"A lie told often enough becomes truth" Vladimir Lenin.

 I first noticed this back in the 60’s when I was in high school. This was during the Vietnam War when a number of my classmates were carrying around copies of Mao’s little red book. They were the true believers of the liberal message coming from the communes and the leftist professors at the local college. Very little of what was put forth by these self appointed gurus had any bearing in either truth or reality, but boy, did they like to pass it along. Businessmen, especially prosperous ones were pigs. Anyone in authority was the man and you couldn’t trust anyone over 30. They forgot that at that time most of the people over 30 had saved their ungrateful butts in World War 2.

Today the big lie is that raising taxes will increase prosperity. Along with that lie is another one that says if we cap the amount a business can earn we will also increase prosperity. Obama has convinced the true believers, many of them running the news corporations, that his policies have increased the number of jobs. Isn’t it interesting that the unemployment rate has continued to rise? Where are all these jobs?

Remember the Weathermen and Bill Ayers? Apparently the media doesn’t. Obama refuses to repudiate a single stand taken by Mr. Ayers and his terrorist organization while at the same time he calls citizens of the US who oppose his takeover of the health industry “Right Wing Domestic Terrorists”. Well, I guess you can add me into that group. Some of the stands the Weathermen took included a long-range plan to control the populace which included access to healthcare, control of business practices and elimination of portions of the population considered inconvenient to the new administration. Isn’t it interesting that the new Obamacare bill includes an “end of life” provision?

As I pointed out in my last column, the Obama Administration is actively taking over every possible aspect of American life. We have placed a true follower of Lenin onto the American throne and removed any real opposition to his policies. All you have to do is read the new arrogant tones in online rags such as the Huffington post. They know they are in complete control and are not bothered at all by any poll numbers.

A while ago I wrote that raising the Nevada Room Tax was not a bad idea. Well, even I can be wrong. Further study has shown that raising any tax outside of those necessary to maintain constitutionally mandated services becomes oppressive and eventually leads to a worsening of the problem, not a solution. Human nature is too large of a factor. The best solution is to increase revenue by increasing prosperity. Wal Mart proved this a long time ago by selling more goods at cheaper prices and getting rich on the volume. Is it any wonder the liars on the left hate that company?

The problem the Republicans have is getting past merely protesting Obama’s policies. We have to be able to say more than just no. It isn’t enough to just be opposed to something, you also have to stand for something. I am not talking about compromise here. Ronald Reagan learned that lesson. It’s a pity his Vice President wasn’t as intelligent. No, I am talking about fighting bad ideas with good ones. We have to be able to answer questions about our opposition with logical, common sense solutions to today’s problems, and they do exist. I have expressed many over the past several months. Does any one else have an idea or two?

The Ayatollahs of Iran consider any individual critical of the way they appointed Adiminawhackjob to a second term an enemy of the state. In Turkey, anyone critical of the ways things are done is jailed for offending “Turkishness”. Here in the US, we now have an administration that is acting more and more like its Middle Eastern friends than what our founding fathers envisioned.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has gone as far as comparing critics of the healthcare plan to Nazis. Other members of the Democrat leadership have called those who don’t trust the plan “shrill”, and “fringe group fanatics”. News organizations, supposedly nonpartisan, have affixed the labels of “small mobs” and “rabid right-wingers” to those with the temerity to ask their representatives if they even bothered to read the bill.

Are these people merely members of shrill fringe groups and other bits of minority flotsam the administration should ignore for the good of the country? George Pucine of Las Vegas was able to get this bit of statistical evidence to the contrary past the usually left-leaning guardians at the Las Vegas Review Journal:

-- Quinnipiac poll: Three out of four Americans don't believe government-run health care will be deficit-neutral and 59 percent of Americans are against health care reform if the measure is supported by only the Democrats.

-- Gallup poll: Sixty-three percent say the president's plan will worsen their personal medical care.

-- National Public Radio poll: Forty-seven percent oppose Obama's plan and 42 percent support it.

-- New York Times/CBS poll: Seven-seven percent of Americans fear costs will increase under government-run health care.

-- Time poll: Fifty-six percent fear losing freedom to choose their own doctor/plan under government-run health care.

Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll: Forty-two percent say Barack Obama's plan is a "bad idea" vs. 36 percent saying it's a "good idea."

I don’t know about you, but the above numbers say majority, not minority. The problem is Pelosi and her Democrat fellows do not believe in representing the majority. They have an agenda and it is being followed to the letter and any who swerve from the orthodoxy will be punished. Remember Joe Lieberman and his one tiny slip?

