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From The Mailbag

20 years

f there are two things the American people should have learned about Barack Hussein Obama over the last 1,339 days it is that his words are not to be trusted. He is a liar. Every promise the man made on the campaign trail in 2008 has flipped into "bait and switch" ploys. He flipped every promise he never intended to keep, proving to the American people once again that they cannot trust those they elected to protect this nation from its enemies—both foreign and domestic (especially the miscreants within our own government). Obama is so inherently corrupt that he promulgated a Bait & Switch much worse than the illegal ratification of the 16th Amendment that created the privately-owned piggy bank of the rich that controls the money supply of the United States. And even more criminal than the theft by the princes of industry and barons of banking when they successfully usurped the superior authority of the States over the central government by assuming the powers reserved to the States and the People, for themselves.

What could be worse than that? Government bureaucrats assuming the authority to euthanize its senior citizens at will because petty politicians over the last 80 years squandered the retirement income funds that rightfully belonged to America's seniors. When the Social Security Act of 1933 was signed into law, government was required to invest the retirement savings of the people in high yield US treasuries that would grow those reserves. That pledge was short-lived. The Social Security Trust Fund became a slush fund for social progressives who used our retirement savings to finance Lyndon Johnson's Great Welfare Society in the 1960s. Today, the Social Security fund is bankrupt.

And, as long as abortion is legal, and as long as we keep exporting our jobs to the third world, there will never be enough working class taxpayers in the United States to keep the economy from collapsing.

Euthanizing the elderly and stealing their retirement savings (which have already been spent) is the only way to stabilize the economy. Which is why Obamacare exists. And you thought it was supposed to be a healthcare system designed to keep you alive and healthy. Silly you. Under the rules of Bait & Switch, the law always does the opposite what its name purports it will do. The name of the legislation is the "bait." The text of the law is the "switch."

Which, of course, is why every nation on Earth, except the United States, that ever initiated a State pension system simultaneously adopted a national healthcare system. The real purpose of the healthcare system was not primarily to provide healthcare for those who can't afford it. Government healthcare systems exist to amortize the risk of the State by making sure that pension recipients do not outlive the actuarial tables and cost the government more than the recipient contributed into the system—not from the cost of the healthcare, but from the cost of the pension. Which is why the Independent Payment Advisory Board was created by the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Research (the Obama Death Board) that was legislated a year before HR3200 became Obamacare. The Death Board is not found in any healthcare bill. It was buried in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009—Obama's first stimulus bill (in which he gave away billions of taxpayer dollars to Obama donors) which was legislated over a year before Obamacare.

When people first began hearing about the Obama Death Board, they scoured HR3200 looking for it. When they couldn't find it, they dismissed talk about Death Boards and euthanizing the old as rightwing conspiracy rhetoric. Even if the Republicans win a super majority in the Senate this fall, and succeed in overturning Obamacare, the Obama Death Board will still exist and it will begin its nefarious task of reducing the financial strain on Social Security through the denial of medical care based on a criteria developed by the Federal Coordinating Council to be implemented by the Independent Payment Advisory Board through Medicare and the Veteran's Administration.

The History of Universal Healthcare in America.
Towards the end of the American Progressive Era (1883-1912) social progressive Teddy Roosevelt tried to push through a national pension plan and a healthcare system arguing to Congress that "...no country can be strong when its people are sick and poor." When the private sector argued that this was not a role that belonged to government, Roosevelt backed down. His efforts were quickly followed by the American Association of Labor Legislation in 1906 demanding that Congress enact a national healthcare system. They ran into the financial muscle of the private insurance industry which donated handsomely to politicians and even though the American Medical Association who somehow actually thought a national healthcare system would lower costs, Congress refused to act. Between 1933, when Social Security was enacted and until his death in 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt launched three attempts to add a national healthcare system to his retirement pension plan. There was too much opposition—even from the New Deal social progressive Congress—to push FDR's healthcare plan through Congress. The New Deal Congress knew the American people would fire them if a healthcare system that mirrored Germany's was enacted. President Harry S. Truman tried several times to do the same thing between 1945-1953, and failed each time.

