Quote of the day

Belligerence is the currency of the intellectually bankrupt.

- Charles M. Blow, "Health Care Hullabaloo", New York Times, 2009-08-07

If the Constitution doesn't mention health care...?

Denise Dennis wrote an interesting column about the disruption of a health care meeting moderated by Secy. Kathleen Sebelius and Sen. Arlen Specter, "Right Wingers Wreak Havoc on Philadelphia Town Meeting".

A smaller group opposed to the health care bill kept shouting throughout the meeting interrupting others claiming their right to free speech. Dennis asked one if he wasn't taking the right of free speech from others.

The demonstrators waved copies of the Constitution and claimed health care wasn't mentioned. Let's see, mandatory birth and death certificates aren't mentioned in the Constitution either. Nor are stop lights, paved highways, railroads, airports, air traffic control, nuclear weapons, and waterboarding.

Gosh, I guess we haven't had a Constitutional government since the days of that fine Republican President, Abraham Lincoln.

One trillion dollars for health care sounds like a bargain

One trillion dollars over ten years for some health care proposals is claimed as an excessive cost by critics of those proposals. These same critics generally look on government spending as expenses without any return.

Consider that the U.S. spends over two trillion dollars each year and the rate is rising at over six percent per year. See "Health Care in the United States", Wikipedia. If a universal health care system costs one trillion over ten years, that sounds like quite an improvement of over twenty million for the same span of time.