Can any one remember who was President before Jimmy Carter? Not many do. Most think it was Nixon, but the answer is Gerald Ford, a man most remembered for being a bit clumsy. This is because Ford did almost nothing where the economy was concerned. It was ok, not good, just ok. The problem with that is that a mayonnaise economy allowed the election of a Jimmy Carter. You would think that the American people would learn from history. Unfortunately, we never do. Carter’s policies, eerily similar to Obama’s, produced the worst economy since the great depression. Taxes were raised to the point that an affordable mortgage was nearly impossible to obtain. Small businesses went out of business faster than they opened. Interest rates skyrocketed to over 20% and the price of gold hovered around $1000 per ounce. Sound familiar?

Brian Greenspun, the publisher of the Las Vegas Sun recently lamented in an editorial that it was terrible that Nevada did not adopt the tax policies of more
progressive” states like Massachusetts, Connecticut, California and others. Let’s see…checking on the economies of those “progressive” states, they appear to be progressing right into the toilet. California, our neighbor to the west has progressed into bankruptcy and a recent ad campaign luring small business from California to tax-backwards Nevada appears to be working better than anyone thought it would.

Socialism never generates public wealth. It never has and it never will. After Jimmy Carter came a true progressive, not the lie that Democrats push, Ronald Regan. Reagan systematically dismantled Carter’s metastasized bureaucracy and began using policies that were time-tested. Ignoring the shrill screams from the left that he would be throwing the elderly and the sick onto the street, he cut taxes and encouraged business to expand. The elderly got a better deal and the sick got cheaper healthcare. Ignoring the rabid left-wingers, he went after the Soviet Union and won, despite the claims that such aggressiveness would trigger World War 3. Reagan’s policies generated an economy that set a record that still holds. It was the most robust economy we have experienced in the last seven administrations. This is based on US statistical data, so why is the Obama Administration hell bent on duplicating Carter’s mistakes? The answer is not economics, it is power.

Just as our major news outlets have risen to the defense of Obama’s policies and have attacked the concerns of the American people, so has the administration grown in its arrogance. Why would Obama feel so comfortable issuing the threat that his administration would “hit back twice as hard” at anyone broadcasting a criticism of his health plan? Does he really believe that the news is his to control? Perhaps it is.

A little known story surfaced a while ago and was quickly pulled. ABC turned the control of its reporting of White House news over to the Obama Administration. The last time something like this happened it was in Iran. Remember, if you can control the news that is one domino tipped over, if you can control the peoples’ access to healthcare…that is another. Several states already consider the second amendment more of an inconvenience than a mandate. The appointment of Sottomeyer to the Supreme Court adds another nail in that coffin. The last domino to fall will be the food supply, and based on several reports, Obama is already working on that one.

      1.  No cause of action may be brought or maintained against an insurer or a third-party administrator who violates any provision of this chapter or chapter 616A, 616B, 616C or 617 of NRS.

      2.  The administrative fines provided for in NRS 616B.318 and 616D.120 are the exclusive remedies for any violation of this chapter or chapter 616A, 616B, 616C or 617 of NRS committed by an insurer or a third-party administrator.

The above provision in the Nevada Revised Statutes is a nasty bit of legislation designed to allow an insurance carrier to lie, cheat, steal, and even commit third-party murder and get away with it. Section 1 says that the policy holder cannot sue the insurance company or any of its agents even if they act in bad faith. Section 2 says that the fines the administration, read insurance commissioner, a politician reliant on the industry for his office, is all that can be done.

So, if a health insurance company or a workers compensation carrier decides that cheating a policyholder is more profitable than paying for desperately needed care, there is nothing the injured party can do. The Nevada Legislature, slave to dishonest business interests, said so.

As a Nevada Assemblyman, I was given a tour of the executive offices of Health Plan of Nevada, the state’s largest HMO. The office of HPN’s CEO was a single room larger than my house and outfitted in a splendor that would have embarrassed royalty. That is where the majority of your insurance premiums go. Why do you think the legal profession has made itself rich by building a business squeezing out a slightly larger award than what the insurance company wants to hand out?

An insurance policy is a contract and in any other circumstance a contract binds both parties equally. Somehow, in this case, the odds have shifted over toward one side. Now insurance is not a promise of coverage but more of a ponzi scheme. The policy holder saves a tiny percentage over what they may have paid for their loss while the CEO of the company issuing that coverage buys a new corporate jet.

