing Liz Cheney speak.  She just has a way of getting to the core of issues with common sense truisms.  Like the time she said, “America needs a commander in chief, not a community organizer.”  Or how about last week when she said, “Vice President Biden has a famously tenuous relationship with reality”?  The girl is a genius, I tell you, a genius!

I made sure to be there for her speech at CPAC to catch the pearls she would undoubtedly throw out to the audience.  I was not disappointed.

She encouraged us Americans not to believe the mainstream media when they us that conservatism is dead.  Massachusetts voters told the mainstream what they could do with their “info”.  We know what Obama’s about now.  He can no longer hide behind hopey-changey campaign promises.  The truth is, he ‘s going to raise everyone’s taxes, because he wants government in every aspect of everyone’s lives.

He also wants terrorists in everyone’s lives.  Obama’s weird pledge to close Gitmo and bring the terrorists into Thompson County, Illinois prisons is not only a bad idea, it’s an expensive one to the tune of $200 million dollars.  And that’s in addition to the taxpayer money already spent on the cost of building and maintaining gitmo.

Ms. Cheney told us that even her 9-year-old daughter had it figured out.  “Mom, is President Obama really bringing terrorists into the US?” her daughter asked.  After hearing her mother’s affirmative response, she responded, “Man, use your brain Dude! That’s really stupid.”  This is not rocket science, people.  Terrorists belong in Gitmo, not America’s heartland.

President Obama is not on top of his game in the national security department.  He revealed US interrogation techniques and then stopped paying attention.  To keep the US safe, he needs to make it a priority, and not treat it like a part time job.

As Americans, we have the right and the obligation to say something.  Too many men and women have paid too high a price for that right to speak, so let’s send a message to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: You will never silence us.  We have the courage of conviction, which she learned from her dad….

…who then walked on stage.

Dick Cheney was in the house.

To be continued….

Remember this chart?  It was from the 2008 Presidential campaign.  I can’t tell you how many Obama supporters calmly and patiently explained to me that I would be silly to vote for McCain over Obama because I would get a bigger tax cut under Obama.  And I calmly and patiently explained to them that by taxing top earners so significantly, they’d have to cut jobs at their companies.  I also pointed out that in order to fund all of Obama’s socialist pie-in-the-sky ideas, the money would have to come from somewhere, and that I was 100% certain that we’d see that $250k bar drop.

Within a couple of weeks of the inauguration, Obama raised taxes on the poorest people in our country, those who have the highest majority of smokers in their demographic. The cost increase on a pack of nicotine sticks was the highest in US history.

But lots of people don’t see that as a *real* tax, because smokers can choose to quit and probably should for their health.

But even those tobacco-taxes-aren’t-real-taxes people should be worried now.  In an interview out today, President Obama said:

The whole point of it is to make sure that all ideas are on the table… So what I want to do is to be completely agnostic, in terms of solutions.

What I can’t do is to set the thing up where a whole bunch of things are off the table…Some would say we can’t look at entitlements. There are going to be some that say we can’t look at taxes, and pretty soon, you just can’t solve the problem.

The real problem has to do with the fact that there is a just a mismatch between the amount of money coming in and the amount of money going out. And that is going to require some big, tough choices that, so far, the political system has been unable to deal with.

I have a suggestion Mr. President.  How about we spend less money?  Why does Nancy Pelosi need $1000 per week for booze and delicacies on her private cross-country jet rides?  That’s $1000 per week for food and booze, mind you, not the cost of the travel itself. And I’m sure the turtles didn’t really need a $3,400,000 tunnel to cross the road.  What about the $800,000 for repaving a back-up runway at an unused airport?

President Obama, please don’t raise my taxes to fund those ridiculous projects.  I don’t know how much more of your “help” I can afford.

Well, it looks like the Senate has its 60 votes to pass the health care bill through.  A bill so fantastic that votes had to be bought by Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE), Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL), Rep. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), and Lord knows how many others.  There were a few whose votes couldn’t be bought.  So the Democratic leaders resorted to threatening their family members unless they supported the bill.

