BRATTLEBORO, Vermont — Vermont became the first state to lay the groundwork for single-payer health care on Thursday when its governor signed an ambitious bill aimed at establishing universal insurance coverage for all residents.
“This law recognizes an economic and fiscal imperative,” Democratic Governor Peter Shumlin said as he signed the bill into law at the State House.
“We must control the growth in health care costs that are putting families at economic risk and making it harder for small employers to do business.”
Legislators say the plan, approved by the Democratic controlled House and Senate this spring, aims to extend coverage to all 620,000 residents while containing soaring health care costs.
A key component establishes a state health benefits exchange, as mandated by new federal health care laws, that will offer coverage from private insurers, state-sponsored and multi-state plans. It also will include tax credits to make premiums affordable for uninsured Vermonters.
A single-payer health care system is one in which a single-entity — the government — collects almost all of the revenue for and pays almost all of the bills for the health care system. In most single-payer systems only a small percentage of health care expenses are paid for with private funds. Countries that have a single-payer system include Australia, Canada, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
Single-payer is popular among the political left in the United States. Leftists have emitted tons of propaganda in favor of a single-payer system, much of which has fossilized into myth.
Here are some of the more prominent single-payer myths:
Myth No. 1: Everyone has access to health care a single-payer system.
Everyone in a single-payer system has health insurance, not necessarily health care.
While the government in a single-payer system will pay for everyone’s health care, it limits the access to health care. In a single-payer system, citizens often believe that “the government” is paying for their health care. When people perceive that someone else is paying for something, they tend to over-use it. In a single-payer health care system, people over-use health care. This puts strain on government health care budgets, and to contain costs governments must ration care.
Governments in a single-payer system ration care using waiting lists for surgery and diagnostic procedures and by canceling surgeries. As the Canadian Supreme Court said upon ruling unconstitutional a Quebec law that banned private health care, “access to a waiting list is not access to health care.
Today I got to attend the first ever “Conservative Lunch Series” presented by KARN and Americans for Prosperity Foundation at the Little Rock Hilton on University Avenue. This monthly luncheon will be held the fourth Wednesday of every month. The speaker for today’s luncheon was John Fund.
John Fund writes the weekly “On the Trail” column for OpinionJournal.com. He is author of “Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy” (Encounter, 2004).
He joined The Wall Street Journal as a deputy editorial features editor in 1984 and was a member of the editorial board from 1995 through 2001. The articles he has written have appeared in Esquire, Reader’s Digest, Reason, The New Republic, and National Review. He became an editorial page writer specializing in politics and government in October 1986 and was a member of the Journal’s editorial board from 1995 through 2001. Next month’s guest speaker will be Andrew Breitbart.
First, we got to hear from Dave Elswick of KARN who came up with the idea of this luncheon, and then from Teresa Crossland of Americans for Prosperity. After listening to their inspiring short talks I had determined in my heart that I was going to get the word out about these luncheons to all my conservative friends who want to know what is going on politically in Washington and in our beloved Arkansas.
John Fund touched on several subjects but the one that caught my interest the most is the observation that he made about the behavior of three Democrat Presidents: Jimmy Carter (elected in 1976), Bill Clinton (elected 1992) and Barack Obama (elected 2008).
Fund mentioned a meeting that Ronald Reagan had with his former campaign advisors shortly after Jimmy Carter was elected in 1976. In that speech Reagan told them that Democrats can’t get their way unless a couple of things happen. First, Republicans forsake their values and join them. Unfortunately, Richard Nixon had done that just a few years earlier. Second, liberals have to be smart enough to run a candidate that will appear to govern from the middle. However, Reagan told his campaign workers that sure enough the only problem for that Democrat that gets elected President is that he will be required by the liberals in Congress to govern from the left and that is a prescription for disaster every time. Whenever and wherever liberalism has been tried, it has always failed.
Fund said sure enough 3 years later President Carter had brought on the USA 21% interest rates, 12% inflation and 10% unemployment and Reagan’s slogan was:
“Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.”
