ObamaCare DRECK(tm)

Coming to You Soon as “Soma”

According to The Daily Beast, there’s now a pill to cure racism.

…Writing in the medical journal Psychopharmacology, British investigators found that a veteran heart and blood pressure pill, propranolol, which acts to lower our fight-or-flight response to anything by dialing down adrenaline production, reduced “implicit racial bias” significantly. They ran their study in 36 white 22-year-old volunteers and distinguished implicit associations from explicit racial prejudice. … (H/T: JCM)

While some question whether or not thirty-six people is enough of a sample size to make such an announcement (it’s not), I have to question the fact that only white people were included in the sample. Apparently, the “implicit racial bias” of the investigators, who might want to consider taking some of their own medicine, is that only white people can be racist. Physicians, heal thyselves.

An Alien Chest Burster? The Vulcan Death Grip? You’re Covered.

Under Obama, government regulations (and regulators) have skyrocketed. Want to see some of what your children’s, grandchildren’s, and great-grandchildren’s taxes are paying for?

Wall Street Journal — Today, hospitals and doctors use a system of about 18,000 codes to describe medical services in bills they send to insurers. Apparently, that doesn’t allow for quite enough nuance. A new federally mandated version will expand the number to around 140,000—adding codes that describe precisely what bone was broken, or which artery is receiving a stent. It will also have a code for recording that a patient’s injury occurred in a chicken coop… There are codes for injuries in opera houses, art galleries, squash courts, and nine locations in and around a mobile home… Billing experts who translate doctors’ work into codes are gearing up to start using the new system in two years. … R46.1 is “bizarre personal appearance” while R46.0 is “very low level of personal hygiene.” It’s not clear how many klutzes want to notify their insurers that a doctor visit was a W22.02XA, “walked into lamppost, initial encounter” (or, for that matter, a W22.02XD, “walked into lamppost, subsequent encounter”). …

And who can deny that Democrats are the party of scienciousness and futurity when ObamaCare is getting ready to bill you for accidents involving spacecraft? Go to that link and check out some searches on different keywords. There are nine different codes for injuries caused by turtles (no word on whether or not those are the mutant ninja variety).

UPDATE: What? There are no codes for injuries from moose? But a Møøse once bit my sister! Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti…

Isn’t Everything “Commerce”?

Obama thinks that forcing people to buy health insurance – specifically, his health insurance at his prices that covers only what he thinks should be covered and refuses the care that he thinks should be refused – “should not be controversial”… (H/T: WZ)

If the government has a right to control its citizens’ actions in the name of “commerce,” just think about all of the other “non-controversial” things the government can do with the exact same justification… (H/T IMAO)

“If Congress has the power to make you buy health insurance, where does it stop? Then they’d have the power to make you get tattoos, and they’ve got the power to make you wear little yellow stars on your coat sleeves.” –Doug Urbanski

“…If the government can compel people to engage in private economic transactions like… the individual mandate… because it might affect interstate commerce, then imagine if the government had the power to force people to pick cotton in return for room and board…” –ibid

Do you see any controversy? No? Me neither.

Old News, Unless You Only Watch the MSM

Pajamas Media — Sophisticated stem cell medicine — in which a patient’s own fatty tissue is harvested and processed for the patient’s own adult (autologous) stem cells, then reinjected for regenerative healing — is available in the United States and Canada, but only for animals. Elsewhere in the world — the Regenerative Medicine Institute at Tijuana’s impressive Hospital Angeles, for example, just 20 minutes outside San Diego — adult stem cells have been shown to have remarkable efficacy in treating a variety of diseases. … the MSM carefully avoids the subject of stem cells — unless, that is, you’re talking embryonic stem cells. These are the controversial cells, harvested from dead human fetuses, that most people presume to be the foundation of all cell medicine. For the MSM, embryonic stem cells are not voodoo nonsense; they are cool, cutting-edge, sexy. They are headline-grabbers. They have the highly mediagenic property of “pluripotency” — the ability to morph into any type of cell in the body. But adult stem cells are proven more effective and less risky than embryonic cells. Yet only embryonic stem cells and their supporters merit coverage in the MSM, despite the fact that fetal cells do not perform successfully in clinical trials.

