NOTICE TO MY MINDERS AND CRITICS: DODD 1344.10, which the IG errantly found me in violation of, specifically states that “A member of the Armed Forces on active duty may…express a personal opinion on political candidates and issues, but not as a representative of the Armed Forces.”

Therefore, I want to make clear that this blog is MY PERSONAL OPINION and I am NOT acting as a representative of the Armed Forces!!

Tonight I went to a health care presentation (in civilian clothes) at the University of Alabama in Huntsville hosted by the UAH College Democrats. The presentation started at 1830, but I got there about an hour early thinking that I’d have to get in a LONG line if I wanted a seat. Nope. They were still setting up and no one was around so I went back to my car and finished reading Medal of Honor recipient Leo K. Thorsness’ new book “Surviving Hell” (review up soon).

I went back at 1800 and still no one was there, so I signed in and took a seat up front. And waited. Just before the speaker, Dr. Pippa Abston, M.D., PH.D., went on most of the people showed up. At the height of the event I counted between 65-70 people total. At least 10 of us in attendance disagreed with government health care. It wasn’t a well publicized event outside inside circles.

Prior to walking in I picked up all four of the flyers on the table about single payer health care. My eyes immediately were drawn to a bright yellow sheet with “Medicare for All” at the top. The first bullet on why we need medicare for all stated that “47 million US citizens are uninsured.” There are some very interesting points within those six words, especially noted as Dr. Abston’s slide show progressed. When she got to the slide about this subject, the slide stated that there are “45.7 million uninsured.” Obama had mentioned the 47 million number at the beginning of this debate, but then revised the number to 30 million when he addressed the joint session of Congress.

I was the first one to ask a question and brought up this glaring contradiction. The answer was that “it’s always changing.” So, I asked if that were the case and in the past nine months 17 million have become insured, maybe we shouldn’t do anything and and in 18 months we’d be at 0. She said that she got her numbers from the census, but the census number is 46.3 million and it doesn’t say “US citizens” as the flyer indicated, but merely “people.” And in that same report, the number of INSURED Americans actually JUMPED two million! Predictably, none of the slides mentioned this fact, which is odd since the jump is due in large part to the number of additional people insured by the government. They also didn’t mention that the number of uninsured whites rose while the number of uninsured minorities fell.

Another glaring omission from their slides was the fact that the census admits that coverage is “underreported.” In other words, they are saying that more people have health insurance and it’s a result of confusion on the question. Now, common sense would dictate that you ask the right question, which is “have you had health care within the last year?” and not “do you have health care?” Thankfully, this is noted as something that will be fixed next time – when it’s too late to use in a real health care debate. The report indicates that a lot of people don’t report Medicaid coverage. Hello! Medicaid is a government program. Can’t they just go into their books and see that there are more people covered than are reported?!

But, I digress.

A major argument that Dr. Abston made was that health care is a right. She tried to equate it to the civil rights period of the 60′s and how people thought that slavery was right and a constitutional amendment was created preventing discrimination based on race or color. The flaw in that philosophy is that, when you look at the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, that amendment wasn’t even necessary. The Declaration stated that “all people would created equal” from the beginning. Therefore, the race and color discrimination up until that point simply shouldn’t have happened. No Constitutional amendment or additional laws were ever really needed and are redundant. It’s a hollow argument to compare the civil rights in which all people should have an equal opportunity to health care.

Dr. Abston noted that the Declaration listed certain “unalienable rights” among those the “right to life.” However, by stopping at the comma at the end of life, she does another great disservice to this argument. The Declaration goes on to state that those rights are “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

I noted the slippery road of assuming that health care is a right. By that logic, the human body needs food to survive. And since the liberal argument is that it simply isn’t fair that rich people get “cadillac policies” while the poor get crapped on, I thought I’d use that philosophy in my retort. Because of my income, I don’t get to eat as well as the rich. And since eating is necessary to the right to life, the government should subsidize my eating so that I have better food and can eat at the Olive Garden more often. Not only that, but humans need shelter. Even in prehistoric times, man lived in caves and created huts. Shelter is a necessary right to ensure life and it isn’t fair that rich people can afford bigger homes than I have. Therefore, I should be subsidized by the government in owning a bigger home.

I made these points during my second visit to the microphone. I figured it was okay since one moonbat took up nearly 30 minutes with her insanity (she wasted at least five minutes looking over her notes between questions). Thankfully, one of the staff finally cut her off. The Declaration only acknowledges that we have a right to life. It isn’t necessarily a good life. However, we DO have the right to the PURSUIT of a happy life! I know it sounds cold, but someone who’s down on their luck simply isn’t my responsibility as a taxpayer. As a human, maybe. As a Christian, definitely. But, as a taxpayer, not under any circumstances. My responsibility in ensuring (and insuring) your happiness or health is not compulsory in this free country. One lady in the audience had the ignorance to shout, “well, we have the right not to go to war” to which I happily responded, “then don’t join the Army.” That shut her up.

