I was listening to David Gergen on Anderson Cooper’s show, and he said: We are NOT like other countries - our people are different - we are fiercely independent because we believe in popular soverienty - the power comes FROM the people.

Obama is trying to reverse this power structure, and grab more power for government.  I believe we are in an Economically Abusive relationship with our government.  They are trying to control us, while we are trying to communicate with them - two different goals.

So now that Obama and Democrats have humiliated us by impuning our motives,  and demeaned us  and threatened us, and people are standing up it’s a classic "crazy making" scenario.  

 The abused woman finally takes a brave step to stand up against her abuser, and she comes across as too loud, too hysterical, too extreme.  If this confrontation happens in public the abuser will look around at friends or witnesses, and say:  She how crazy she is?  See what I have to put up with?

I think Mark Steyn’s comment about the urgency of NOW without public debate, which is what Obama wanted, is very insightful - it’s about getting over the river so they can burn the bridge.

 In the normal course of events, the process takes a while. But Obama believes in “the fierce urgency of now”, and fierce it is. That’s where all the poor befuddled sober centrists who can’t understand why the Democrats keep passing incoherent 1,200-page bills every week are missing the point. If “health care” were about health care, the devil would be in the details. But it’s not about health or costs or coverage; it’s about getting over the river and burning the bridge. It doesn’t matter what form of governmentalized health care gets passed as long as it passes. Once it’s in place, it will be “reformed”, endlessly, but it will never be undone. Same with a lot of the other stuff: Keep throwing the spaghetti at the wall. The Republicans may pick off the odd strand but, if you keep it coming fast enough, by the end of Obama’s first year the wall will be a great writhing mass of pasta entwined like copulating anacondas in some jungle simulacrum of Hef’s grotto. And that’s a good image of how government will slither into every corner of your life: You can try and pull one of those spaghetti strings out but it’ll be all tied up with a hundred others and you’ll never untangle them.

"The end-game is very obvious. If you expand the bureaucratic class and you expand the dependent class, you can put together a permanent electoral majority. By “dependent”, I don’t mean merely welfare, although that’s a good illustration of the general principle. In political terms, a welfare check is a twofer: you’re assuring the votes both of the welfare recipient and of the vast bureaucracy required to process his welfare. But extend that principle further, to the point where government intrudes into everything: a vast population is receiving more from government (in the form of health care or education subventions) than it thinks it contributes, while another vast population is managing the ever expanding regulatory regime (a federal energy-efficiency code, a government health bureaucracy) and another vast population remains, nominally, in the private sector but, de facto, dependent on government patronage of one form or another – say, the privately owned franchisee of a government automobile company, or the designated “community assistance” organization for helping poor families understand what programs they’re eligible for.  Either way, what you get from government – whether in the form of a government paycheck, a government benefit or a government contract – is a central fact of your life."

http://www.steynonline.com/content/view/2341/26/ 

"The most conspicuous avenue for political manipulation is the regulation of medical insurance. This takes the form of coverage mandates, requiring insurance for treatments and procedures not wanted by the purchaser and at a price beyond his means. Legislators place the interests of their clients ahead of the public. When insurance itself is mandated and everyone must buy it, an even more powerful magnet for special-interest coverage mandates is created.

"Consumers cannot escape from this burden when states forbid competition from insurers in other states. Each state’s insurance commissioner and attorney general agree on one thing—that consumers are unsafe in the hands of officials in all the other states.

"Medicare regulations are so lengthy and complex that no one can read them let alone understand them. No one can even lift them. Yet violations by a health care provider can result in criminal prosecution. That serves no purpose except to allow enforcers to arbitrarily and capriciously punish innocent victims as their whims dictate.

"A few trial lawyers destroy objective law, buy off legislators, place their partners as judges in the court system, and practice legalized extortion. That directly increases the cost of health care for everyone and indirectly wastes much more on the defensive medicine strategies that physicians and hospitals must practice to defend themselves in court.

"Medicare reimburses physicians and hospitals for less than the cost of their services. Costs are shifted to other payers, who are blamed for rising costs.

 

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=5617

 

 

Teddy Kennedy wrote the laws that created HMO’s.  It was a collusion between massive insurance companies and politicians to line each others pockets. In the History of HMO’s article:

 The individual was first discouraged from buying insurance in 1942 when employee health premiums were made tax deductible to employers—not to individuals. Congress created Medicare in 1965, making individual insurance for those over 65 obsolete. Subsidized, unrestricted health care for seniors lead to an unprecedented frenzy of spending by patients and doctors.