One of the most prestigious hospitals in the world is the Mayo Clinic. That clinic is non-profit because those who started it felt that it would be immoral to profit off of peoples’ suffering. I tend to agree. In fact, the medical profession should no more be a path to wealth than being a pastor in a church. Health Insurance and Workers Compensation Insurance should also be non-profit industries. I ran a quick check of the numbers. If health insurance and hospitalization went non-profit and its staff was paid a decent wage, the cost of healthcare would drop by over 50%.

Some claim that if such a program were implemented, we would descend into the same morass that Canada’s socialized system endures. Not true, people would still have to pay, but they would be paying less for more. Not more for less, which is what we have now. All we would be doing is removing the sharks from the pool, and that is not a bad thing.

Responsibility. To the liberal mindset, if you add the word “self” before responsibility, you are speaking blasphemy. A populace of independent, self-reliant citizens is a vision of unspeakable horror to the liberal. One reason is that the independent need no one to tell them what to do. The independent make their own decisions. They deal with problems as they come along and they succeed or fail on their own. They are the ones who make the fundamental choices about their own lives. The liberal elite want to remove that ability, even to the point of telling you how to travel or at what temperature your home will be kept.

Pelosi, Reid, Dodd…to the liberal elite, the pinnacle of established wisdom...to the true conservative, a new axis of evil; a tri-liberal committee. Because of the policies and laws these three stooges have put in place, the ability to be self reliant has become an endangered dream. One of the favorite tools of the liberal is healthcare, specifically the arena of pain management.

Pain is a reality of the human condition. Bruises come with the territory. Pain is nature’s way of telling us to “not do that again”. Unfortunately, sometimes things go wrong and pain becomes a constant unwelcome presence in our lives. The pain management specialty is made up of doctors who have studied and in some cases perfected ways to allow the pain sufferer to live a functional life while dealing with that pain. Liberals somehow think that is wrong. They point out the tiny percentage of patients who act irresponsibly as an indication of the whole. Rush Limbaugh’s problem with pain medication is one of their prime examples. They ignore the fact that Mr. Limbaugh has dealt with that problem and seems to be doing quite well right now. To the liberal, a middleclass working American dealing with chronic pain while supporting themselves and their family is as much a danger to society as a meth addict in the gutters of skid row.

The Las Vegas Sun, the liberal newspaper in my area, had an article this morning about a doctor who prescribed pain medication in an irresponsible manner. Well, doctors happen to be human, and humanity does act irresponsibly, sometimes more often than not. That does not mean that in order to solve that problem, you eliminate the ability of those doctors who do prescribe responsibly to help their patients. If you are liberal, that is exactly how you deal with the problem. You punish the patients. You create laws that make it illegal to even think about doing what caused the actual harm. Punish the wrongdoer only? What do you think we are, conservatives?

The best way to solve the healthcare problem and to lower costs is not by adding innumerable layers of regulation, but by making a few responsible changes to how things are done.

One: remove the profit motive. It is fundamentally un-American for a few people to become wealthy off of the misery of others. A hospital or a health insurance company can offer their employees a very good living while supplying their patients with high quality products and services. The Mayo Clinic is a prime example of this. In healthcare the profit motive is what prompts the greedy to order their employees to eject patients from their hospital rooms the second the coverage lapses, or to force nurses to use needles on more than one patient. The profit motive is what causes insurance carriers to refuse contracted benefits on the flimsiest of excuses while granting their board members multimillion dollar bonuses. If you think these examples are absurd, every one of them happened right here in Nevada over the past few years and every one of them was defended by the liberal elite in my legislature. One of the chief supporters of the companies that committed these atrocities was Nevada Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, the recipient of the Consumer Advocate award. Now that is irony. To the media, it is not what you do that counts, it is what you say.

Two: allow doctors and patients to develop a true working relationship where prescribed medications and procedures are concerned. A doctor has enough to do without spending additional hours filing multiple copies of reports to faceless bureaucrats. Don’t remove avenues of help simply because some people may abuse the medicine. People can be idiots, but don’t punish the responsible for the actions of the irresponsible. And don’t make medications that work unavailable for the same reason.

Three: pull the weeds. Sometimes people turn out to be bad, and that includes physicians. The liberal elite think that the best way to deal with that problem is to tighten the regulations so that it is harder to do the bad things. This is the way they deal with everything. The ridiculous gun laws are an example. Making it harder for a doctor to do the job only makes it hard on the patients. If a physician violates the oath that begins with “do no harm”, and it turns out that this was done intentionally, yank the license. There will be plenty of candidates to fill those shoes. We will not have a shortage of doctors if the profession is regulated in a responsible manner. We will though if we allow the liberal mindset to run our lives.