Fund went down the events surrounding Presidents Carter, Clinton and Obama and drew comparisons. It was amazing to listen to the insights that Reagan had in 1976 and how these events happened over and over.
Not only did Jimmy Carter scare the public with his liberal policies, but the first thing Bill Clinton did when he was elected was scare the public with his “Hillarycare” healthcare bill and the result was the landslide victory for Republicans in 1994. The same could be said for President Obama in 2010!!!!
Fund noted that the Republicans have a refreshing group of candidates that will be running in the Republican Primary this time around. He did call Donald Trump an entertainer that will drop out and not run. He also said that Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Mitch Daniels (Tolbert says Daniels will decide shortly if he will run) and several other candidates had a good chance to win. I was wondering if he would give more names and possibly comment on former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, but he didn”t.
Someone a lot more in the know than me floats another theory. According to the scuttlebutt, Barbour’s exit yesterday has begun to tip the scales in favor of Huckabee pulling the trigger on jumping into the race but it has also changed his way of thinking.
Fund noted that this year will be different than the past because we will have fresh blood in the race. Fund observed, “Republicans have had a Bush, Nixon, or Dole on the ticket every election since 1948 except one (1964).”
How do the Republicans and Democrats go about picking their presidential candidates. Fund asserted,“The republicans have a shallow gene pool, but the democrats are like kids on blind dates that keep falling in love. They fell in love with Carter, Kerry, Dukakis, and now Obama.”
The Democrats use a “Blind date” method of selecting the Presidential candidate. Who is popular? Who has the charisma? They look at everyone, find someone interesting, and decide to “try them out”. After they are elected, everyone gets to know who they are and what they stand for as a President. There were a lot of chuckles when this theory was disclosed. Mr. Fund went on to prove his point by a brief review of some candidates in the last century. There did seem to be a preponderance of evidence to prove the point.
What about the Republicans? Who is next in line? There is a definite pattern of behavior from 1948 through 2008. They tend to nominate whoever has been around a while.
Mr Fund did take time to sign copies of his book and I briefly got to visit with him when I was getting a copy signed. I told him that I blogged about him this week (yesterday and the day before ) and he asked my site. Instead of telling him to type in www.HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com , I told him to google “Milton Friedman Arkansas” and my website would come up a lot since I have a lot of Friedman video clips and quotes on my blog.
Next month’s guest is Andrew Breitbart and the luncheon will be held on Wednesday May 25th. This is the first in a series of posts that I will be making over the next few days on the things that I learned at today’s luncheon. I want to encourage everyone to check out next month’s luncheon.
Andrew Breitbart
Andrew Breitbart is publisher of the news portals Breitbart.com and Breitbart.tv, and BigHollywood.com. Andrew co-wrote the best-selling attack on celebrity culture, Hollywood, Interrupted and was the primary developer for The Huffington Post.
John Fund
John Fund is a columnist for The Wall Street Journal and its OpinionJournal.com and an on-air contributor to 24-hour cable news networks CNBC and MSNBC. He is the author of several best selling books.
David Boaz of CATO joins John to discuss the massive impact of Milton Friedman on America and the world.
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He was interviewed by Alice, a ten year old cancer patient
Kate Middleton visits the Youth Action Northern Ireland center in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on March 8, 2011.
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Kate Middleton arrives with fiance Prince William (not pictured) at the official opening of Darwen Aldridge Community Academy on April 11, 2011, in Darwen, northwest England.
KATE MIDDLETON The Girl Who Would Be Paparazzi Queen
Out: Barack and Michelle Obama
The queen sent gold-embossed invitations to 40 heads of state, but not to President Obama or first lady Michelle. The Obamas will get an official state visit in May, however, the first of its kind since 2003. It was suggested that the state visit is compensation for the missing wedding invitation—all because of the extra security costs involved with protecting the president.
Mississippi Center for Public Policy and The Federalist Society present: Is ObamaCare Good for Patients, Doctors, Employers, & State Budgets?