By that time, socialized medicine sounded "communist," and as the Cold War heated up, socialized anything became an anathema. But that didn't stop Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon or Bill Clinton from trying the enact a single-payer national health system. The Health Security Act of 1993—Hillarycare—became the framework of Obamacare (contrary to the views of Sen. Rick Santorum who tried hard to convince America that Obamacare was fashioned from Romneycare when, in fact, Romneycare (which was actually DiMasi-care) was also fashioned (by Massachusetts House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi and not Gov. Mitt Romney) from Hillarycare which had actually just died in US Congress. Hillarycare was unceremoniously interned in Box 1748 in the document tomb known as the National Archive in 1993..

There was too much in Box 1748 that the Clintons did not want resurrected by some rightwing conspiracy advocate. The secrets in Box 1748 were exposed by financial planner and author Joan Veon and Linda Liotta of the Women's International Media Group. Much of what they found in Hillarycare that had little to do with healthcare and much to do with controlling people was detailed in my book, Whatever Happened to America? The book is still available simply by clicking on this sentence.

Why did every attempt—until Obama—fail; and why did Obama succeed? The short answer is simple. Members of Congress knew there was a failsafe system built into the healthcare programs of almost every nation on Earth. Those provision denied almost all medical procedures to the elderly at a time when something as commonplace as a 24-hour flu viruis or the common cold or a fractured leg was a potential killer.

Perhaps because the social progressives became convinced they would not be able to enact a universal healthcare plan in the United States that granted government euthanasia authority over elderly pensioners or over those on disability who were suffering from seriously chronic or catastrophic illnesses, a right to die with dignity was added to the Healthcare Portability Act of 1995 which allowed terminated US workers to take their group healthcare insurance with them as they searched for a new job. On the surface, this appeared to be a good thing for the American worker because terminated workers with family members suffering from ongoing chronic illnesses generally find when they are forced into the open market to buy health coverage, the reason they have an imperative need for coverage was viewed as a "pre-existing condition," and that pre-existing condition was excluded from the new coverage. The right to take your former employer's insurance with you was the "bait." A provision buried within the Healthcare Portability Act of 1995 was the "switch."

That provision required hospitals and other healthcare facilities to push their patients to sign "do not resuscitate" (DNR or "No Code") Living Wills when they are admitted that prevent the family from having to make end-of-life decisions concerning loved ones should they suffer a catastrophic injury, heart attack or stroke. What most people don't realize is that when you sign a Living Will, you aren't signing a once-only document and when you recuperate and leave the hospital, the DNR you signed leaves with you. It doesn't.

The Healthcare Portability Act of 1995 created a US Living Will Registry which linked health care providers of all sizes from individual doctors' offices to nationwide hospital systems—including the federal health system. The registry is compatible with all medical records systems in the United States. Your Living Will becomes part of that database. If the original Living Will you signed contains a permission to forward to any health care provider, that document will be available for any ambulatory surgery center, doctor, health services provider, home health agency, hospital, hospice, medical clinic, or nursing home the same way any personal health records are forwarded to any other medical caregivers on request. The Registry has been storing Living Wills since 1996.

However, if you are a mature-to-aging adult who has never signed a Living Will, but have the misfortune to suffer from a catastrophic illness or accident, the hospital—until America's Affordable Health Choices Act, HR 3200 goes into affect on January 1, 2013 (because Obama and the House and Senate Democrats who enacted it knows they would not be reelected if the law went into affect before the national elections this year)—needed at least one family member to assume power of attorney not legally granted by the now comatose patient, and authorize the DNR.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 simplified the question with respect to elderly Medicare and VA patients through the "guidelines" written by the Independent Payment Advisory Board and enforced by the new National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. It appears that even before Obamacare officially goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2013, Medicare and the VA may already be denying procedures—or at least delaying treatment until after the election when, quite likely, treatment will then simply be denied by the National Coordinator..