Not only is the health care bill so stellar that Senators had to be bribed and threatened into voting for it, but it’s going to be voted on at 1 o’clock in the morning, four days before Christmas.  Some perspective for you- no one will see any benefits from this bill until 2013 (if ever), yet it’s being rushed through in the middle of the night during a time when most Americans have turned off their TVs and put down their newspapers in the hopes of having a joyful holiday season with their friends and family.  I understand doing what we have to do, but this is NOT something that couldn’t easily wait until January.

During debate on the Senate floor today, Senator Tom Coburn made some excellent points and observations on why this health care bill is not a health care reform bill, but only an unsustainable health care coverage expansion.  Sen. Coburn is one of only two practicing physicians in the Senate (the other is Senator John Barrasso), so he speaks from the unique perspective of being both a doctor and a politician.

Sen. Coburn pointed out that there are zero guarantees that taxpayers won’t finance abortions, zero prohibitions on the rationing of health care, and zero Senators required to enroll in either Medicaid  or another government run option.  The Republicans proposed amendments to disallow the use of federal funds to finance abortions or the rationing of health care, but the Democrats voted down the measure.  Let me ask you this: If funding for abortions and rationing of care aren’t part of the plan for this bill, why wouldn’t the Democrats put those amendments in?  That’s like a bookie betting on a game to get others to bet as well, without actually putting any money into the pot.  The bookie ends up making money, and I’ve read enough crime dramas to be pretty sure that that’s highly illegal, not to mention immoral.

What does this health care bill do besides use tax payer money to provide abortions and limit care to those the government deems “unworthy” due to age or lifestyle or previous health?  It creates ten new taxes, and seventy-one new government programs.  There are 1,697 times that the Secretary of Health and Human Services will write regulations, and 15,000-20,000 new government jobs will be created to carry out this legislation.  That’s funny, I thought the idea was to create more DOCTORS to treat more patients at an affordable price, but I guess a job-is-a-job-is-a-job, right?  Maybe those four out of ten doctors that said they’d consider quitting the practice of medicine if this bill passes can apply for a job with the government.

Another thing in the bill is the word shall.  It’s in there a lot- 3,607 times at last count.  What’s significant about the word shall?  It takes away your options.  The bill does not say, “You may choose to purchase health care insurance in the event that you become ill or injured,” it says, “You shall purchase health care insurance, whether you want it or not!”

That’s the individual mandate that you’ve been hearing about.  It is the first tax in United States history that will tax you for simply existing.  It’s not based on your work or purchases or decision as to whether to take the toll road or surface streets.  It’s a tax that you can choose not to pay by choosing not to breathe.  And even though I’m not a doctor, I’m fairly certain that breathing is pretty important.

That’s not right! You may be saying to yourself.  No, it isn’t right. It’s completely unconstitutional. And more likely than not, it will be completely unenforceable in court.  Which means that no one will buy health insurance until they are sick or injured. And given that the bill will require health insurance companies to provide coverage for pre-existing conditions, and place limits on how much they may charge their customers, they will inevitably go bankrupt.  Leaving the only option the government option.  That, my friends, is called socialized health care, and it has never worked well.

The government is not compassionate. We already see rationing in government run health care systems like Medicare and Medicaid.  The government already comes between elderly and/or underprivileged patients and their doctors, deciding what treatments and procedures may be done, regardless of the patient’s personal history or the doctor’s recommendation.  Why on Earth would it be a good idea to expand government control of health care, when Medicare and Medicaid are inarguablly broken and on the verge of bankruptcy?

People are compassionate. Doctors are compassionate. Neighbors and family and benefactors are compassionate.  Let’s focus on incentivizing the prevention and treatment of chronic disease, creating transparency so that we can choose and purchase our own health care insurance based on value and quality, and assisting those facing tough times that need some extra help.  That’s true reform.  This bill is nothing but smoke and mirrors to lead our once liberty-loving country into a single-payer health care system.

In the words of Ronald Reagan during a 1961 radio interview:

One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It’s very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project, most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can’t afford it.

The government is not compassionate.

