Promoted from the Diaries by Jeff.

Under former Governor Mitt Romney, the state of Massachusetts undertook the largest single step towards single payer health care of any government entity in the United States to date.  It has created a myriad of problems, chief of which is a massive headache for those who are now forced to pay for insurance that they never wanted or can’t afford.  The plan, in a nutshell, requires all Massachusetts residents to purchase a state approved private health insurance plan or pay into a state run plan.  This mandatory purchase law, with concurrent restrictions on what qualifies as “insurance”, has lead to the nation’s largest increases in premium.

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Well, it’s Christmas Eve, have you figured out how to fix America’s health care system yet? If you haven’t, skip the family dinner and make it your top priority. Scrooge Daschle wants to drop socialized medicine down your chimney tonight wrapped in a bright red bow.

Think I’m kidding? President-elect Barack Obama’s nominee for Health and Human Services has given the country two weeks, including Christmas Day, to provide input on how to improve health care in America.

As if Americans didn’t already have enough on their to-do lists this holiday season, they’re also expected to host a “health care community discussion.” The deadline is Dec. 31.

Worried that you won’t have the time? Don’t be. Obama and Daschle, under the guise of “transparency,” have created easy-to-use guides for moderators and participants to engage in these discussions. They’ve even gone to the trouble of directing you to liberal solutions.

My Heritage Foundation colleague Conn Carroll calls this “a cynical ploy to add a participatory varnish to a carefully choreographed plan to remake the nation’s $2 trillion health care as quickly as possible.”

In the participant’s guide, for instance, only Obama’s preferred framework for health care reform is presented. Now, if you’re a participant who has only a passing knowledge of health care, aren’t you more likely to agree with Obama’s framework if you’re offered no opposing viewpoints? This is what passes for openness. It’s a sham.

What’s worse is that Obama and Daschle are using this exercise to prime Americans to have a slanted viewpoint on such things as a national health insurance exchange that would destroy private coverage, expansions of Medicaid and SCHIP, and increased spending on the public health infrastructure.

I don’t mean to dampen the Christmas spirit, but as Obama enjoys his never-ending honeymoon this holiday season, Daschle is already started pushing America down the path of socialized medicine.

Ryan Ellis from Americans for Tax Reform yesterday criticized a memo Stuart Butler and I wrote about the promises President-elect Barack Obama made about health care reform. The point of our memo was to keep Obama honest to key campaign promises he made on health that appealed to Republican and conservative voters.

Obama is already hoping these voters will forget the promises he made to win them over. We want to hold Obama to account, and make sure he crafts health care reform that abides by popular principles of choice, affordability, stability and freedom — not a standardized system imposed from Washington.

Ellis outlines what he considers the “good,” “not-so-good,” and “ugly” ideas in our memo. He’s entitled to his opinion, of course, but it’s unfortunate he chose to distort our views and our record. I stand by Heritage’s work in the area of health care reform. Here’s why:

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The video below, A Short Course in Brain Surgery, highlights what Americans can expect from ObamaCare.  The film tells the story of Lindsay McCreith, an Ontraio man suffering from severe headaches who needed an MRI then brain surgery.  In Canada it would have taken him eight months to get the MRI and subsequent surgery.  He probably wouldn’t have lasted that long.  So he went to Buffalo NY where he was able to have everything done in just a few weeks.

In Canada it is illegal to obtain private health care.  As a result, the Ontario government refused to reimburse  Mr. McCreith the $27 K it cost him to have has is tumor removed.

At least health care is “free” in Canada.

God help us!

-Crippy’s World

National Journal reports that Barack Obama has selected CBO Director Peter Orszag to head up the Office of Management and Budget. Orszag is widely respected on both sides of the aisle for his professionalism and his command of budgetary detail. He’s almost certainly more supportive of expanded government than the typical Red State reader, but at least he’s likely to be a straight shooter. His appointment also suggests that one of Barack Obama’s priorities as president will be controlling health care costs, which Orszag has consistently identified as essential to getting the government’s fiscal house in order.

From Orszag’s blog:

Although it may not seem immediately relevant given our current difficulties, it will be crucial to address the nation’s looming fiscal gap — which is driven primarily by rising health care costs — as the economy eventually recovers from this current downturn. Indeed, our ability to address our current economic difficulties (through both financial market interventions and potential additional fiscal stimulus) would be severely impaired if investors were not so willing to invest substantial sums in Treasury securities without charging much higher interest rates. That willingness reflects the (currently accurate) view among investors that Treasury securities are extremely safe investments.

If we fail to put the nation on a sounder fiscal course over the next few decades, though, we will ultimately reach a point where investors would lose confidence and no longer be as willing to purchase Treasury debt at anything but exorbitant interest rates. If that were to occur, we would lack the kind of maneuvering room that we currently enjoy to address problems in the financial markets and the economy. So if you think the current economic crisis is serious, and it is, imagine what it would be like if we didn’t have the ability to undertake aggressive and innovative policy interventions because creditors were effectively unwilling to lend substantial additional sums to the Federal government…

Orszag’s comment suggests that addressing long-term health care costs may be a lesser priority for him than the current fiscal crisis. But multiple reports suggest that leading Democratic Senators will make health care one of the first issues taken up in the Obama presidency. And the Washington Post reported several days ago that the CBO, under Orszag’s direction, is preparing a report on cost-saving health care measures. And that report is attracting the interest of one of the last liberal lions:

Aides have refused to indicate what direction Kennedy will pursue but have made it clear he does not intend to cede his longtime leadership role on health policy. They expect to get valuable assistance next month when Peter Orszag, head of the independent Congressional Budget Office, releases a two-volume report on the need for health reform and a set of policy actions that could achieve measurable savings.

Orszag’s pet issue is controlling health care costs; his work is being cited by Kennedy aides as they prepare to introduce Kennedy’s health care reform blueprint. Kennedy is the Senate’s most influential Democrat on health care. Does all this mean that Obama will support Kennedy’s approach?

While watching the Sunday talk shows today, it suddenly became very clear to me why the Democrats need to win this election.

First, we are finally winning in Iraq. That is unacceptable. We need to immediately pull the troops out so that we can send them into Darfur, Afghanistan and Pakistan, to rebuild those countries and create Democracies there. We simply chose the wrong war. Iraq should have remained under the control of Saddam Hussein who was a peaceful man and posed no threat to his neighbors or to the world in terms of weapons of mass destruction.

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The health care rankings that I am familiar with that like to list the United States far down on the list often use measurements such as infant mortality. I have seen some writings talking about how this measure can be misleading. I am wondering, though, if an infant born following a failed abortion (the kind Obama thinks should die), would count in our infant mortality statistics.

And if so, would it not be that liberal policies such as this inflate our infant mortality numbers and that liberals, in turn, use these numbers as justification for universal health care.

Seems like it would make for a nice circle.