One other health care proponent from the audience mentioned at the microphone that conservatives can’t have it both ways in wanting the ability to purchase health insurance across state lines while also arguing for states’ rights. As she walked past me, I told her that the two weren’t the same. By allowing insurance to be purchased across state lines has no infringement upon states at all. It’s no different than purchasing products from Alabama online that are made and sold from New Hampshire or Montana. She got in my face and something that I didn’t understand because I was distracted by the two tons of makeup she wore to hide the years of hate stress and hippie grease. She mentioned some statistic about seven companies that comprise some percentage of all the insurance somewhere….I don’t know.

Another funny argument made by Dr. Abston had to do with Medicare and the Post Office. She used the example that the Post Office is a government program and has been in business for over 200 years. Medicare has been in business for over sixty. Meanwhile, countless private insurance companies have gone out of business. So surely, she says, we can trust the government to run health care and not the private sector. This year, the government earmarked an ADDITIONAL $27 BILLION to fund Medicare to keep it from collapsing. Postmaster General John Potter told Congress that the post office will run out of money if they don’t get help immediately and wants to cut back services to five days. The ONLY reason that these two entities that were highlighted as models of good business are still around is because the government keeps shoveling money into the waste pit!

Private industry doesn’t have a taxpayer base it can force to keep them in business and the market decides that those companies will fail. When an insurance company doesn’t perform, can’t get customers, and investors don’t think it’s a worthwhile investment, the company disappears. Unfortunately, when the Post Office and Medicare don’t perform and can’t keep customers happy we just give them MORE money to continue squandering with incompetence and mismanagement. So the parallel is inaccurate.

She made the point that switching to a single payer health care system will solve all the administrative and overhead costs that are causing health care prices to be so high. The private sector has to pay salespeople, clerks, accountants, etc. and that drives up cost. My thought, though I didn’t get to make it, was if she thought that under a government run plan there would really be LESS administrative and overhead cost involved? If so, what planet has she been living on? Name ONE government program that isn’t filled with more bureaucratic red tape than anything else on the planet. I found this point equally humorous.

One guy tried to use the education system as proof that rights not guaranteed in the Constitution are created by government. I explained it’s not a right, but a service, and that in this country we have the choice of using a public school, sending our kids to private school, or home schooling. Another one bites the dust. When she noted that we all still pay taxes to pay for the education – something a single payer system would do for health care – I noted that she was wrong. The reality is that only landowners in most states pay the taxes that go to schools unless they have a lottery system. Then only those that own land or play the lottery pay school taxes.

I really tried to hammer out the rights issue because Dr. Abston made a great deal about health care as a right. Naturally, the usual liberal method of paying for this social program is “tax the rich.” Tax the rich and all our problems will be solved. While I was at the microphone I had the audacity to read from Section 8 of the Constitution which states that any taxes imposed on the people must “be uniform throughout the United States.” She gave some response that was so absurd I’m not even sure I understand what she said. Some dude in the audience tried to tell me that they only had sales tax when the Constitution was written, but they understood that things would be different. Yeah, that’s why they said “ALL duties, imposts and excises” would be uniform and not just the sales tax. Another one bites the dust. Doesn’t matter. If a tax only targets one segment of the population, it is unconstitutional. If I were a rich person, I would file a lawsuit.

Finally, because I’m tired and want to go to bed and can’t possibly cover EVERY SINGLE inaccurate, absurd, incompetent, ignorant or unconstitutional statement made, the typical liberal argument about lobbyists was brought up. Dr. Abston seems to think that the only reason Republicans are in office is because they are funded by health insurers. So, not ONE health insurer supports a Democrat? Am I to believe that? Not only that, but all that evil lobbying being done in Congress has “got to go.” I don’t hear them complaining about the lobbying done by Moveon.org or the ACLU or any other liberal lobbyist. Lobbying is an important part of the American system of government where the people as a collective, unified in belief, can have a say in government. Lobbyists represent the American people! Period. What I do agree with is there needs to be reform to prevent Congressman from being influenced by the money of lobbyists. Term limits would be one step in the right direction as well as some meaningful campaign reform that bans bundling. But to get rid of lobbyists is absurd. I know, I know. They only want to get rid of conservative lobbyists. Got it.

And that was my Wednesday night.

Tomorrow night, I’ll be fighting the education board next and won’t be on the show as a result. But, don’t forget to tune in to Troy and Marcus.