"Costs went up, introducing an economic obstacle to individual health insurance. As costs rose, those on the New Left, including then freshman Sen. Ted Kennedy, argued that government ought to pay for everyone’s health care and promoted the idea of a health maintenance organization, a term coined by a left-wing college professor.

"President Nixon appeased the left and proposed the HMO Act, which Congress passed in 1973. The law created new, supposedly cheaper health coverage with millions of dollars to HMOs, which, until then, constituted a small portion of the market. Kaiser Permanente was the only major HMO in the country by 1969 and most of its members were compelled to join through unions.

"Combined with Medicare, the HMO Act eventually eliminated the market for affordable individual health insurance.

"The new managed care plans mushroomed with federal subsidies. Employers perceived managed care as less expensive than individual insurance and stopped offering a choice of plans, making insurance more expensive for the individual. The government had effectively instituted HMOs, at the insistence of the left and the capitulation of conservatives and pragmatic businessmen. "

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=2819 

The new revelation is about the "Death Book" at the VA.  Bush got rid of it, but Obama has brought it back.  It includes end of life counseling questions that are the equivalent of a push-poll that encourages a certain outcome:

 These questions are being asked to all Veterans receiving treatment, including 20 year olds who have been severely wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan.  I have listed all of the questions below so you can see for yourself:

a. I can no longer walk but get around in a wheelchair.
b. I can no longer get outside—I spend all day at home.
c. I can no longer contribute to my family’s well being.
d. I am in severe pain most of the time.
e. I have severe discomfort most of the time (such as nausea, diarrhea, or shortness of breath).
f. I rely on a feeding tube to keep me alive.
g. I rely on a kidney dialysis machine to keep me alive.
h. I rely on a breathing machine to keep me alive.
i. I need someone to help take care of me all of time.
j. I can no longer control my bladder.
k. I can no longer control my bowels.
l. I live in a nursing home.
m. I can no longer think clearly-I am confused all the time.
n. I can no longer recognize family/friends
o. I can no longer talk and be understood by others.
p. My situation causes severe emotional burden for my family (such as feeling    worried or stressed all the time).
q. I am a severe financial burden on my family.
r. I cannot seem to “shake the blues.”

These questions are followed by the questions below:

“If you checked "worth living, but just barely" for more than one factor, would a combination of these factors make your life "not worth living?" If so, which factors?

If you checked "not worth living," does this mean that you would rather die than be kept alive?

If you checked "can’t answer now," what information or people do you need to help you decide?”

Read the whole article here:

http://www.examiner.com/x-9100-Boston-Conservative-Independent-Examiner~y2009m8d21-Our-Veterans-deserve-better-than-Obamas-VA-Death-Book-directive 

I have personal experience with the state health care in NJ.  They are the most careless, indifferent, incompetent people I have ever dealt with in 35 years of dealing with insurance companies, as a patient.  

We were forced into NJ Family Care when NJ "crowded out" my university alumni insurance via regulations saying that any insurance sold in the state needed to have many more features than I wanted for my needs. Therefore many insurances are locked out of NJ because of regulation, so that the ones that remain are very expensive. I see many insurances advertised on TV, but when I call the insurance is NOT ALLOWED to be sold in New Jersey - an outrageous government intrusion into a private contact.

Twenty years ago I used to bill insurance for a large Ob/GYN practice, so I can deal with insurance companies fairly knowledgably.  I have had such problems finding providers, and making appointments with this New Jersey Family Care, that at one point I asked a person at NJ Family care, 

"How do poor people navigate such a dysfunctional system?"

The answer was: "They have social workers."

On day, when I was up to my 10th phone call, completely frustrated after calling number after number of providers that were either disconnected or had never taken Value Options thru NJ Family Care, all numbers provided by Value Options, I expressed my frustration to a state rep who said, "Call your social worker."  I have a college degree, not a social worker.

We’ve had to resort to BLACK MARKET care when my husband had a serious condition diagnosed in April but couldn’t get a follow up appointment with a specialist until November.  We called a friend 5 states away, who happens to be a doctor, to call in a RX to us at a local pharmacy.  Recently, I have been denied an MRI for a torn or damaged cervical disk.  My doctor appealed, and we were denied a second time in June.  I ended up back in the ER last week. The ER doctor said they aren’t allowed to order MRI’s with the state insurance either. I am completely screwed with state health insurance.

