Crossposted from Flopping Aces

The Heritage Foundation has the top 10 reasons why ObamaCare is just wrong for this nation:

1. Millions Will Lose Their Current Insurance. Period. End of Story: President Obama wants Americans to believe they can keep their insurance if they like, but research from the government, private research firms, and think tanks show this is not the case. Proposed economic incentives, plus a government-run health plan like the one proposed in the House bill, would cause 88.1 million people to see their current employer-sponsored health plan disappear.
2. Your Health Care Coverage Will Probably Change Anyway: Even if you kept your private insurance, eventually most remaining plans–whether employer plans or individual plans–would have to conform to new federal benefit standards. Moreover, the necessary plan “upgrades” will undoubtedly cost you more in premiums.
3. The Umpire Is Also the First Baseman: The main argument for a “public option” is that it would increase competition. However, if the federal government creates a health care plan that it controls and also sets the rules for the private plans, there is little doubt that Washington would put its private sector “competitors” out of business sooner or later.
4. The Fed Picks Your Treatment: President Obama said: “They’re going to have to give up paying for things that don’t make them healthier. … If there’s a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half for the thing that’s going to make you well.” Does that sound like a government that will stay out of your health care decisions?
5. Individual Mandate Means Less Liberty and More Taxes: Although he once opposed the idea, President Obama is now open to the imposition of an individual mandate that would require all Americans to have federally approved health insurance. This unprecedented federal directive not only takes away your individual freedom but could cost you as well. Lawmakers are considering a penalty or tax for those who don’t buy government-approved health plans.

And the people are waking up from their messiah coma and starting to understand this is not the direction they want to go in:

…the latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted July 22-26 among 1,506 adults reached on landlines and cell phones, finds that many of the health care proposals being debated in Congress are sparking negative reactions, especially from those following the debate most closely. By a 44% to 38% margin, more Americans generally oppose than favor the health care proposals now before Congress. Opposition rises to 56% among people who say they have heard a lot about legislation to overhaul the health care system. Concerns about the costs and increased government involvement in the health care system are volunteered most often by Americans critical of the health care proposals.

Hell, Mike shows us that not only do the people not want socialized health care, they are starting to find some negatives in the Obama armor.

In a number of polls Obama is at or below the percentage of votes he had in the 2008 election meaning he is losing support directly from the people who voted for him.

And it only took six months. I didn’t think it was possible. I believed it would be a good two years before this came about.

Back to the topic at hand, who do the Democrats blame for this ObamaCare negative press? The evil insurance companies. Not the frivolous lawsuits and the ambulance chasing lawyers, but the insurance companies because….get this…they don’t want the competition from the Government.

More like they know this will put them out of business:

A day after formally delaying a vote on a healthcare bill and having to accept a further weakening of a public option to compete with private insurers, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) lashed out at the health insurance industry and urged her members to do the same during the August recess.

“They are the villains in this,” Pelosi said of private insurers. “They have been part of the problem in a major way. They are doing everything in their power to stop a public option from happening. And the public has to know that. They can disguise their arguments any way they want, but the fact is that they don’t want the competition.”

Bulls&%t.

We just don’t want this to happen to our country:

Millions of adults in England and Wales haven’t been to an NHS dentist since April 2006 mainly because they couldn’t find one to treat them, says new research carried out for national charity Citizens Advice as it urges Primary Care Trusts to spend newly allocated resources to improve access.

~~~

It was mentioned by 31% of respondents in England and Wales who have not been to an NHS dentist since April 2006. This is the equivalent of approximately 7.4 million people who have not been to an NHS dentist since April 2006 because of difficulties in finding one. Of these, the equivalent of approximately 4.7 million have sought private treatment instead and the equivalent of approximately 2.7 million have gone without treatment altogether.

~~~

A [charity] in North Yorkshire reported a pensioner on a low income who needed emergency dental treatment in hospital. They advised her she would need further treatment and would need to find an NHS dentist. There were two available in the area but both have 12 month waiting lists…

also:

Obama Won’t Use the Word “Victory” in Afghan “War”

But he does know how to apologize!

Historians always used to say that it was important for a President, the leader of the Free World, to have a vision. I wonder if that rule has been scrapped in favor of the affirmative action President who doesn’t seem to understand how important a concept like victory in war is to those fighting it:

EDITORIAL: No substitute for victory
The president equivocates on the Afghan war
Washington Times
July 27, 2009

President Obama isn’t sure if victory is the U.S. objective in Afghanistan. On July 23, ABC’s Terry Moran asked the president to define victory in Afghanistan. He responded, “I’m always worried about using the word ‘victory’ because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur.” Fidelity to history requires us to note that Emperor Hirohito did not sign the Japanese articles of surrender on the Battleship Missouri on Sept. 2, 1945, and was not even at the ceremony.

There is scant difference between the Bush and Obama strategies in Afghanistan. The “stronger and smarter” approach Mr. Obama introduced in March is substantively little different from the Bush administration’s 2004 Afghan counterinsurgency strategy. Both seek to secure the country, promote a stable government and defeat the terrorists who seek to attack the United States. However, one important difference is that the Obama administration generally eschews the word “war.” Defense jargon du jour indicates that our country has shifted from “fighting a war” to “engaging in overseas contingencies.” This renders the whole question of victory moot. Wars are won or lost; contingency operations just come and go.
…
There is no harm, and a great deal of good, in calling the achievement of war objectives a victory. After all, if you can’t say you won a war, the implication is you lost it. The pursuit of victory also makes war’s sacrifices more meaningful. John P. Roche, special assistant to President Johnson, wrote in 1968 that the basic issue in Vietnam was whether a free society could fight a limited war for limited objectives. “It is very difficult to tell a young soldier,” he wrote, “Go out there and fight, perhaps die, for a good bargaining position.”

Gen. Douglas MacArthur famously said that “there is no substitute for victory,” a fact that remains true today. We cannot alter the nature of war by redefining it to conform to shifting political fashion. Our men and women in uniform are putting their lives on the line overseas fighting an implacable enemy. Their commander in chief should allow them the opportunity to say that their objective is victory.

President Reagan also cited that quote from MacArthur and he lived by it. Reagan’s vision bucked the conventional wisdom and forced the bureaucracy to go along with his plans to WIN the Cold War. If Obama had been President during the 80′s, the Berlin Wall and the threat of nuclear Armageddon would likely still hang over us.

If victory is a foreign language to Obama; how does he feel about defeat?