Above you will see a clip from Mississippi concerning health care. My mother’s parents lived in Mississippi and I grew up going down there to visit my cousins. They were football fans and we used to go see Ole Miss take on Miss St many times in Jackson. Emory Bellard was the coach at Miss State from 1979 to 1985. Dave Campbell wrote an excellent article remembering the life of Bellard.
Emory Bellard will be remembered as the man who created the Wishbone.
As a member of Darrell Royal’s Texas Longhorn coaching staff in 1968, Bellard developed the triple-option offense that utilized three running backs lined up in an inverted “U” formation behind the quarterback.
A year later, when Texas won the national championship on the way to 30 straight wins, Bellard’s offense changed the look of college football and brought a huge number of high school teams along for the ride…
Bellard, who was head coach at A&M from 1972-78, was honored at the Texas Sports Hall of Fame last October, where his players, assistant coaches, opposing coaches, family and friends sang his praise.
The Hall of Fame in Waco opened a permanent exhibit dedicated to Bellard, a 1995 inductee…
The 12th Man Kickoff Team later honored Bellard at its annual banquet. The former A&M coach was recognized at halftime of the Aggies’ win over Nebraska.
“As a young football coach, you couldn’t have a better mentor than Coach Bellard,” Slocum said. “He was an outstanding football coach, but more than that, he was a great human being. Being able to see how he handled people and situations was a great learning opportunity for me. He always thought and saw the best in people. He loved his players, and his players loved playing for him.”
Slocum had a chance last week to talk with Bellard.
“[Coach Bellard] told me, ‘I’ve led a great life. I got to do exactly what I wanted to do at some great institutions and with some great young men,'” Slocum said.
In seven years at A&M, Bellard went 48-27, leading the Aggies to two 10-win seasons. His Aggies went 10-2 and shared the Southwest Conference title in 1975, and Bellard earned the American Football Coaches Association award as the College Coach of the Year. In 1976, the Aggies closed the season ranked seventh nationally after beating Florida in the Sun Bowl 37-14 to finish 10-2 again…
Emory Bellard took over as head coach at Mississippi State from 1979-85. In seven seasons in Starkville, Miss., he posted a record of 37-42. Two of his teams finished in the Top 20. He coached the Bulldogs to back-to-back bowl games for the first time in school history.
His 1980 team finished 9-3 and beat top-ranked Alabama 6-3, ending Alabama’s 28-game winning streak. By the time Bellard’s teams upset the Crimson Tide, Alabama head coach Bear Bryant had long since installed the Wishbone offense for his attack.
Bellard’s Wishbone revolution became the offense of choice for 14 national championship teams.
Emory Bellard, who was a head coach at Texas A&M, is credited with helping create the wishbone offense while a UT assistant. / SA
Emory Bellard, who was a head coach at Texas A&M, is credited with…
Emory Bellard, head coach of the Texas A&M Football team during the 1970s. EN File. / SA
Emory Bellard, head coach of the Texas A&M Football team during the…
I just wanted to add one thing about Miss St and the cowbell. Why are the Miss St fans the only fans in the world allowed to use artificial noise makers? It bugged me back in the 1970’s and it bugs me now. I personally believe it will take them winning the SEC before enough anger is aroused by this to do something about it.
The strongest legal argument — implicitly supported by the HCFA — attacks the constitutionality of the individual mandate to buy health insurance. “The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States.” Cong. Budget Office, The Budgetary Treatment of an Individual Mandate to Buy Health Insurance 1 (1994). Nor has it ever said that every man and woman can be fined for declining to participate in the marketplace. And never before have courts had to consider such a breathtaking assertion of raw power under the Commerce Clause. Even at the height of the New Deal, in the infamous case of Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 11 (1942), the federal government claimed “merely” the power to regulate what farmers grew, not to mandate that people become farmers or require people to buy farm products.
But that should not be surprising, because ours is a government of delegated and enumerated powers and the Constitution does not grant Congress the power to force private commercial transactions. Even if the Supreme Court has broadened the scope of congressional authority under the Commerce Clause — it can now reach local activities that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce — never before has it allowed people to face a civil penalty for not buying a particular product.