Have you heard of ACORN?  Come on, I know you have.  Have you heard of President Obama?  He worked for ACORN.  He said many times throughout the campaign how much he supported ACORN, and how much he owed to the organization for helping him be all that he could be as a community organizer.

ACORN got put in the hot seat a few months ago for instructing a couple on how to set up a brothel of underage and illegal slave girls.  Congress rightfully (in my opinion) voted to deny future funds to ACORN until further investigation.  Which brought about an interesting question: Does ACORN still get the money promised to them by the federal government before the ban occured?

Today, the Attorney General’s Office concluded that ACORN cold continue to receive taxpayer money.

Which of course, being a taxpayer, got me hoping mad.  As I usually do, I started muttering to myself and sat down to write a blog post.  My husband overheard me muttering, and we got into an interesting conversation about whether or not ACORN should continue to receive funds despite the overwhelming evidence of corruption and the fact that 90 percent-ish of Congress voted to strike funding from ACORN.

“But it’s WRONG!”  I asserted.

“But it’s a CONTRACT,” my darling, play-by-the-book husband responded.

“Wrong!”

“Contract!”

Which got me thinking…  Whether or not ACORN should continue to receive funds because of the contracts promised it, shouldn’t the government be a bit more careful about who it promises contracts to in the future?  Maybe take a look at the organizations that will benefit from the trillions of dollars racing out of our pockets and into special interest groups and lobbyists under the disguise of “affordable health care” or a “clean air act.”

Maybe the government, the media, the American people should take some time to investigate the groups that will recieve so much of our money before the bills are rushed through in midnight votes and the contracts are signed.

Because some of us don’t appreciate our tax money funding slavery.

The government promised H1N1 vaccines.  It failed.

The government promised that the most at-risk groups would be the first to have access to the vaccine.  It failed.

How in the world will the government handle all aspects of health care if they can’t handle vaccines for one illness?

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. -Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution

I bolded the part that’s relevant to this post.  That bold part?  “No person shall be… deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”  That is what we call eminent domain.  It sounds boring, but it’s not.  One of the things that makes American uniquely America is our right to our property.  Hopefully you only know from watching shows like CSI (or my favorite of the moment- Castle) and not from experience, but cops need a warrant to search someone’s private property.  That’s the due process part of the amendment.  Can you imagine the violation and abuse of power if any law enforcement agent could come into your home and search it for whatever, whenever?  Hopefully, we’d still have some good guys in law enforcement, but don’t you think that sort of job would attract criminals?  That’s why we have due process of the law.

What about the private property being taken for public use?  That means that if a local government needs to build a courthouse, a school, a road, or some other public facility, and the best place to do it is on property owned by a private citizen, the government may not seize that land without just compensation.  A few years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court redefined what constituted “public use” of property in the landmark Kelo versus City of New London case.

Ms. Susette Kelo was a divorcee living in New London, CT, in a century old home that she had bought after her divorce and fixed up herself.  In 1998, she read in the newspaper that Pfizer Corp, the privately owned pharmaceutical company, was going to build a $300 million global research and development center in the area, and that her home would be bought out for a municipal redevelopment plan.  She said, “I read that residents in Fort Trumbull were going to be bought out of their properties and that those who refused to sell were going to be taken by eminent domain. That’s how it all started. I read about it in the newspaper.”

Ms. Kelo’s neighbor’s eventually accepted the money and moved out, and one by one, their houses were torn down.  But Ms. Kelo refused to be bullied by a government that would take her property for the benefit of a giant corporation.  Her case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of New London.  The majority opinion of the case was that, ” a city may claim private property under the Fifth Amendment so long as it does so as part of a clear economic development plan intended to benefit the community as a whole.”

So basically, the Supreme Court ruled that a government may seize the property of individual citizens whenever they feel like it’s a good idea.  I’m sure that’s exactly what the founding fathers had in mind when they wrote the Constitution after winning a revolutionary war against the oppressive British government (insert sarcasm here).