And, finally, why did Obama succeed where Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton failed? Because the crooked Chicago politics of Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel coalesced well with the crooked Washington politics of social progressives House Speaker Nancy Pelosi [D-CA] and liberal Mormon Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid [D-NV]. Obama, Reid and Pelosi used bribery, sweetheart deals, political intimidation, personal blackmail and backdoor deals to line up the votes they needed to enact Obamacare. Most of the deals they cut violated the Constitution, but at the end of the day, when your party controls the courts and the federal law enforcement system, what's a little felony here and there between friends?

Within hours of Obama signing HR3200 into law, 14 States announced they planned to sue the federal government over the methods used by Senate Majority Leader Reid and House Speaker Pelosi to buy the votes of the Congressmen and Senators—all Democrats. Several of those who voted for Obamacare received death threats from irate voters from both parties. Congressman Darrell Issa [R-CA], ranking member of the House Oversight Committee (now the head of that committee), promised to fight for the repeal of Obamacare which he said was "...bought with backdoor deals." Issa said, "...the level of what I would call bribes in politics was higher, probably, than ever before. But the dollars were larger. The stakes were larger. So perhaps there's a little bit of truth in that, the question is, if four years ago a decision was made to throw a corrupt Republican Party out—or a party with corrupt individuals in it—how in the world can we say it's business as usual?"

Issa pointed out that although Sen. Chris Dodd [D-CT] who faced a tough reelection campaign in 2010, sold his vote for a $100 million grant for an unnamed hospital in an unnamed location in Connecticut to be named at some later date. In the end, with the smart money betting Dodd would be defeated by Republican challenger Linda McMahon, Dodd dropped out of the race. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal beat McMahon. With Dodd gone, the DHHS will decide who gets the money. Dodd planned to give the money to the University of Connecticut.

Megabuck sweetheart deals also went to Sen. Daniel Akaka [D-HI], Sen. Max Baucus [D-MT], Sen. Bob Casey [D-PA], Sen. Kent Conrad [D-ND], Sen. Byron Dorgon [D-ND], Sen. Tim Johnson [D-SD], Sen. Kirsten Gilliband [D-NY], Sen. Daniel Inouye [D-HI], Sen. John Kerry [D-MA], Sen. Paul Kirk [DMA], Sen. Carl Levin [D-MI], Sen. Patrick Leahy [D-VT], Sen. Bill Nelson [D-FL], Sen. Bernie Sanders [I-VT], Sen. Chuck Schumer [D-NY], Sen. Arlen Specter [D-PA], Sen. Debbie Stabenow [D-MI], Sen. Jon Tester [D-MT]—and the AARP which, while it is not a member of Congress, is their primary lobbyist to convince the elderly that Bait & Switch is not really Bait & Switch. But, in this instance, the Bait & Switch, was not working even though the Obama spimeisters and Sunday morning TV talking heads—and AARP—kept insisting it was. Privately, in what was reported to be a leaked email, AARP told the Obama Administration that they needed to change their pitch because by a margin of 14-to-1 AARP's membership opposed universal healthcare.

What does the AARP get out of the deal for bombarding their members with assurances that Obamacare was a good thing for the elderly? Other than a mega-million grant of taxpayer dollars each year, that is. The "Switch" in this instance wasn't that annual endowment, it's that Obamacare voids Medicare Advantage. When the dust settles, the politicial pundits in-the-know say that it appears AARP will become the exclusive retailer of Medigap insurance to seniors.

Sen. Mary Landrieu [D-LA] who was fighting a tough reelection challenge received $100 million for Katrina victims in what was dubbed the "Louisiana Purchase," since Obama bought all of the State's Democrats with that bribe. To get Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson's vote, Reid granted Nebraska a perpetual waiver forever erasing Nebraska's obligation to pay its share of Medicaid fees. The waiver expanded Medicaid coverage to all Nebraskans below 133% of the federal poverty level. And, the list goes on as Reid and Pelosi used the tax dollars of Americans who opposed Obamacare to enact it.