One state health care rep said they hadn’t received some paperwork they had requested from me.   I said that I had proof of mail delivery and a signature of one of their employees.  The worker responded without a pause: "Well then it was probably shredded, just send it again."  They are completely impervious to any demands for reasonable service.

This is political insurance, not professional insurance.  And it’s torture to use.

Insurers and corrupt government have colluded to limit the number of insurers in certain states.  With over 1000 insurance companies in the US - government should get out of the way, and let those companies compete for my business.  We’ve ended up by default on state health insurance and in the words of my doctor, it is "horrible."  

 I agree. 

I’m glad Sally talked about the lows, because when they hit, they can be lower than any imaginable low.  Sometimes you think it’s you doing something wrong, but often it’s you doing something very right, and taking the flak for it.  I see more and more women my age, almost 50, abandoned by husbands, boyfriends, trying to get a foothold and start from a new place.  The lows often involve a "taking apart", looking at the pieces, adding new ones and rebuilding.  

I was just reading a great book: "The 7 Stages of Money Maturity."  One exercise the author recommends is to imagine that you had 24 hours left to live and ask yourself:  Looking back over your life what would you regret not doing, not becoming?  Lots of interesting things percolated up for me.  One is that I want to run a horse therapy ranch.  I will feel unhappy if I don’t make that dream come true.

Obama began his political career at a fundraiser in her home that she shares with Bill Ayers, Weather Underground Terrorist, and leftist radical.  These are horrible people who advocated chaos.  Can you imagine if Palin’s close friend and mentor was a abortion clinic bomber, and members of her group had actually killed people?  Obama had no problem associating with these two monsters, who were also responsible for bombing the home of a judge and setting it on fire while the family with two young children were asleep inside. 

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernardine_Dohrn

Helter Skelter was one of the best crime books I ever read.  The level of depravity shown by these monsters is breathtaking.  So imagine my shock when during the campaign I learned that Obama’s family friend, Bernadine Dorhn, greatly admired these animals.

Taking charge of the podium, dressed in a high-heeled boots and a leather mini-skirt – her signature uniform – Dorhn incited the assembled radicals to join the war against "Amerikkka" and create chaos and destruction in the "belly of the beast." Her voice rising to a fevered pitch, Dohrn raised three fingers in a "fork salute" to mass murderer Charles Manson whom she proposed as a symbol to her troops. Referring to the helpless victims of the Manson Family as the "Tate Eight" (the most famous was actress Sharon Tate) Dohrn shouted:

Dig It. First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, they even shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach! Wild!

 http://frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=24446

Ned Hermann wrote a book called, "The Creative Brain."  In it he describe "thinking preferences" It turns out that different professions have different thinking preferences. People can be dominate in one of the 4 quadrants like A: left brain cerebral, which is highly analytic like certain types of engineers, or B: Left brain, limbic, which is highly sequential, like accountants and medical secretaries.  Then there’s C quadrant: Right brain limbic, which is  like nurses, elementary school teachers, and even pediatricians, and then D quadrant is right brain cerebral, and you have inventors, philosophers, architects.

I love the graphic in the book that plots out the "thinking preferences" of great people in history.  I’ll see if I can find a link.

 The idea is to recognize your thinking preference, there is also a test that can be performed, and then focus on something that plays to your strengths.  Some people are "Whole brained" and can relate to many of the people in all the quaddrants.  CEO’s tend to be whole brained thinkers. They discovered these pattrern after testing tens of thousands of people.

The other idea is to find people that compliment your weaknesses with their strengths. People who marry tend to have opposite profiles.  People who just move in together tend to have similar profiles. My profile is A-D: I’m very cerebral, and an analytical and abstract thinker.  I love reading philosophy books (D), and murder mysteries (A).      

"If I can protect myself, so can you…"

Smart-tree. 

I am in the middle of the summer blahs.  I have no appetite, but the children are still starving and growing.  I’ve stopped cooking and everyone grazes and nibbles.  Sometimes something only sounds good to eat once I can smell it.  Often when I spend time cooking a meal, I can’t eat it afterwards - like my apetite is satiated just from the smell.

If I could have a cook or a house cleaner, I choose cook.

Mom of 7