Stated another way, every exercise of Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce has involved some form of action or transaction engaged in by an individual or legal entity. The government’s theory — that the decision not to buy insurance is an economic one that affects interstate commerce in various ways — would, for the first time ever, permit laws commanding people to engage in economic activity.
Under such a reading, which two judges in other Obamacare cases have alas accepted, Congress would be the sole arbiter of its own powers, the only checks on which would be political. The federal government would have plenary authority to compel activities ranging from eating spinach and joining gyms (in the health care realm) to buying GM cars (as part of an auto bailout). Authority so novel and sweeping would be indistinguishable from a general “police power,” which is irreconcilable with the established principle that Congress has only limited and enumerated powers. As Judge Henry Hudson said in striking down the individual mandate in the Virginia case, “This broad definition of the economic activity subject to congressional regulation lacks logical limitation and is unsupported by Commerce Clause jurisprudence.”
I am very pleased with the uprising across the country to try and stop Obamacare. Unfortunately the governor and attorney general in Arkansas are Democrats that want no part of that. The people are Arkansas in my home town of Bryant don’t see it that way though.
Ilya Shapiro, Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute, accepts the challenge to debate the constitutionality of ObamaCare.
Thank you very much for the invitation to share my thoughts on Arkansas’ proposed Health Care Freedom Act (HCFA) and how it relates to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, commonly known as “Obamacare”). In my capacity as a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute — a nonpartisan public policy foundation dedicated to advancing the principles of individual liberty, free markets, and limited government — I have been speaking and writing about how Obamacare destroys federalism and fundamentally transforms the relationship between citizen and government. I have also been extensively involved with the lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of various parts of the law, including having filed several amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) briefs.
The HCFA seeks to protect two essential rights. First, it protects a person’s right to participate or not in any health care system and prohibits the government from imposing fines or penalties on that person’s decision. Second, it protects the right of individuals to purchase — and the right of doctors to provide — lawful medical services without government fine or penalty.
No one questions the need for serious health care reform. Regardless of how such reform is fashioned, however, either at the state or federal level, the essential rights protected by the HCFA should be preserved. Indeed, supporters of provisions like the HCFA have a variety of perspectives on the form that health care reform should take, but they agree that no matter what legislation is passed, it should not take from Americans their right to control their own medical affairs. It is that precious right which is at stake here, for in many countries where the government plays a larger role in regulating or providing health insurance — including compelling individuals to join government-approved health plans — health care is rationed and individuals are prevented or discouraged from obtaining otherwise lawful medical services.
Now, as a matter of law, it is well established that the U.S. Constitution provides a baseline for the protection of individual rights, and that states may provide additional protections — and all of them do. For instance, some states provide greater protections of freedom of speech or due process rights.
Still, there is serious tension between the HCFA and certain parts of Obamacare. The Supremacy Clause establishes the Constitution as the supreme law of the land and provides that federal law prevails over conflicting state law where Congress has the legitimate authority — from its enumerated powers — to enact the legislation and where it does not impermissibly tread upon state sovereignty. The various lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare assert a number of claims relating to these principles. The Florida-led suit, which now boasts 26 state plaintiffs, is perhaps most famous, but the separate cases brought by Virginia and Oklahoma, respectively, are notable because they are based largely on those states’ HCFAs (the former enacted as state law, the latter as a popularly ratified state constitutional amendment).
As should by now be clear, the state lawsuits, among others, are serious challenges maintained by serious lawyers and public officials. They question an unprecedented assertion of power — literally without legal precedent both in its regulatory scope and its expansion of federal authority — that, if left unchecked, would gravely alter the relationship of the federal government to the states and to the people. Nobody would ever again be able to claim plausibly that the Constitution limits federal power.
Mississippi Center for Public Policy and The Federalist Society present: Is ObamaCare Good for Patients, Doctors, Employers, & State Budgets?
Mississippi Center for Public Policy and The Federalist Society present: Is ObamaCare Good for Patients, Doctors, Employers, & State Budgets? (What kind of affect will Obamacare have on local state governments?)