The real knee-jerker in the vote-selling that permeated the Obamacare debate comes from a US Senate Democrat Leadership press release issued at 8 a.m., Wed., Jan. 18, 2006. The statement began: "Democrats from across the country today unveiled their Honest Leadership and Open Government Act in the Great Hall of the Library of Congress. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi were joined by Sen. Barack Obama...and their Senate and House colleagues to shine a spotlight on the Republican 'pay-to-play' politics that put special interests first at the expense of the priorities of the American people, and signed a pledge to restore honest leadership and open government." Remember what I said about Bait & Switch legislation. The promise in the name and rhetoric of the legislation is the "Bait." What you end up with is the "Switch."

The Collapse of Social Security in America
While every politician on Capitol Hill from 1933 to 1993 knew the doomsday clock was silently ticking on the demise of Social Security, no one sounded the national alarm until President George W. Bush did in 2003, making the privatization of Social Security an election issue in 2004. Bush-43 didn't mince words on March 6, 2005 when he said that Social Security was bankrupt. Nor did he mince his words when he said that by 2030 every Social Security recipient would be supported by two workers. USA Today reported on Oct. 8, 2007 that Brian Reid of the Heritage Foundation confirmed what Bush said in 2005—that by 2030 Social Security's caseload will be 84 million people—up from slightly over 50 million people today. And, even without a universal healthcare system that will erode the US economy almost overnight, Medicare was projected to go from 44 million to 79 million beneficiaries. Medicare now pays out more in claims than it receives in "premiums." In 2017, Social Security will begin doing the same thing. Medicare is projected to run completely out of funds in 2019. In 2041 the Social Security system will be as dry as the Sahara Desert.

As Bush-43 did what he could to overhaul Social Security and create private investment accounts for younger workers in order to guarantee they will have a retirement income when they reached 75, the Democrats blocked his efforts saying that letting younger workers siphon off any part of their FICA payments would do irreparable harm to Social Security—while the social progressive talking heads at AARP insisted there was nothing wrong with Social Security and that, with a few minor adjustments, it would continue to serve America well.

The Social Security Trust Fund, however, is nothing more than a drawer full of IOUs from Congress to the American people—and, thanks to abortion and NAFTA, America does not have enough jobs or potential job holders to keep the tax receipts pipeline full. By 2040, Bush warned America, Social Security would not be able to meet its payment obligations. It was then that Bush-43 tried to privatize Social Security. The Democrats, with the help of their lobbyist in the private sector, AARP, succeeded in killling his plan to privatize Social Security..

A group calling itself Physicians for a National Health Program was formed in Chicago in 2003 and began advocating for a single-payer health system. PNHP was founded by radical socialist, anti-Vietnam War civil rights activist Dr. Quentin Young and his medical practice partner, Dr. David Scheiner. Scheiner, like Young, is a social progressive activist. Scheiner, appeared on Larry King Live on Aug. 11, 2009 as the Democrats, without a single GOP vote, were struggling to craft what they called a "bipartisan healthcare system." Scheiner told King that he favored a single payer system because "...health insurance companies had interfered in the treatment of several of [his] patients." His most prominent patient was Barack Hussein Obama. Young was Obama's primary care physician from 1987 until 2008.

Were Young and Scheiner involved in spinning the Bait & Switch yarn that became Obamacare? In a political organization it's about as transparent as a ton of coal at midnight in a Black Hole from which not even Obama's elementary school grades can escape, its likely they had input, but with the US Supreme Court now snugly tucked in his hip pocket, there appears to be no force in the country with the power to pierce the veil of secrecy on Obama's life—although every piece of identification Obama has presented to establish his "bonefides" as a US citizen has been proven to be a forgery. Yet, the Justice Department will not investigate the biggest fraud in the history of the United States, nor will any federal court honor the 1st Amendment right of the People of the United States to petition the courts for a redress of their grievances over the unconstitutional conduct of its government. (It was precisely this attitude by the British that led the citizens of the American colonies to say: "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another...for abolishing our most valuable laws and altering, fundamentally, the form of our government.")

