Meet up: 1st Tuesday Group

1st Tuesday Group

Program: Tre Hargett, Sec. of State to Speak

When: Tuesday July 7th, 11:30 AM

Location: Waller Lansden, 511 Union St, floor 27 , Nashville, TN 37201

How to find us: Go to the 27th floor and you will see the crowd at the badge table.

Who’s coming?: 5 Yes / 1 Maybe (People tend to register late and not all register through the Meet up site.)
74 spots left — RSVP deadline: July 6, 2009 8:00 PM

Who's organizing?

Tim Skow

Cost: Members are $15 and Non-members are $20.

Come, enjoy lunch, great company and a chance to hear Tre Hargett, Sec. of State. Be prepared with questions on the election commissions.

This is a great event. I have been attending for about the last six to eight months. I have heard all four of the Republican candidates for governor; Jason Mumpower, the man who should have been Speaker of the House except for an underhanded politically savvy move by the Democrats and one turn-coat Republican; a debate on the English-only proposed charter Amendment; and other great speakers. The speaker starts promptly at noon and ends promptly at 1pm, so you can take a slightly longer lunch hour and break up the day with an interesting lunch and still not miss much work. The food is good and the view from the 27 floor is magnificent. For cheap parking you can park beneath the library and the first hour is free if you get your parking ticket validated. The library parking is only a block away from the meeting site. This is a great opportunity to get involved and network with like-minded people. This group has been meeting for about the last twenty years or so I have been told, but I only discovered it recently. Usually between 70 and 100 people attend. For more info, click this link. I hope to see you there.

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We now have a socialist gangster goverment.

Comment: Probably every one of us has an automobile dealer friend or someone who works for an auto dealer affected by the U.S. government high-jacking of General Motors. I have not seen confirmation of it yet in the press, but I have been told that Jim Reed Chevrolet had been ordered closed. Jim Reed has been a Chevy dealer for almost a hundred years here in Nashville. I never thought I would see the day when this could happen in America. No one is secure. Your company or the company you work for could be next. We are watching our freedom slip away.

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Meet up: Davidson County Republican Assembly

Your group has a Meetup Saturday, July 11, 2009 9:00 AM!
What
Davidson County Republican Assembly

When: Saturday, July 11, 2009 9:00 AM

Where : Coleman Park Community Center, 384 Thompson Lane, Nashville TN 37211
615-862-8445

RSVP Deadline: Your organizer has set an RSVP deadline for this event. You have until July 10, 2009 7:00 PM to RSVP.

Meetup Description : Raul Lopez or Juan Borges will be our guest speaker. Since I'll be out of town and Nick has to be out of town as well, Bob Richie has agreed to conduct our meeting.

Comment: If you live in the Nashville area and are a conservative Republican, this is a great group to join. Get involved and meet like-minded people. The usual attendance is about 12 to 15 people. Meetings feature speakers who are conservative activist, elected officials, or Republican leaders. Meetings usually last about an hour to an hour and a half. To learn more about the Republican Assembly, click the link above.

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More Health Care 'toons

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Samuelson: Obama's health care reform will not restain spending but increase it.

Wrong Way on Health 'Reform'


By Robert J. Samuelson Monday, June 15, 2009 , Washington Post

It's hard to know whether President Obama's health-care "reform" is naive, hypocritical or simply dishonest. Probably all three. The president keeps saying it's imperative to control runaway health spending. He's right. The trouble is that what's being promoted as health-care "reform" almost certainly won't suppress spending and, quite probably, will do the opposite.

A new report from Obama's own Council of Economic Advisers shows why controlling health costs is so important. Since 1975, annual health spending per person, adjusted for inflation, has grown 2.1 percentage points faster than overall economic growth per person. If this trend continues, the CEA projects that:
-- Health spending, which was 5 percent of the economy (gross domestic product) in 1960 and is reckoned at almost 18 percent today, would grow to 34 percent of GDP by 2040 -- a third of the economy. (link)

Comment: This article from America's premier economics journalist sheds light on the enormity of the problem of runaway health care cost and explains why President Obama's health care reform will actually make the problem worse.

