Saturday Morning Bulldog Edition

45,000 uninsured deaths?
By William Tate

Yet Democrats, and their media sock puppets, have shamelessly exploited highly questionable estimates of uninsured deaths as agitprop to shoehorn the entire population into just such a government-run health care system -- on steroids.


They cite an exaggerated claim that 45,000 Americans die each year because they don't have health insurance. That figure comes from a study funded by your federal tax dollars, even though it was recently distributed to the media by Physicians for a National Health Program, a fringe, pro single-payer group based in Chicago, the report's release scheduled to sway the healthcare debate.

[snip]

The figure could be as high as 44,000, it could be 35,000, but their estimate that is most closely tied to the original data -- with the least extrapolation on their part -- is 27,000. And they admit that any or all of their guesses could be off as much as 11% because "those initially recorded as being uninsured" may be misclassified.

[snip]

By contrast, a comprehensive study of over 35,000,000 -- yes, that's million -- acute care records over a recent three-year period concludes that preventable medical mistakes actually cause a similar number of deaths in the government-run Medicare program. The sixth annual HealthGrades Patient Safety in American Hospital Study examined records "among Medicare patients at virtually all of the nation's 5,000 non-federal hospitals" from 2005-2007 and determined that over 92,000 deaths were attributable to medical errors, about the same as the average estimate in the uninsured study.

"Baghdad" Jim McDermot lets the cat out of the bag.

Building a house of health (Rep. Jim McDermott)
By Rep. Jim McDermott

When one builds a house there is not unlimited money available, so choices have to be made. None of these decisions are simple or easy, but they will be made over the course of the next three years as we build the house of health. Cost estimates will be made, but anyone who has done home construction knows that unexpected things come up which require decisions.

...things come up which require decisions decisions like who gets care, how much care, who will be denied because it's not cost effective.

Prognosis improves for public insurance

Democratic leaders in the Senate and House have concluded that a government-run insurance plan is the cheapest way to expand health coverage, and they sought Friday to rally support for the idea, prospects for which have gone in a few short weeks from bleak to bright.

The shift in momentum is so dramatic that many lawmakers now predict that President Obama will sign a final bill that includes some form of government-sponsored insurance for people who do not receive coverage through the workplace. Even Democrats with strong reservations about expanding government's role in the health-care system say they are reconsidering the approach in hopes of making low-cost plans broadly available.

Lies about number of uninsured, lies about number of unisured deaths, lies about medical costs bankrupting families, lies about the costs, lies about rationing.

Every Democrat talking point to "sell" health care reform is damn lie.

Lieberman discusses Goldstone with Ban

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman spoke on the telephone with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon late Thursday on several Middle East issues, among them the Goldstone report which alleges that Israel may have committed war crimes during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza last winter.

Lieberman told Ban "a distorted reality" has been created wherein international forums give an automatic majority to countries where concern for human rights is a very low priority. Lieberman cited Cuba, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia as countries making the international arena "hypocritical and prejudiced."

The truth and the Useless Nations are strangers.

Final for something a bit different. From 1979, Milton Freeman pwns Phil Donahue on capitalism and greed.