The Reality of the Bait & Switch
Like most Canadians and Europeans living under social welfare systems, Americans stupidly chose to believe that no civilized government could get away with capriciously and arbitrarily euthanizing its elderly population simply because its government could no longer afford to keep them alive. Ludicrous, right? Wrong. In 1993 Hillary Clinton and Ira Magaziner—the architects of Hillarycare—and the liberal media in the United States, touted the Canadian healthcare system as the model the United States needed to fashion their own healthcare system after. They did this as the Canadian people were fighting to jettison their public health system in order to provide its citizens with a private healthcare system like that found in the United States.

In 2007, US leftwing film maker Michael Moore, who uses his propaganda skills as a film maker to push the leftwing agenda, easily ignored the fact that Canadians flock to the United States to get the medical attention they can't get in Canada, called the American healthcare system "sick." In a documentary titled "Sicko," which Moore did at the time the leftwing media in the United States blocked the reporting of the Canadian court battle to dump their universal healthcare system, Moore portrayed the US healthcare system as inferior to the Canadian system. The three top tier 2008 Democratic presidential candidates—Obama, Clinton and John Edwards all proposed slightly different versions of the Canadian healthcare system. They likely picked Canada not because it was any good, but because the American people didn't know it wasn't—and Canada was our closest neighbor. And, of course, they looked healthy enough.

The Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta enacted the Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act in 1957. By 1966, all 10 provinces developed similar programs. In 1988 Canada converted HIDS in a single payer universal healthcare system called Medicare. When the plan was introduced, the government paid 70% of the cost of medical care. The problem with the Canadian system is not just the exorbitant tax Canadians pay for coverage, nor the 30% co-pay, it's the inability of the Canadian government to deliver medical services in a timely fashion. Canada has long sold medigap insurance to offset much of the 30% co-pay.

However, since the Canadian Medicare system does what Obamacare will do—deny benefits—private clinics began springing up all over Canada several years ago and, although it was illegal to do so, began performing the medical tests including MRIs and PETscans that patients might wait six months to a year or longer to get through Medicare—if at all. In a private Canadian clinic, just like the pre-Obama US medical system, those who need a CTscan or X-ray can get one in a few hours, or at least, within a day or two. While the private clinics are technically unlawful in Canada, medical services—but not medical procedures—are allowed because, in the long and short of things, diagnosing a disease doesn't change the prognosis of the illness without the medical procedure needed to alleviate it.

Canada and every other industrialized nation with a universal healthcare system uses the same Bait & Switch techniques found in Obamacare to make sure that when the system denies a medical procedure to the patient, the patient may not simply go to another medical provider and pay for the procedure "out-of-pocket." Once the government denies the procedure (usually by putting the person who needs it on a waiting list longer that what life they have left) no healthcare provider may overrule the system. Under Obamacare, when the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, or its designate, rules that a medical procedure has been declined, under penalty of law, no physician in the United States will be allowed to perform the denied procedure. If they do, they will be fined and, at least after the first offense, imprisoned.

When Dr. David Janda , an orthopedic surgeon from Ypsilanti, MI was the keynote speaker at a Congressional Dinner at the Capitol in Washington, DC on July 17, 2010 he began by saying that "The same warning notice must be placed on the Obamacare Plan as on a pack of cigarettes: consuming this product will be hazardous to your health." Dr. Janda was among the first members of the medical community to warn the American people what was in store for them