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Health Care Cartoons

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TO: Rod Williams
FROM: Fred Thompson

I know it seems a long way away. And I know that most of us are only now getting over the hyper-intense election of 2008. But there are election campaigns working now that will have a dramatic impact on your life, the lives of your family, and the future of nation. I am writing to you about one of the most important contests in the country, the battle for the U.S. Senate seat in Connecticut. Chris Dodd, the ultra-liberal Senator, has been exposed. The voters are turning against his brand of “do as I say, not as I do” of politics.

And we are in luck. We have a solid candidate, former Congressman Rob Simmons. Rob is currently running ahead in the polls. But an ocean of money is flowing against him, Every radical, left wing group in America is coming in to defend Chris Dodd. The unions are all in. And, we have to expect that the Obama machine will be put into full force. All of that – as intimidating as it may appear – is not enough to overcome the clear disdain of the people for Dodd’s actions.

Rob Simmons is the exactly the man to win this seat and remove Chris Dodd from the Senate. But he can’t do it alone. He needs the active help and financial support of every single American who values freedom and wants to see a return to fundamental First Principles. That is why I am asking you to make a donation to Rob Simmons for Senate today. You can make a donation by going to https://www.icontribute.us/robsimmons/initiative/thompson.

I know times are tough and that money doesn’t grow on trees. But this is one of the most important investments you can make for the future of our nation.

The stakes are so very high, please click here https://www.icontribute.us/robsimmons/initiative/thompson and make the most generous contribution you can.

Comment

There may be a real chance to defeat Chis Dodd. I would love to see it. His roll in the housing crisis is reason enough for him to be defeated. He is not only extremely liberal but ethically challenged. I sent a modest contribution. This looks like a campaign worth supporting. Please contribute. If all you can send is $5 or $10 or $20, do it. A lot of times I think people don't contribute to campaigns because they cannot make a large contribution. A lot of little contributions add up. If you contribute and Dodd is defeated, you will feel great and know you played a part in it.

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Media Kowtows to Supreme Leader

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ABC Self-Nationalizes For Obama

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Friday, June 19, 2009 4:20 PM PT

Media Bias: As much of the U.S. private sector, including health care providers, resists government takeovers, what a sorry sight to see ABC News leap forward to make itself a propaganda arm of the government.

But that's the story as ABC crosses the line from journalism to advocacy in turning its coverage of health care over to the White House. (link)

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The Biggest Problem with Health Care-- and How to fix it.

by Ken Dychtwald Ph.D

While most of the current healthcare debate has focused on how to cover the tens of millions of uninsured Americans and who should pay (granted, these are critically important issues), after thirty-five years working at the intersection of gerontology and healthcare, I'm convinced that we have the WRONG healthcare system for our aging nation.

If your train is headed in the wrong direction, it doesn't help to give everyone a seat. And, since the U.S. currently spends nearly twice as much per capita on healthcare as all the other modernized nations, while our national life expectancy ranks a humiliating 42nd worldwide, it's not that we throw too little money at the problem, but that we may not be spending it in the wisest ways. (link)

Comment

This is a thought-provoking article. The arthor argues that we are not prepared for the health care needs of the future and that Americans do not take enough responsbility for their own health.

He points out that Medicare spends approximately 28 percent of its total budget on patients in their last year of life and argues that prolonging the dying process may not be the best use of health care dollars. I do not want the government deciding when to pull the plug, however I agree that simply prolonging life with high-tech and expensive care may not be the best use of health care dollars. If we do not get Medicare spending under control, it can bankrupt our nation. How much to spend on Medicare is a public policy issue and there is a limit to how much the public can spend on prolonging life of those who are dying.

Many people end their life in poverty and impoverish their spouse and family due to extremely expensive care which extends the life of the patient by only months. Nursing home care can run to thousands of dollars a month. One does not get public-funded nursing home care until all of their own wealth is exhausted. Once the patient and his or her spouse have exhausted all of their wealth, the tax payers pick up the tab. Often the patient may have no hope of recovery and be in an almost vegetative state for months prior to dying. I know it is difficult to let a parent or spouse die, but I do not think simply prolonging life when their is no hope of recovery and the patient has no quality of life is preferable to letting the patient die with dignity. As health care advances, the ability to prolong the dying process continues to expand.

As a baby-boomer myself and someone who has a loved one afflicted with Alzheimer's, I think about these issues, as unpleasant as they are to contemplate.

