A Simple Idea

The country has been turned upside down by the healthcare debate.

Does anyone understand why this has to go through so fast? What’s the urgency? Why is any of it a good idea? Who has any proof?

Of course, one might suspect that this isn’t about healthcare as much as it’s a power grab. Probably doesn’t take great political insight to figure that one out. Get it done before the 2010 election, right? Kind of an endgame…

So, what’s this “YOU First Act” anyway?

A pretty simple idea, really.

If Congress truly believes that the nation’s healthcare system needs major changes and that billions of dollars (probably trillions) of legislation must be enacted… then shouldn’t they at least test their theories first?

Really now, who would get on an airliner that hadn’t been prototyped, tested, retested and then certified? Or who would feel safe taking a drug that didn’t go through clinical trials?

Same thing here. If there is going to be massive legislated change in healthcare, shouldn’t it be more than theoretical? Shouldn’t we have some proof that Capitol Hill’s ideas can work? The billions of debt caused by Medicare, Amtrak and the Postal Service aren’t exactly a great track record.

This sea change Congress is concocting needs some sort of pilot testing and it needs a sample group to test upon…

And guess what? Congress already has a significant sample group of about 10 million people already in it’s total control!

Federal employees belong to the country’s largest employer-based health benefits program [FEHBP]. Congress has authority over that group. It also has authority over the health benefits for employees of the District of Columbia. And Congress also has authority over the citizens of the District of Columbia. And members of Congress are also covered by the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.

Why should the whole country be the guinea pig for Congress’s medical experiment? Why doesn’t Congress and the federal government experiment on themselves? 10 million is a nicely sized group to use as a pilot.

So, we say, YOU First!

We’ve taken a stab at writing a draft of a bill we call the Healthcare Reform Testing and Feasibility Act.

Maybe something like this could give cooler heads in Congress the opportunity to slow things down and truly consider testing some of these concepts first.

You can read our simple draft of the YOU First Act here.

“THE STONE-FREE ZONE” might be a novel, a dissertation, an op-ed – about the lack of courage by so many conservatives now rushing for the tall grass, rats abandoning a ship they believe is taking on huge volumes of sea water. The radioactive, fissile materials emanating from the financial crisis have led growing numbers of one-time conservatives to run amok, amuck and away – from their own team.

If they’re wrong, will they be first to request tickets to Mac’s Inaugural?

Watch ‘em closely – there’s so much volatility in these poll numbers that anything can happen. Obama The One – OTO – has three layers of support: hard-core fanatics, overlaid by a thinner, semi-firm layer of mostly committed partisans, and the last and most volatile, newest layer of peekaboo supporters. Read the rest of this entry »

One Hollywood conservative reassured a fellow Jewish Republican after the convention, “We can win this thing…” Since that e-mail, things have gone up and down, with Mac briefly ahead. Then a little stock market/housing-bubble matter turned things down. Last night, Mac did his best yet in the debates, his last-chance saloon to make some points. No homers, certainly no grand-slam, but several triples, and no bunts. Good enough to beat the Dodgers’ deal the same hump-day evening.

Right now, the tides of man are cycling against Mac. And any serious Vegas oddsmaker would make it at least 5-3 for OTO, that again being Obama The One. That very night, Leno’s pre-debate taping noted the fires in the LA area were not regarded as by most Americans: When an LA citizen sees a burning bush, he thinks Obama is about to give a speech! Read the rest of this entry »

Let me state for the record that I do not want to be president. For one thing, I don’t want to move east because I hate cold weather. For another, I make it a point to avoid any event that requires a suit and tie, and, so far as I can tell, the president has to get dressed up to go to the bathroom. Besides, the mere thought of having to spend time with people like Robert Byrd, Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, Barney Frank, Harry Reid and Christopher Dodd, is enough to give me a migraine. However, if the only alternative to my having to take the job is for Barack Obama to get it, I’ll make the sacrifice.

So, my question is, if I’m willing to give up nice weather and tennis shorts for the good of our beloved country, why isn’t John McCain at least willing to take off the kid gloves? Read the rest of this entry »

As you may have guessed, I don’t personally know the Republican candidate for president.  I’ve never met him and I expect I never will.  I’m sure that if I’d been in a position to fork over $5,000 for dinner at a fund-raiser, it could have been easily arranged.  However, I have one unbreakable rule: If I pay $5,000 to have dinner with someone, he’s then going to have to cough up $5,000 pretty darn quick to have dinner with me.  And, frankly, he’d get a lot more for his money than I’d get for mine.  That’s because he couldn’t help me become a better writer, but I could certainly help him get elected.

For openers, I’d tell him to quit treating Obama like an equal.  Read the rest of this entry »

Comedy tastes change over time. I’m sure a water-squirting daisy on a jacket lapel was a riot in its day. Knock-knock jokes kept me and my friends pretty entertained in second grade. And I’m sure Henny Youngman would not get the same laughs today if he were still alive doing stand up.

The new film Religulous starring comedian Bill Maher (HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher) and directed by Larry Charles (Borat, Curb Your Enthusiasm) seemed to fall pretty flat in the laughs department—like it was appealing to an audience that may have been amused by it twenty years ago. I was struck by how little laughter there was among those in the opening-weekend crowd. (In terms of magnitude, I use the word “crowd” here in the sense of the “crowd” that might attend a Joe Biden campaign rally.) Religulous was showing in the smallest theater in the multiplex (not much bigger than the “truck-driver’s chapel” that appeared in the film) and even then it was only about a third full. Read the rest of this entry »

The debate Tuesday night was a draw.

I agree with McCain more on the issues, so I thought he won on points, but my bias probably accounts for much of this. However, and maybe I was the only one, tonight for the first time, I became afraid of what both politicians, but especially Senator Obama, are proposing in the middle of this serious economic time. Much of it sounded exactly like the sort of thing one reads from the early 1930’s . . . and in a bad way.

Anti-God mockumentary beaten out by movies about faith, love, patriotism … and Chihuahuas.

A culture war of sorts played out this weekend at the box office, and liberal comedian Bill Maher’s in-your-face assault on religious faith lost. Despite heavy promotion from a fawning media establishment, Maher’s film Religulous came in a disappointing No. 10 in its opening weekend.

One would expect that a “niche” film like Religulous couldn’t compete head-to-head with a Disney release, and that’s just what happened. Disney’s Beverly Hills Chihuahua cleaned up with a weekend box office gross of $29 million.