That was in 2005.  There has been more than enough time to see the dramatic economic improvements promised by the Pfizer Corp and the city of New London.  So what’s going on in New London these days?  Has it prospered with the redevelopment?  The city and state spent $78 million of tax-payer money to bulldoze the area in preparation for the hotels, condos, and strip malls that were to bring job creation and economic prosperity to the area.  Four years later, the site sits undeveloped.

In November 2009, Pfizer Corp. announced that it would be shutting its R & D center in New London, and transferring the 1,400 people working there to another facility.  The promised economic boom fell flat before it ever even got off the ground.  Ms. Kelo was forced to leave her home so it could be bulldozed and redeveloped into a wasteland of weeds and broken dreams.

What does this prove?  I don’t know if it proves anything, but it is yet another example of the Midas touch of government when it messes with the affairs of private citizens.  That is if Midas had turned everything he touched to chicken manure instead of gold.  I take that back.  At least chicken manure is good fertilizer.  What good is a vacant parking lot where Ms. Kelo’s home once stood?

From the Ways and Means Republicans-

Today, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail.  The JCT letter makes clear that Americans who do not maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years.

Excuse me while I pick my jaw up off the floor.  Who do these people think they are?  I am not a recalcitrant child; I’m a real live grown-up, capable of making my own decisions on whether or not I want to pay for health care for myself and my family.  I happen to think that it’s beneficial to my family to carry health insurance, so I choose to do so.  But I don’t assume that that’s the best choice for everyone.  Healthy, single people fresh out of school at introductory level jobs, struggling to pay rent and student loans probably don’t need health insurance.  I’m not so arrogant that I assume that my decisions are the right ones for everyone else.  Every person and every situation is unique.

The House of Representatives will be voting today on health care legislation.  In defiance of President Obama and Speaker Pelosi’s promise that the legislation would be available to the public for 72 hours prior to a vote.

There is still time to call the Representatives leaning yes on a bill that will severely limit our freedom and liberty and tell them to vote no.  Refuse to be silent.  Make a stand.  It’s more important now than ever.

Before we start talking about the health care bill bulldozing its way through Congress, I’d like you to take a trip with me down memory lane. In January of 2009, during President Obama’s first full day in office, he said, “Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”  He even put out a Presidential Memorandum stating:

My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government.  We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

In fact, if you were paying attention to Barack Obama’s run for the presidency at all, you know that openness and transparency were cornerstones of his campaign.  Openness, transparency, and what else?  Wasn’t it bipartisanship?  If you were a supporter of Barack Obama in 2007, you may have received an email from him containing this sentiment:

Politics has become so bitter and partisan, so gummed up by money and influence, that we can’t tackle the big problems that demand solutions. And that’s what we have to change first. We have to change our politics, and come together around our common interests and concerns as Americans.

Way back in 2004, Obama was campaigning for a seat in the United States Senate. During an interview for The New Yorker, he told the interviewer:

A good compromise, a good piece of legislation, is like a good sentence; or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognize it. They say, ‘Huh. It works. It makes sense.’

Did you enjoy that memory jog?  Or if it was news to you, did you enjoy the history lesson?  Are we all clear that President Obama thinks (or at least says) that it is imperative that our elected officials work together, openly and honestly, to create sensible legislation?

Which is why President Obama’s actions and sentiments regarding health care reform shouldn’t make any sense to anyone.  Let’s work together, but not with the Republicans.  Let’s create sensible legislation, but make sure that no one understands it, especially not the Congressmen nor Senators voting on it.  We can’t waste another moment- there are people dying and doctors are stealing children’s tonsils- but make sure that most of the provisions in the bill don’t take effect until 2013, which is conveniently after the next Presidential election.  Let’s call it America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, but throw people in jail if they choose to not purchase health care insurance.

Words have no meaning if they are only there to serve as smoke and mirrors, covering up a massive entitlement program that will severely limit our choices and most certainly diminish our overall quality of care.  It doesn’t matter if everyone has health insurance if there are no doctors around to treat the patients.

Senator Carper, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, likens the language of the health care bill to gibberish.  That doesn’t exactly make me feel better.

Contact your representative and senators and ask them to vote no to publicly funded health care.  We already have enough gibberish in our law books.