Janda noted that the deliberately planned rationing under Obamacare will come from guidelines developed by the Independent Payment Advisory Board and orchestrated by the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. The National Coordinator will "...approve or reject treatment of individual patients based on the cost per treatment divided by the number of years the patient will benefit from the treatment." Translation: if you are over 75 years old or have recently been diagnosed with an advanced cardiac disease, an aggressive cancer or some other catastrophic illness or accident, you will be denied any lifesaving medical procedures. The Bait & Switch of Obamacare is that the language makes it clear the "double dippers"——those currently on Medicare who are also retirement income beneficiaries—are the group that will be targeted for the denial of benefits since they represent the biggest drain the system. The National Coordinator will "...monitor treatments being delivered to make sure doctors and hospitals are strictly following government guidelines that are deemed appropriate." The guidelines continue "...Doctors and hospitals not adhering to guidelines will face penalties." Dr. Janda noted that the penalties could include large, six figure fines and possible imprisonment. According to Obamacare, Dr. Janda noted "...if your doctor saves your life, you might have to go to prison to see him for your follow-up appointments."

In a political speech on Oct. 13, 2010 Dr. Janda told his audience that the National Coordinator (or someone working for him) will "...determine treatment at the time and place of care...When your physician walks into your hospital room, his nurse will be carrying a small hand-held computer. As the doctor tells you his prognosis,s he will be typing that data into the computer..." and while the doctor chit-chats with the patient, someone in the coordinator's office is deciding whether you live or die based not on your medical needs, but rather, on whether or not it 's profitable for the government to let you live by gauging the cost of the procedure you need based on a host of monetary factors in the Social Security database not necessarily related to medicine. It computes your life expectancy with your economic value to the community-at-large. In other words, the core objective of the National Coordinator is not to save the patient, it's to save the government by adjusting the number of Social Security recipients who have outlived the actuarial mortality tables and who continue to receive both health and retirement benefits long after the table say they should be dead because they are now living on someone else's dime. Until Obamacare was enacted, America was the only nation smart enough to avoid the legal euthanasia devise of government to control exploding population by terminating life at both ends of the age corridor. (Note: the words of Dr. Janda were transcribed, verbatim, from a video he made. Click on this sentence for that video.)

Before you dismiss this view as meritless conspiracy rhetoric, I want to remind you of a woman named Terri Schaivo whose public execution by Pinellas County, Florida Circuit Court Judge George S. Greer was witnessed by the world. (Click on Terri Schiavo's name for the hyperlink.) Those in government with the power to stop the county judge from not only sentencing an innocent woman to death because her living was an inconvenience to a husband who wanted to marry another woman, but executing her in a manner so inhumane that no criminal court in the nation would have allowed a hated murderer to be executed in such a manner. Terri Schiavo, if you recall, was deprived of all forms of nourishment—including water. She died a horrible, painful death by dehydration. Why did none of the 40 judges in six State and federal courts who became entangled in the most acrimonious right-to-life (not right-to-die) case in the history of the United States, who had the legal authority to overturn Greer's decision, not do so? That's a question you need to ask yourself. When you do, you will realize that doing so would have created a "right to life" legal precedent that would have made government mandated euthanasia more difficult to legislate.

My wife was talking to her sister on the telephone a week or so ago. Her husband, who has a few years on her and who has outlived his actuarial table, is not in the best of health. He suffers from Crohn's Disease. He has for years. Crohn's Disease is relatively rare and affects only about a half million people in the United States.

It's a disease that's not common enough to be worth the expense for pharmaceutical companies to find a cure for it. It's treated with one of two expensive prescription drugs: infliximab (Remicade) or adalimumab (Humira). Adalimumab is a drug "of last resorts" and is generally used only when the patient has a problem with infliximab. Adalimumab is usually used in "rescue therapy." For patients who have been on infliximab, but for whom that drug stops working.

I'm not certain which of these drugs my brother-in-law is on, but visiting his doctor earlier this year he was told that when Obamacare goes into effect, he will no longer be eligible to receive that medication for Crohn's Disease. For him, and other elderly people suffering from Crohn's Disease, there aren't any other life sustaining options since before the introduction of steroids, there weren't any drugs available to effectively treat it—none, in fact, that did more than ease the pain and discomfort without having any curative power.