I got to talk to Rex Nelson the other day on Bill Vickery’s show the Sunday Buzz. He remember back in August of 2010 when I introduced him to Sherwood Haisty down at the Grady Fish Fry. Mr. Haisty has been involved with the Fish Fry since 1970 and many of his relatives have been all 55 of them. (Rex wrote on this too.)
I told Rex that is funny the way the politicians all say the same thing during the fish fry. They come up to you and say, “I can see that you are enjoying your fish and I would hate to interrupt that…” Then they go ahead and interrupt your meal.
It is a great experience to see all the politicians, and this year Mark Pryor can and visited with me. I just did not have the heart to say what I really wanted to. “Mark, do you see the political climate changing in Arkansas? Are you going to continue to support liberal ideas like Obamacare?” I have written on this before.
Dumas wrongly believes that President Obama’s Health Care Reform Act is popular with the people of Arkansas. Since Arkansas has voted as a red state the last two presidential elections, you would think that Fox News Poll would accurately reflect the views of Arkansans.
Most Americans see no upside for their family in the health care reforms being considered in Washington and don’t believe President Obama when he says his plan won’t add “one dime” to the federal deficit. The majority of Americans believe they will have to make changes to their health care coverage if the president’s plan is passed.
These are just some of the findings of a new FOX News poll released Thursday.
More Americans would rather Congress do nothing than pass Obama’s plan: 46 percent to 37 percent of people polled say they prefer the current health care system to the one the president has proposed.
Similarly, more people oppose — 48 percent — the health care reform legislation being considered right now than favor it — 38 percent. While most Democrats — 65 percent — favor the reforms, majorities of Republicans — 79 percent — and independents (55 percent) oppose them.
This is not surprising given less than one in four Americans (22 percent) think they would be better off under the reforms, and many (60 percent) think they will probably have to make changes to their health coverage despite Obama’s assurances that they will not have to. In addition, a sizable majority (67 percent) thinks the president’s plan will increase the national deficit.
Polls that ask whether respondents like the legislation’s supposed benefits (e.g., reduced insurance premiums for the sick) without asking about the corresponding costs (higher premiums for the healthy, insurers denying care to the sick) are meaningless.
The public has consistently expressed its intense opposition to the Obama plan for eight solid months. Democratic pollsters Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen note that “four-fifths of those who oppose the plan strongly oppose it … while only half of those who support the plan do so strongly.” A small, radical, left-wing minority is foisting this legislation on an unwilling public.
Mississippi Center for Public Policy and The Federalist Society present: Is ObamaCare Good for Patients, Doctors, Employers, & State Budgets? (How will it affect employers?)
The sun is coming out now and the 7 inches of snow are starting to melt. When I was coming into work at 4:30 am this morning, I thought I would avoid the traffic. I usually leave much later. I had to get up to 30 mph because I was coming up to a big hill, and a truck almost pulled out in front of me. I would have ended up in a ditch in order to avoid the truck. Thank goodness they did not pull out in front of me.
Unlucky for Dumas just two months later the Associated Press reported on September 9, 2010 the verdict on the cost of the new health legislation according to a government forecast. The conclusion was that “the nation’s health care tab will go up–not down –as a result of President Barack Obama’s sweeping overhaul.” The Chicago Tribune went on to comment:
“Well, duh. You can’t expand coverage by 32 million Americans and figure that will hold costs down. The Democrats sold health care to Americans with a lot of fuzzy accounting and shaky assertions about how relatively inexpensive all this would be”( September 23, 2010).
Michael F. Cannon wrote an excellent article (“Obama’s Health Care Myths Exposed,” AOL News, March 17, 2010) exposing the myths of President Obama’s heath care reform act. I will be sharing portions of over the next few days.
Myth: The legislation would contain health care costs.
The Obama plan would increase health care costs for the simple reason that it would put millions more patients, plus doctors and insurers, in a position where they are spending the taxpayers’ money. That never produces frugality.
Its command-and-control approaches to cost containment have failed over and over in Medicare and Medicaid because they don’t change the incentives that encourage cost growth.
