Healthcare

There should be and will be a compromise between the Obama administration and the Catholic Church about health regulations and contraceptives. But I disagree with my colleague A.B. Stoddard, most pundits and almost the entire commentariat class about how horrible this is for the Obama campaign.

One of the major political realities of 2012 is the overwhelming support of women for Obama and Democrats and the overwhelming opposition of women to Republicans. I had to laugh at a recent diatribe against Obama by my colleague Dick Morris that mentioned that Gingrich has a problem with the gender gap. Republicans who cheered Dick for that column will not give such an ovation to the part of his column that Dick left out. All Republicans suffer from a gender gap! In fact it is a gender canyon, a gender chasm and a gender solar system in favor of Obama and Democrats and against Republicans and conservatives.

With unbelievable hubris, the ObamaCare bureaucrats in Washington exclude the Church’s non-liturgical mission from the religious exemption of Obamacare. (Not the elected Congress, but self-righteous bureaucrats made this decision!)

These bureaucrats claim the Church serves non-Catholics in its non-liturgical mission, and therefore this is not its core religious mission. Imagine, the bureaucrats understand the Church’s mission better than the clergy! Even many liberal Catholics understand that the mission of the Catholic Church extends beyond the sanctuary.

If the Supreme Court were to allow the Obama administration to mandate purchases of health insurance, it would set an extraordinarily dangerous precedent: Our government could tell its citizens how they must manage their own resources. This would establish a slippery slope of unfathomable complexity. It would start a transition into socialism and could only end with a communist dictatorship; it would be the beginning of the destruction of personal freedom in America.

Personal freedom has defined America since its inception and it is painful to see the very values on which we were founded, legally and literally, erode before our very eyes. As the old saying goes, if you give an inch they’ll take a mile; a health insurance mandate might not seem like much now, but allowing the government to determine how an individual should allocate his or her resources is the first step down a road that we, as Americans, should not want to travel.

Long-term chronic care for everyone, especially the elderly, is not affordable in ObamaCare, which is why they are scrambling to either remove that component of the bill or find some other monetary solution.

Long-term care is extraordinarily expensive; in fact, in our current system over 40 percent of healthcare dollars are spent in the last six months of life. If you multiply that over an entire society you can begin to get an appreciation of the staggering amount of money we're talking about.

It is time to resume the story of the public option. Why the public option battle should now be waged again. Why the White House got the issue so damn wrong and reacted so aggressively against public option supporters.  Why the full story was never told in the media. And why the public option battle is more important than ever with healthcare costs continuing to rise.

Above all the public option, according to a majority of credible independent sources, would lower healthcare costs for Americans. It would reduce the federal budget deficit. It was supported by a solid majority of voters. Conservatives and the White House may both hate and loathe these assertions, but I will debate them anytime, anyplace, with tons of documentation.

Here is my question for Ron Paul supporters. Assume your mother got laid off her job and lost health insurance and needed emergency treatment. Assume your mother did a bad job at work, was fired and lost insurance. Assume your mother could not get insurance because of a pre-existing condition. Would you let your mother die under these conditions? Would you support the Obama view that people with pre-existing conditions should at least be covered?

This morning I was reminded again why government-run healthcare is so insidious.

A new debate has transpired over the use of CT scans to detect lung cancer. Not surprisingly, the dispute was triggered by a federal study, which found that screening “certain heavy smokers and ex-smokers” could greatly reduce their mortality rate.

Supporters of the exams promote the benefits and argue that insurance companies ought to cover the expense, while opponents claim it’s not clear the “benefits will outweigh the risks.” They worry an increase in CT exams will spark a series of perhaps unnecessary — and costly — follow-up tests and medical procedures.

Women’s groups are applauding the Institute of Medicine’s recent recommendations that all health insurers cover preventive services like contraception and annual visits at no cost. This overtly political “determination” goes hand in hand with the Affordable Care Act, which requires health plans to cover a wide variety of women’s services, determined by the Department of Health and Human Services.

It’s interesting that 40 years after the feminist movement, women on the left are the only ones still talking about women’s bodies. They are entirely focused on negotiating healthcare policies that address a woman’s reproductive tract and nothing else. Left out of the conversation is what these recommendations mean for our economy — and what that means for women.

Every once in a while, former President Bill Clinton hits one out of the park. This week we have the Big Dog to thank once more, for telling Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) he hopes Democrats don't use their victory in a special election in NY-26 to do nothing on Medicare reform. Then he told Ryan to give him a call, which Ryan said he plans to do.

That race, to replace former Rep. Chris Lee (R), saw a Democratic victory in a GOP stronghold for more than four decades. The headline of the campaign was Ryan's ambitious, controversial reform plan for Medicare, which would transform the popular program so that Medicare recipients would instead receive vouchers to purchase coverage in the private market.

It is no coincidence that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) led Senate Democrats to majority status, has kept them in the majority since 2006 and won a crushing victory over the hapless hope of the right, Sharron Angle.

It has been a banner few weeks for Democrats. President Obama triumphed where President George W. Bush failed and Osama bin Laden is now conversing with Hitler in hell. House Democrats fought like tigers to save Medicare, and the Speaker's gavel is again within sight for Nancy Pelosi after a crushing victory in the New York House race.