Since the medication my brother-in-law takes—whether adalimumab or infliximab—is the only medical treatment that keeps Crohn's suppressed, why would his doctor not be able to prescribe it when Obamacare becomes the only healthcare system available to the American people in 2014? (Since he is on Medicare, he was told it would not be available to him next year.)

Obamacare was Obama's first important "Bait & Switch." Wait a minute—here's our first "Oops." Were you absent the day they passed out thinking caps in school? Even though, very soon, you will be receiving your own government health card in the mail, don't confuse having a health card with actually having healthcare. They are two different animals. Healthcare is what you received pre-Obama. You got sick. You went to the doctor. They ran tests. Sometimes they hospitalized you. They treated you. Usually they cured whatever it was you had. You went home and continued living. Universal healthcare doesn't work that way.

Universal healthcare doesn't work that way by design because, by design, it's a population suppresser. The Los Angeles Times—which is not exactly known as as bastion of conservative thought—noted that "...[s]imply saying that people have health insurance is meaningless. Many countries provide health insurance but deny critical procedures to patients who need them. Britain's Department of Health reported in 2006 that at any given time, nearly 900,000 Britons are waiting for admission to National Health Service hospitals; and shortages force the cancellation of more than 50,000 operations a year. In Sweden, the wait for heart surgery can be as long as 25 weeks, and the average wait for hip replacement surgery is more than a year. Many of these individuals...will probably die awaiting treatment. In a 2005 ruling of the Canadian Supreme Court, Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin wrote that '...access to a waiting list is not access to healthcare.'"

In closing, let me ask a question: Do you remember when movie actress Natasha Richardson died from a fall on a ski slope at the Mont Tremblant Resort in Quebec? A question was posed by American Spectator magazine at the time of her death. The question was: did Canada's universal healthcare system kill her? The short answer: yes. Without a doubt. When celebrities flocked to pay their respects to the acclaimed actress, the question they asked was, had there been a medical helicopter system available in Quebec Province, would Richardson have lived? Again, the short answer appears to be, "yes."

The AP reported that Montreal's top head trauma doctor said that probably played a role in Richardson's death. "It's impossible for me to comment specifically about her case," Tarek Razek said, "but what I could say is...driving to Mont Tremblant from (Montreal) is a 2 1/2 hour trip. The closest trauma center is in the city. Our system is not set up for traumas and doesn't match what's available in other Canadian cities, let alone in the States." And, while most of America's hospitals—even in small communities—have medical helicopter services, its important to remember that what makes medical services bad isn't whether or not that hospital has all of the amenities, but whether or not that hospital is controlled by a bureaucracy.

Before you ever went to the Department of Motor Vehicles to buy the tags for your personal vehicle, you usually picked them up at the County Tax Assessor's office. Remember those days? You walked in, paid your taxes and picked up your tag. Now you still go to the Tax Office, but only to pay your taxes and get a tax receipt. From there you go to the dreaded DMV and enter the bureaucratic Twilight Zone. You usually wait an hour or two to get your license tag. The boring silence is pierced only by the sound of a mundane mechanical voice calling out window numbers you don't have like a robotic caller in a Bingo game.

When you start thinking about how healthcare will change under Obamacare, just think about how complex buying new tags for your car has become at the DMV. That's a preview of what you can expect from the healthcare bureaucracy that is just around the corner. American Spectator phrased it best: "Think about the folks at the Department of Motor Vehicles making your healthcare decisions for you while you stand in line" waiting for your new car tags. When you deal with any bureaucracy, bureaucrats couldn't care less if you lived or died as long as everyone receives precisely the same "service." When the government bureaucracy takes over the healthcare industry, "care" will very quickly become a very mundane "service." And excellence will become mediocrity. And, in a mediocre medical system, many people who should have survived their medical crisis, will die.