Larry Kudlow: Obama’s Hoof-in-Mouth Disease

» AN50 on 08.13.09 @ 07:38 AM

Yes, it does seem Obama’s “deathcare” is causing him to compete with old Joe for the gaff-a-minute award. It has not dulled his enthusiasm for using south Chicago style politics though, as he sends in his union thugs to beat up old ladies at town hall meetings. All of this with plunging popularity and “deathcare” now tanking in the polls as well, I’m sure is causing the pres some consternation. However, one has to expect that Obama, who throughout his campaign was swarmed by glassy eyed slobbering media and supporters, would find this backlash rather unbelievable. What he and his Chicago mob advisers failed to consider was that his election was won not so much as an affirmation of his socialist ideology, but rather a repudiation of SOS Washington politics. Well what a difference 6 months makes, huh? As I’ve said before, Obama and the left in this country can have all the “feel good” crap they want as long as they keep the wealth engine going to support it. They don’t get it though and they believe rather stupidly that social programs run by government are somehow “self sustaining” as long as there are people and businesses to tax.  Well now, businesses are closing and people are out of work, so where are you going to get the money? We stopped being a producer economy decades ago and we have been borrowing the difference between our once surplus wealth and what we are really worth now ever since. The federal government is $11 trillion in debt and the private debt is nearly twice that. Get the picture? We made Japan wealthy by letting them do our work for us. We are now doing the same for China. Only now we have hit the wall. The borrowing spree is over babyboomers, there is nothing left. You will all go very broke and suffer mightily or perhaps you might get a clue and figure out that we have to make our own stuff here by our own companies. Cap and Trade will of course destroy any ability we might have to pull that off as will saddling the economy with a deathcare bill we cannot afford. We still have one of the best systems in the world and some of the brightest and most business savvy people in the world (the only thing we should import is human talent, that’s what has made us so great). But it won’t do any good if the left continues to be the biggest obstruction movement in history. Get out of the way and let people do what they do and in the end you will benefit too.

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

» Local on 08.13.09 @ 01:58 PM

It is amazing to me how Kudlow and AN50 sound just like the crazy people yelling at these town hall meetings. I wish they would realize the purpose here is to have a sane discussion about the different options to improve our broken healthcare. It adds NO value to use terms such as “deathcare” and drag our President into the mud by talking about him as a mobster who utilizes union thugs. The fact is many of the people that are protesting government involvement in healthcare are the same ones who are on Medicare or the VA.

Larry, is more concerned about the insurance companies and their stock price than what is actually good for the country. Just look at United Healthcare and Aetna’s financials and the several billions of dollars of net profits and you then will know why the cost of providing healthcare insurance is skyrocketing. It has very little to do with the cost of providing medical care and more to do with lining the pockets of a few executives. The top ten executives at Aetna made over $50 million last year and that does not factor in the value of their future stock warrants. Meanwhile my Aetna premiums continue to go up at a 25% per year rate when I and my family are healthy and have filled no claims.

An50 and Larry the system is broken and just making fun of people trying to intelligently discuss how we can improve it not constructive. There is nothing in the bill about deathcare and it is just another rightwing tactic to scare people. Let us deal with the facts and try to create something positive.

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

» Shutup Marcy on 08.13.09 @ 02:04 PM

Go back to your socialized medicine in France, Marcy Kinky Dinky, once again with nothing to add but a personal attack on the author.

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

» AN50 on 08.13.09 @ 03:27 PM

Yes Local those crazy damned old ladies yelling at their congressmen and then getting beat up by union thugs. Good God you lefties stepped in it this time. Local, how do you propose to pay for this? You keep insisting the system is broken but it works for 85% of those in it, while our own Medicare system will go bankrupt with its current entitlements. Do you people ever do math when you come up with these “feel good” programs? All of this crap is moot if you do not have a robust economy to pay for it and you don’t. The Chinese have made it clear they are not going to finance this, so where does the money come from? The printing press? You want to see where that leads you, check out Brazil when they had horrendous inflation due to trying to printing their way out of debt. The bottom line is you don’t get something for nothing. If you cannot pay for it, you can’t have it, no matter what it is and quite frankly I am real sick and tired of you SOB’s insisting my offspring pay for your care. The Europeans have begun to figure this out and wonder, sometimes out loud, why those idiot Americans want to follow their mistake. I don’t care how much emotion you have invested in your socialist ideology, really, I don’t, but the fact is it is a FAILED ideology and won’t work no matter how much you spin it. Not one of you lefties has ever come up with a cogent and sound financial method to support your ideology. For God’s sake give it up before you num nuts drag what’s left of what was one of the best systems in the world for enriching human life into the toilet. Finally, I am not angry at you specifically or any of the lefties who comment on this subject but rather at your complete lack of comprehension on the subject. Please, if not for your country’s sake then for your own, wise up.

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

» local on 08.13.09 @ 05:41 PM

An50, I agree with you that any proposal has to be revenue neutral.The system is broken. Where the cost savings are achieved and the additional revenue is gathers is open for an intelligent debate. Howver, I disagree that for over 80% of the population healthcare works. That is BS and you know it. I also take GREAT offensive to manner in which you consistently are unable to hold a normal conversation without putting others down beyond their views or opinions. You have no idea who I am and to state things such as you have a complete lack of comprehension on this subject is very naive and immature on your part. I do understand, probably more than you. I am highly educated and understand the issue as do many that have my opinion. In fact, I have read the entire proposal, which is over 1000 pages, have you?  I know it is hard for you to believe but sometimes you are wrong and others do have well-educated and coherent alternatives that do not make sense. Maybe you should sit back and ask yourself why you have to be so condensing when we are simply trying to have an honest discussion? Try active listening it helps.

There are systems in other countries we could learn sometime from. We could incorporate a best practices model. But if we continue to just mudsling we are going to get nothing done. That is unacceptable and we cause our economy to implode. If we do nothing the cost of our healthcare will continue to explode and represent as much as 20% of our GDP and make us very uncompetitive with businesses in other countries. We spend far more per person than any other country and have extremely poor results.

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

» local on 08.14.09 @ 06:20 AM

SBNative you are right about the ER cost. In my view the solution is simple. We have an illegal employment problem in this country. We need to enforce the existing employment laws. When a business or individual is caught employing illegals they should be fined or shut down if it continues. Many households employ illegals as gardeners, maids or service people and in many cases do not even realize it. There needs to be information provided to households on the type of questions to be asked and the documents required to hire anyone for any work. Why isn’t the INS doing its job?

Any plan should only cover individuals that are here legally or citizens. If all are covered then there will be no extremely expensive ER costs paid by the tax payers. Right now you have 46 million people here legally that have no insurance and often cost the tax payers more because they utilize no preventive practices and utilize the ER for standard healthcare issues. Therefore, we should not force ERs to treat illegals or if so there is a requirement that they be immediately reported to the INS and deported. Hopefully, by enforcing the illegal employer problem that I talked about then there will be less and less illegals because there will be no work.

You don't have permission to flag this entry.