I’ve seen this reported a number of times over a number of years: The only stem cells that regularly show any promise are adult stem cells (which can be harvested from fat), but the only stem cells that the media (and the government pork-barrel spenders) show any interest in are embryonic stem cells harvested from aborted fetuses. That above the referenced article doesn’t really speculate deeply on the cause of this dishonest discrepancy, but it’s fairly obvious that the obsession with embryonic stem cells is based at least in part of justifying the continued availability of abortion on demand in America, with government funding. And if they can convince the public that they stand to reap personally benefit from the endless health benefits from endless abortions, then with any luck the voters will be swayed away from pro-life policies and politicians. When the subject of stem cell research comes it, it’s surprising (OK, not really) how many people are unaware that there even exist other types of stem cell research about from the embryonic type, much less the fact that the other types of research are the ones actually showing promise. But then again, it should be fairly obvious to anyone who spared the time to rub two brain cells together that, if embryonic stem cell research were the gold mine that everyone claimed it was, then it wouldn’t need massive government subsidies. People would be lining up to invest in it.

But, maybe someday after adult stem cell research reaches its potential, it may actually gain some acknowledgement for its successes (while the government-funded embryonic boondoggles continue to waste money with little result), we can all go down to the nearest Red Cross center to donate a pint of fat in order to provide the stem cells to cure our fellow citizens. Given how much liposuction is done on the stars in Hollywood, they might actually (for the first time in decades) actually be doing something to contribute to society in a positive way.

Outrage? Where is your HONESTY?

Today’s dose of Leftist revisionism and propaganda comes from Where is the Outrage:

GOP Equals Hypocrisy — With Eric Cantor walking out of the high-level debt ceiling negotiation, I thought it’d be interesting to look back and figure out how many times the House Majority Leader and his colleagues voted to raise the debt ceiling under George W. Bush. One would figure, because they are fiscally conservative, they probably only voted to raise the debt ceiling once or twice under the eight-year tenure of George W. Bush. The GOP hypocrites raised the debt ceiling … 7 times … under George W. Bush and not once did they hold the president hostage to debt ceiling negotiations. (H/T: Babbazee)

The bias and motivation are obvious. It’s also obvious that, in order for his claim (that hypocrisy is exclusively a GOP trait) to be true, that the Democrats (including Obama) must have remained consistent on their positions towards the debt ceiling. But since they voted against raising the debt ceiling under Bush, but are rabidly in favor of it now, why is a change of attitude only evidence of hypocrisy when the GOP does it? Surely, on that basis, if hypocrisy exists at all, it must certainly exist on both sides of Congress (and in the White House as well), no?

Of course, that makes the assumption that the situation under Bush then is identical to the situation under Obama now. If the only thing that’s different is that a Democrat (or “a black man”, to quote the deranged Sheila Jackson Lee and others) is in the White House now instead of Bush, and that this is the sole reason for the change in opinion (on both sides); then yes, a claim of hypocrisy may credibly be made (although the claims of racism, lack of patriotism, and so forth also being hurled at the GOP remain unsupported and reprehensible). However, the situation is not identical…

Is ObamaCare Mandate a Tax?

Obama did make a promise (already long since broken) not to tax the middle class, and he most likely knows far more about man dates than I do, but still…

Washington Examiner — This afternoon, the Fourth Circuit panel considering the Commonwealth of Virginia’s challenge to Obamacare has asked for supplemental briefs from all parties related to the arguments about the federal government’s constitutional powers of taxation. This may mean that the court is setting itself up to rule that the penalty for not purchasing insurance under Obamacare is, in fact, a tax and not a penalty at all, and that therefore the court lacks jurisdiction to hear the case. This would make the Fourth Circuit the first court in America to buy the Obama administration’s argument that Obamacare’s individual mandate is, in fact, a tax. Every other court to hear an Obamacare case – including those that have upheld the law – have rejected this line of argument out of hand. (H/T: C2)

How do you tax nothing? They can tax income, they can tax property, they can tax sales, they can and do tax a large variety of purchases and transactions. They tax just about every activity and item in existence. But how do you tax the lack of a purchase? How can you tax a transaction that never occurred, a product that was never purchased? Whether it’s a 5% tax or a 100% tax, it’s still 5% or 100% of zero dollars spent on zero transactions for zero gain. Taking money from people who choose not to subject themselves to death panels is a penalty, pure and simple. A pecuniary punishment for not submitting to Obama’s Glorious People’s Health Care (a subsidiary of Soylent Green, Inc.)

I don’t buy it. Can I be taxed for not buying their bullshit?

