Lucid Links (081709, Morning)

From the Canadian Press — “Overhauling health-care system tops agenda at annual meeting of Canada’s doctors.”

Money quote, from the incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association: “We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize.” Will any U.S. establishment media outlet take note? Probably not: Even though the story is a day old, An AP.org search on “Canada” as of early this morning had nothing relevant.

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Via The Voice In My Head blog (HT to an e-mailer; underlying Rasmussen item is here) — “At the end of eight years, Bush’s Strongly Disapprove number was just 2% worse than Obama’s is right now, at the beginning of just his eighth month in office.”

Specifically, 41% strongly disapprove of Obama now, while 43% disapproved of Bush shortly before he left office.

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Tom Maguire — “Obama’s Talking About His Grandmother Again; People Who Listened Last Time Are Now ‘Dishonest.’”

Conclusion: “It’s Times-world – Obama can say whatever he wants and later say whatever else he wants, then denounce the people still grappling with the previous version.”

Read the whole thing.

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Arlo Guthrie, Republican (HT PJM’s Roger Simon).

He’s not a doctrinaire Republican, if there is such a thing, but he’s a Republican nonetheless. Interesting, and an indirect indication of who has the bigger intellectual tent.

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So the end-of-life horrors are supposedly being excised out of ObamaCare by a Senate Committee. That is good news on the one hand (and as Taranto at Best of the Web noted on Friday, a slam-dunk indicator of Palin Power).

But don’t forget that the stimulus bill authorized spending on the insidious “comparative effectiveness” studies that would form the basis for age-based and “productivity”-based decisions on whether and when to provide or withhold medical care. George Will caught this way back in January, saying that it “would dramatically advance government control — and rationing — of health care.” That authorization must be repealed.

Oh, and though there seems to be some she-said, he-said going on, the “public option” is supposedly off the table too. For what it’s worth, Howard Dean is not pleased (awwww).

This development is minimally nice, but doesn’t change the fact the the government-run, coverage-mandating exchanges are still there. Look at what such an exchange has done to Massachusetts:

“Will Commonwealth care cost taxpayers more? No!” So wrote Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in November 2004, the economy then still in full bloom. “Neither the state nor the taxpayers can afford to pay more.”

It’s worth pondering ex-Gov. Romney’s promises just over three years after he crossed partisan lines to reform health care in the Bay State. The Obama administration and congressional Democrats are modeling reform on the Massachusetts model, promoting bureaucratic health exchanges, increased restrictions on health insurance and vastly expanded taxpayer-subsidized care. Like Romney, they promise more coverage at lower cost, even as the evidence suggests otherwise.

….. Romney marketed the plan as a private solution. Yet it’s a massive expansion of taxpayer-subsidized care. Medicaid has increased by 76,000 enrollees and the subsidized plans by 177,000. Forty-six percent pay no premium, and another 12% are highly subsidized. Only 19,000 have signed up for the much-touted non-subsidized private plans offered through the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector.

And it comes at a steep cost. Residents are expected to spend as much as 10% of their income on premiums or face fines.

The big lie in Massachusetts was that costs and taxes would not increase. “Health insurance for all our citizens does not require new taxes,” declared Romney on the eve of the bill’s passage in 2006.

The government’s expansion has cost taxpayers far more than projected. Premium inflation in the state has not been muted by the increase in the number of insured residents, and politicians are scrambling to fund the program. Smokers got hit for $1 a pack in July 2008.

….. In the end, the only way to control costs inside a bureaucratic structure is to cut doctors’ pay, transfer patients into managed care, impose government global budgets and introduce price controls.

And that’s exactly what Bay State leaders have announced they’ll do.

There is also talk in Washington of having “co-ops” instead of the “public option.” Heritage (which pathetically helped to give intellectual cover to the Romney disaster, but appears to have gotten its senses back) caught on to the ruse in that idea several weeks ago (HT Michelle Bachmann), characterizing it, if government-sponsored, as another Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac disaster waiting to happen.

The bottom line is that just about everything in the 1,018-page monstrosity that is the working model of ObamaCare restricts freedom and choice, and that none of it should get into law. Instead, we need more freedom, not less. We can start with fully privatizing the administration and routine oversight of Medicare and Medicaid, expanding Health/Medical Savings Accounts, and speeding up the approval of life-saving drugs.