The only provision that would change incentives is the president’s proposed tax on the sick and others with high-cost health plans. But he appears ready to abandon that, anyway.
Stanford health economist Alain Enthoven writes, “The American people are being deceived.” The Senate bill would “do little or nothing to curb [health care] expenditures.”
On April 30th, Cato Senior Fellow & UChicago Law grad, Ilya Shapiro, debated UChicago Law Professor, David Strauss, on the constitutionality of “Obamacare”. The event was sponsored by the University Republicans & the Federalist Society.
He still is concerned that a sharply expanded Medicaid program will put a significant burden on the state, even if it is eight or nine years away.
“It would be easy for me to say that it will be fine until 2017 or later since I won’t be here,” Beebe said. “I may not be here next January and for sure I won’t be here in 2017. But I have a responsibility to look at the impact things will have long after I leave.”
But the individual mandate is only the highest-profile tip of an iceberg that, if not avoided, will sink our constitutional vessel. For example, going beyond the Health Care Freedom Act (HCFA) for a moment, it should concern you, as state legislators, that Obamacare impermissibly coerces states by forcing them to accept a greatly expanded and fundamentally transformed Medicaid program. States such as Arkansas face an all-or-nothing proposition that is effectively a Hobson’s Choice: either accept the new Medicaid regime and suffer devastating consequences to your already-strained budget, or forgo access to many billions of dollars annually which the federal government collects from all taxpayers and then returns only to those states that remain in Medicaid. Neither Obamacare nor any other existing federal statute provides a mechanism for states to withdraw from Medicaid, and no process exists to protect the health and welfare of the poorest residents of states that wish to transition away.
Thus, contrary to the government’s suggestion in the Florida case, opting out of Medicaid is not a viable option by which states can avoid Obamacare’s ruinous effects. Accordingly, the legislation’s impositions on states, including Arkansas, “pass the point at which, ‘pressure turns into compulsion.'” South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203, 211 (1987) (quoting Steward Machine Co. v. Davis, 395 U.S. 548, 590 (1937)).
In short, passing the HCFA would be a step toward protecting both individual liberty and state sovereignty as defined by our Constitution. I would support such a development and also urge you to seriously consider either joining the Florida-led lawsuit or, taking the example of Virginia and Oklahoma, forging ahead on your own. Should you need more information, I have found two websites to be invaluable resources regarding all of the Obamacare lawsuits: healthcarelawsuits.org and acalitigationblog.blogspot.com. I am also happy to answer any further questions you may have and can be reached at (202) 577-1134 or ishapiro@cato.org.
Michael F. Cannon wrote an excellent article (“Obama’s Health Care Myths Exposed,” AOL News, March 17, 2010) exposing the myths of President Obama’s heath care reform act. I will be sharing portions of over the next few days.
Myth: This legislation won’t cut Medicare.
Reductions in Medicare outlays finance about half of the legislation’s $1 trillion in new entitlement spending. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office verifies that the legislation would reduce Medicare benefits. President Obama’s top Medicare actuary verifies that it would reduce access to care for Medicare beneficiaries.
Of course, Congress needs to restrain Medicare spending. Otherwise, income-tax rates would have to double by midcentury. But the solution is to make Medicare more efficient, not to use price controls and bureaucratic rationing.
Arkansas Democrat Rep. Mike Ross Explains Why He Voted For the Health Care Bill in Committee (video from Tolbert Report.com)
“I wasn’t sent to Washingon to play politics. I was sent there to do my job.” These are the words of Congressman Mike Ross after he basically got through playing politics and helped pass Obamacare by letting it get out of committee. Chairman Henry Waxman was very happy in July 2009, but I wonder what people from south Arkansas will think when Obamacare takes root and kills jobs.
Ross can say, quite correctly, that he voted against health care reform on the House floor the first time and that he voted against it the decisive time when it came back through the budget reconciliation process from the Senate….
I am afraid that it appears that Ross was trying to please the liberal Democrats by voting for Obamacare when it counted. He voted against it when they did not need his vote. That sounds like he was just playing politics.