Halfway There

The Foundry — …the newly elected governors of Ohio, Oklahoma, Maine, and Wisconsin have all decided to sue the Obama administration in hopes of stopping Obamacare. Specifically, Gov. Mary Fallin (R) of Oklahoma has announced that the Sooner State will pursue its own case against the law, while Govs. John Kasich (R) and Scott Walker (R) (of Ohio and Wisconsin respectively) will add their states to Florida’s multi-state suit. And yesterday, newly sworn-in state Attorney General William Schneider announced Maine would also join the the Florida litigation. That brings the number of states on the Florida suit to 23 and the total number of states suing to stop Obamacare (which includes Virginia and Oklahoma) to 25. (H/T: Weasel Zippers)

Yes, We’re Serious

Last year, Nancy Pelosi was asked by CNSNews.com, “Where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?” Her response was a repeated, incredulous “Are you serious?” Her press spokesman, Nadeam Elshami, later added that “You can put this on the record. That is not a serious question.” She was far from the only Democrat who openly didn’t worry about the Constitution or thought that it was wrong, denied that there were any restrictions upon what the federal government could do, or admitted that the Democrats “make up the rules as they go along“.

Well, guess what: A federal judge in Virginia ruled Monday that a key provision of the nation’s sweeping health-care overhaul is unconstitutional, the most significant legal setback so far for President Obama’s signature domestic initiative. (H/T: Weasel Zippers) It turns out that the Constitution does matter, it does say what it clearly appears to say, and there are people who still care about it. Obviously, it ain’t over until it (and/or the other state suits) reach the Supreme Court; but remember, if even part of ObamaCare is ruled unconstitutional, the whole thing might collapse since the three zillion pages of legislation apparently don’t include the standard severability clause.

Bankrupting America

Fly The Sexual Abuse Skies

I personally haven’t flown anywhere in five years, because I thought airport security was getting unreasonable back then. Apparently, I hadn’t seen anything yet; but if I flew today, airport security would get to see it all. It remains an open question of how many other people will also get to see (H/T GoV) your p0rnoscanner pictures – in England, after a celebrity went through a body scanner, security personnel printed out his nude scan and asked him to autograph it. Tens of thousands of images are known to have been saved from a millimeter wave system at the security checkpoint of a single Florida courthouse, despite ongoing claims by the TSA that such things are impossible.

However, even though I haven’t personally been subjected to the machines (or the alternate opt-out body search which follows new prison-shower-room parameters), airport security and protests against it have been much in the news lately. A pilot has refused the scan for privacy issues, although airline unions have raised concerns about the health issue of frequent X-rays for their personnel who have to go through them every time they go on a flight. (The same health concerns apply to any frequent travelers, or other people who are particularly vulnerable to X-rays like pregnant women and children. My wife pointed out that women also get X-rays more frequently as they get older because of mammograms, although I believe ObamaCare is trying to remove that concern – they already advocate reducing mammograms as a money-saving measure.) Another man, John Tyner, was ejected from an airport and threatened with a fine when he refused to go through either the scanner or allow himself to be groped.

Sign On San Diego — …He may not be the first traveler tossed from an airport for security reasons but he could well be the first to have the whole experience captured on his cell phone. During the next half-hour, his cell phone recorded Tyner refusing to submit to a full body scan, opting for the traditional metal scanner and a basic “pat down” – and then refusing to submit to a “groin check” by a TSA security guard. He even told the guard, “You touch my junk and I’m going to have you arrested.” …

“OK, I don’t understand how a sexual assault can be made a condition of my flying.”
“This is not considered a sexual assault,” replied the supervisor, calmly.
“It would be if you were not the government,” said Tyner.
“By buying your ticket you gave up a lot of rights,” countered the TSA supervisor.
“I think the government took them away after 9/11,” said Tyner.

The TSA thugs are even performing full-body searches on small children, which is yet another reason why I’m not taking my family into an airport any time soon.

An Appeal to Repeal

According to Florida Attorney General-elect Pam Bondi (R), a majority of states (at least 26, possibly 28) are now joining the suit challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare. (video H/T: Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit)

Ace of Spades points out that if ObamaCare’s mandate is found unconstitutional, that may cause the entire bill to be struck down.

The interesting thing about the bill is that it apparently doesn’t contain a severability clause, which usually states “notwithstanding any provision of this act being found unconstitutional, the rest of the act shall continue to be in force” … which means it operates by the old-fashioned default rule that if any part of a law is found to be unconstitutional, the entire law is unconstitutional. … Ilya Somin notes this is not some Hail Mary longshot, but a genuine question that just could go our way. (emphasis added)

One other thing to watch is whether or not Obama’s former solicitor general, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, recuses herself from any future ObamaCare decisions.