Yesterday morning, while being interviewed on “Good Morning America,” President Obama was asked about how involved he was with the on-going problems related to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. He indicated he was very involved, and that he was speaking everyday to many people in order to know  “whose ass to kick.” This was a crude statement, even more crude than the “boot on the neck of BP” attributed to Interior Secretary Salazar.
I guess this is the kind of language used in the political back rooms of Chicago. Should it be used in Washington? On national television? Is that the language our children should be encouraged to use?

There are aspects of Obamacare that have been identified as unconstitutional, according to an
editorial by Greg Scandlan: “Read the Fine Print,” in Investor’s Business Daily, May 19, 2010.

1.The individual mandate requires the uninsured to buy a plan. This is the most likely place for legal objections to begin.
2. Another provision likely to be disputed as regards its constitutionality is the expansion of Medicaid that forces states to increase spending on that program.

But even if one or both were stricken, the bulk of Obamacare would remain. However, as Scandlan indicates, due to a little-known legal concept the entire law could unravel if a single part lay outside the Constitution. He notes: “Apparently there was no ‘severability’ clause written into this law, which shows how amateurish the process was. Virtually every bill I’ve ever read includes a provision that if any part of the law is ruled unconstitutional the rest of the law will remain intact. Not this one.  That will likely mean that the entire law will be thrown out if a part of it is found to violate the Constitution.”

Some Constitutional scholars don’t have much confidence that the courts will overturn the law.  But, Ronald Trowbridge, a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, says there is still hope. “Consensus holds that it will take two years for the constitutional challenge to progress through the federal district court, then the appellate court, and finally the Supreme Court,” he wrote on Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com blog.  “In the meantime, it is possible that an injunction from the district or appellate courts could put the entire bill on hold until the injunction is lifted or the case finally resolved.”  One can only hope.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=534458

What Have We Learned In 2,064 Years?

“The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled,
Public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be
Tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should
Be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to
Work instead of living on public assistance.”

—Cicero, 55 BC

Evidently nothing.

The second largest snowstorm in recorded Philadelphia history, about 28 inches, passed through the area on February 5th and 6th.  Today, February 7th, the sun is shining down on a ” Winter Wonderland of snow.” Another blast is said to be coming on the evening of February 9th and is scheduled to plaster the region again with a foot of snow.

Oh, global warming where art thou?

The Healthcare Bills continue to lurch and stumble through The Senate and House like a stroll through the countyside by Dr. Frankenstein’s monster. The bills are incoherent and, indeed, monstrous. There was a great article about a key forgotten element, malpractice reform, written by a distinguished academic physician, in the Weekly Standard, October 27th issue. Here is an excerpt and I’m providing a link to the full article, THE MALPRACTICE PROBLEM:

There is much that can be done to make our health care system more efficient. Tort reform is a great place to start, says Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, the associate dean of clinical education at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

In Texas, there’s a law capping payments for pain and suffering to $250,000, which provides some benefit. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, malpractice suits have been dramatically reduced:

–––The year before the caps on pain and suffering payments took effect, there were over 1,100 medical liability suits filed in Dallas, but only 142 cases were filed in 2004.
___Also, there was a surge of physicians coming into Texas to set up practice as malpractice premiums fell by about 50 percent.
___Texas is a state with low health care spending; according to the National Center for Policy Analysis, but is fifth highest in Medicare spending per capita and 43rd in per capita spending for the state’s entire population.

Whether the malpractice caps in Texas account in any way for these data is uncertain, the pattern is encouraging, says Goldfarb.

The problem for physicians is not only about the money expended in malpractice insurance premiums or about excess payouts to plaintiffs. It is also about the time and effort that defending against lawsuits requires. It is also about the potential for a trial and the stress associated with the experience. Avoiding these legal troubles is as much an influence on doctors as the desire to avoid a potential increase in insurance premiums following a malpractice suit, says Goldfarb.

Source: Stanley Goldfarb, Associate Dean of Clinical Education at the University of Pennsylvania. ” The Malpractice Problem,” Weekly Standard, October 27, 2009.