R-Bella Vista
House District 98
Second term
Committees: Joint Budget; Education; State Agencies.
Special connections: Mother of two former state legislators: Tim and Jeremy Hutchinson. Of Native American descent. Professional mediator.
How to reach her: House in-session number: 501-682-6211. E-mail: hutchinsond@arkleg.state.ar.us. “I have to turn off my cell phone while the House is in session and committees are meeting, which means it’s off most of the day.” E-mail is most reliable for contact on weekends. “I don’t get to go home every weekend. It may be two weeks before I get home and check my messages.”
What you should know: Wants to redirect highway money to areas that have the most congestion.
Her priority: To cut taxes. Then to make sure that lottery scholarship money goes to nontraditional students such as working adults who want to go back to college or students in need of remedial courses. “If you have to go into debt with school loans, it should be for credit-earning courses, not remediation.”
Firmest prediction: “I will be surprised if the governor gets his rainy day fund. Since we’re coming back in 2010, he really doesn’t need one. I also think the governor’s sales tax reduction on groceries will pass and tha
Ross is expert, even genius, in balancing the values of his constituents against the urgings of his national party. That’s always been good enough. But polls suggest that this balance is now precarious. The seeming tipping point is health care reform.
The question is whether to delay the health care reform bill and change it, as Ross did amid mostly favorable national media attention in the summer of 2009, or kill it altogether, which Ross and his Blue Dog Democrats had the muscle to do, but didn’t, in the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Ross can say, quite correctly, that he voted against health care reform on the House floor the first time and that he voted against it the decisive time when it came back through the budget reconciliation process from the Senate….
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But here’s what Rankin and the Tea Party can say: Yes, Ross did all that, but the truth is that he and his pals among Blue Dogs, by having enough votes on Energy and Commerce to hold up the bill and demand changes in the first place, also had enough votes to kill it outright. Instead, in the end, they did Pelosi’s bidding, as they always will do at crunch time, and let her have the bill on the floor of the House.
My conclusion is that the lone remaining Democratic Congressman from Arkansas has made a calculated decision to vote like a Republican and at the same time do the Democratic Party bidding when necessary. The perfect example would be the President Obama’s healthcare bill where he could have killed it in committee but chose to let it go to the floor where it passed despite his vote against it.
One of the main messages from the Tea Party in 2010 election was that politicians can no longer think they can be hypocritical and get away with it. How much longer will Mike Ross get away with it? This is not a liberal versus conservative issue, but the real issue is being consistent with what you say you stand for. If you want the liberals to win the healthcare debate then vote with them. If you want the conservatives to win the debate then vote with them. Just don’t straddle the fence, but be a stand-up guy.
Today I am profiling State Lawmaker Charlie Collins.
As a life-long conservative, US Navy veteran, Fortune 500 company leader, small business owner and committed family man, Charlie Collins will bring a broad range of life experience to office in Little Rock. You can count on him to support conservative principles today, tomorrow, the next day and every day after that. Core principles like this—It’s Free enterprise, not big government, but free enterprise that creates the path to good jobs, economic growth, and prosperity for all. Charlie is pro-life and a life member of the NRA.
Charlie was born in Detroit, Michigan and grew up in Livonia, a nearby suburb. After high school graduation in 1981, he left to attend the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Shaking President Ronald Reagan’s hand at graduation in 1985 is still one of his fondest memories.
In the year following graduation from the Naval Academy he was commissioned a Naval Intelligence officer, married Leeann (his wife of almost 25 years), and completed his masters degree in quantitative economics from George Washington University. Following Naval Intelligence School, he was assigned to serve aboard the aircraft carrier USS America CV-66. After completing his 2 ½ year tour aboard ship, Charlie was assigned as a Soviet military capabilities instructor at the Navy & Marine Corps Intelligence Center and gave training presentations all over the world.
After completing five years of active Navy service, Charlie joined Procter & Gamble at their Cincinnati, OH headquarters and moved up the management ranks. He continued serving as an active Navy reservist as well, earning eventual promotion to Lieutenant Commander. Charlie was transferred to the Procter & Gamble Wal-Mart Global Customer Team in Fayetteville, AR in 1996 with Leeann and their four toddlers (Jordan was three and the triplets, Andrew, Jamie and Austin, were almost two).