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How to Cure Health Care

By Milton Friedman

The United States spends a mind-boggling percentage of its GDP on a health care system that virtually everyone agrees is a disaster. Is there any way out of this mess? There is—and Hoover fellow Milton Friedman has found it. This article was written by the late Milton Friedman but is as relevant now as when it was originally publishing in 2001.

Rapid technological advances have occurred repeatedly since the Industrial Revolution—in agriculture, steam engines, railroads, telephones, electricity, automobiles, radio, television, and, most recently, computers and telecommunication. The other two features seem unique to medicine. It is true that spending initially increased after nonmedical technical advances, but the fraction of national income spent did not increase dramatically after the initial phase of widespread acceptance. On the contrary, technological development lowered cost, so that the fraction of national income spent on food, transportation, communication, and much more has gone down, releasing resources to produce new products or services. Similarly, there seems no counterpart in these other areas to the rising dissatisfaction with the delivery of medical care. (link)

Comment

In this article, Milton Friedman advocates reprivatizing medical care by eliminating most third-party payment, and restoring the role of insurance to providing protection against major medical catastrophes. He advocates repealing the tax exemption of employer-provided medical care among other changes. We have become so accustomed to employer-provided medical care that we regard it as part of the natural order, says Friedman. Yet, it is thoroughly illogical, he argues. Anyone who is interested in the health care debate should read and consider these arguments.

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Do we have the best health care in the world?

You often hear critics of health care reform say that we have the best health care in the world and that the reformers are trying to destroy it. Is the true? Do we have the best health care in the world?

I guess it depends on what you mean by “best.” Certainly, many Canadian and others come to the US for medical procedures that they cannot get at home or for which they would have to wait a very long time. The royalty, celebrities and rich of the world often come to America to get treatment. The U.S. has more of the best medical centers, best-equipped hospitals and most highly specialized physicians in the world. Many of the world’s advances in curing and treating decease originate in America. In that sense we may fairly say we have the best health care in the world. We have the best health care that money can buy, if you have the money.

The best quality health care that can be purchased is only one measure of “best.” Most of us will never be treated by a world-renowned physician or have miracle surgery. “Best” has many measures. So while we may have the absolute “best” health care that is available, do we have the best health care for the average person?

Let us look at some measures of health care quality. Consider life expectancy at birth. We rank 50th, a little ahead of Cuba and Albania but way behind Japan, Singapore, France, Sweden, Norway and Spain. Many factors may enter into life expectancy other than the quality of health care. Homicide rates, suicide rates, and highway death tolls may work against us. In Highway Death Tolls, we lead the world at 15.5 per 100,000. That stat is obviously not a function of the quality of our health care. We have more cars and drive more miles than most nations. Lifestyle choices such as smoking, drug use, diet and sedentary lifestyle may also have more impact on longevity than medical intervention.

Let us look at another measure: infant mortality. In the United States infant mortality is 6.26 per 1000 live births, which barely beats Croatia at 6.37 but trails Cuba at 5.82 and Canada at 5.04. Our infant mortality rate is almost twice as high as that of Japan and Norway. Maybe again, there are social factors to blame. Maybe we have more crack addicted mothers giving birth and more young unwed mothers, but the statistics are, I think, a valid indication that we do not have the “best” health care in the world.

On some other measures of health, the United States also scores not quite so well. It you look at the “probability of not reaching sixty,” Americans have a 12.8% probability which beats Poland at 17.5% and Portugal at 13.1% but trails Denmark at 12%, France at 11.4%, Germany at 10.6%, Spain at 10.3%, and Canada at 9.5%.

On some measures of health, we score quite well. On the survival rate for cancer, we lead the world at 62.9% for women and 66.3% for men, followed by everyone else with Spain at 59% (women), England at only 52.7 (women) and 44.8% (men).

In 2000, The World Health Organization ranked the nations of the world as to the quality of health care for the first and only time. The U.S. ranked 37th out of 191 countries, trailing France, Italy, Spain, Greece, The UK, Canada and Costa Rico. We were immediately followed by Slovenia and Cuba. The methodology and weight given to various factors proved controversial, but nevertheless the poor showing by the United States should cast doubt on the claim of the best health care in the world.

Do we have the best health care in the world? I don’t think so.

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