Charlie and Leeann quickly realized that Northwest Arkansas was the place where they would settle down and raise their family. Charlie resigned from the Navy Reserve and was honorably discharged after 12 years combined service so he would have more weekends at home with his young children. At Procter & Gamble, he was promoted to Associate Director, responsible for the $750+ million Wal-Mart Beauty Care sales team. After 13 years at Procter & Gamble, Charlie was recruited by Eastman Kodak to be Vice-President and Wal-Mart sales team leader. After two and half years with Kodak, Heinz recruited him as Vice-President managing their half-billion dollar US Wal-Mart business.
While corporate America was challenging and exciting, Charlie was lured away by an offer to be the co-owner of a small entrepreneurial business. He and his partner have run Crown Partners Executive Search together for the past four years, helping to match executive talent to business needs in Northwest Arkansas and across the country.
Charlie has been active in the community as well. He is a member of the First Christian Church in Fayetteville and has served in a variety of roles, including Elder, Trustee, and Sunday school teacher, and he just completed a two year term as Chairman of the Board in December 2009. He currently serves as the President of his neighborhood Property Owners Association and is active as a Boy Scout parent (his two sons are working on their Eagle Scout rank). Charlie is a member of the Arkansas Chapter of the US Naval Academy Alumni Association, the American Legion, and a Life Member of the National Rifle Association.
Charlie was appointed by the Governor to the Selective Service Appeals Board for the western district of Arkansas and has served as Chairman for the past five years. He also serves on the Third Congressional District, USNA Nomination Interview Committee. Charlie has been active in the Republican Party as a member of the Washington County Republican Committee for nearly ten years and the group’s Executive Committee for the past five.
Charlie’s four children will all attend Fayetteville High School next fall, so his wife agrees that now is the time for him to pursue his passion of serving you by making state government smaller and more effective while helping to turn Arkansas into a good jobs magnet.
He still is concerned that a sharply expanded Medicaid program will put a significant burden on the state, even if it is eight or nine years away.
“It would be easy for me to say that it will be fine until 2017 or later since I won’t be here,” Beebe said. “I may not be here next January and for sure I won’t be here in 2017. But I have a responsibility to look at the impact things will have long after I leave.”
Unlucky for Dumas just two months later the Associated Press reported on September 9, 2010 the verdict on the cost of the new health legislation according to a government forecast. The conclusion was that “the nation’s health care tab will go up–not down –as a result of President Barack Obama’s sweeping overhaul.” The Chicago Tribune went on to comment:
“Well, duh. You can’t expand coverage by 32 million Americans and figure that will hold costs down. The Democrats sold health care to Americans with a lot of fuzzy accounting and shaky assertions about how relatively inexpensive all this would be”( September 23, 2010).
That reminds me of a youtube video I saw of Milton Friedman in a speech he delivered at the Mayo Clinic back in 1978. In it he referred to a british study by a Dr Max Gammon.
Dr. Max Gammon worked in the British National Health Service (NHS), and his study of it, beginning in the 1960s, led him to enunciate what he called “the theory of bureaucratic displacement.” In his words in what later became known as Gammon’s Law:
“In a bureaucratic system, an increase in expenditure will be matched by a fall in production. Such systems act rather like ‘black holes’ in the economic universe, simultaneously sucking in resources and shrinking in terms of ‘emitted production’.”
Dr. Gammon measured the NHS’s productivity by comparing two simple variables: inputs (defined as the number of employees) and output (measured as the number of hospital beds). He found that while inputs had increased sharply, output had actually fallen.
In fact, from 1965 to 1973 the input went up with hospital staff going up by 28% and administrative staff by 41% but the output (measured by beds occupied daily) went down by 11%. It was not for a want of patients since there was during that time period an average waiting list of 600,000 people.
Andrew Breitbart
John Fund
The Daily Hatch 