Prayer, God and War: The Media Elites v. Palin, Clinton, JFK, FDR, and Lincoln

Charlie Gibson try's to trap Sarah Palin by misquoting her prayer request. Another example of media bias not only against Republicans but also against religion. Clips of other Democratic Presidents illustrate how they also called upon God.

Media Bias?

Charlie Gibson obviously has no respect for Sarah Palin. I've never seen an interview conducted where the person being interviewed was treated with such disdain. The questions were asked in such condescending manor. Up until I saw how John McCain was treated on the "View" recently, I had never seen an interviewee disrespected so badly. Asking questions to reveal Sarah's position on the issues is relevant, however the way this interview was conducted was inappropriate. Charlie Gibson should be ashamed of himself.

Here's a sample of the types of questions Charlie asked Obama in an earlier interview compared to questions asked to Sarah Palin.

Obama interview:

How does it feel to break a glass ceiling?
How does it feel to “win”?
How does your family feel about your “winning” breaking a glass ceiling?
Who will be your VP?
Should you choose Hillary Clinton as VP?
Will you accept public finance?
What issues is your campaign about?
Will you visit Iraq?
Will you debate McCain at a town hall?
What did you think of your competitor’s [Clinton] speech?

Palin interview:

Do you have enough qualifications for the job you’re seeking? Specifically have you visited foreign countries and met foreign leaders?
Aren’t you conceited to be seeking this high level job?
Questions about foreign policy
-territorial integrity of Georgia
-allowing Georgia and Ukraine to be members of NATO
-NATO treaty
-Iranian nuclear threat
-what to do if Israel attacks Iran
-Al Qaeda motivations
-the Bush Doctrine
-attacking terrorists harbored by Pakistan
Is America fighting a holy war? [misquoted Palin]

Do you notice the bias? Or is it just me?

Nationalized Health Care

I'll admit, health care in the U.S. has serious issues. The system seems to be broken and costs are out of control. Nobody can afford to pay for health care and everyone needs health insurance. It's not surprising that a May Quinnipiac University poll found that 61 percent of Americans thought it was "the government's responsibility to make sure that everyone in the United States has adequate health care." In a Gallup poll taken last November, 81 percent of respondents said they were dissatisfied with the cost of health care and 73 percent thought U.S. health care was either in a "state of crisis" or had "major problems." With the costs of health care skyrocketing, businesses are becoming increasingly sympathetic to the idea of government stepping in and taking the problem off their hands.

It's odd that with only 6 percent of Americans purchasing their own health care that there is such a movement to socialize our health care industry. With costs rising much faster than the rate of inflation our democratic leaders should be outraged! They should be advocating and threatening to impose a windfall profits tax on the evil health care providers. How can the high costs of health care be justified? TAX the evil empire of health care providers who are price gouging the poor American public! But no, you don't hear any of that do you? What are we led to believe? We're told that the government must step in and stop this social injustice. There are some poverty stricken people out there who can't afford insurance premiums and others who are too ill to insure! The government must step in and take over this broken industry and guarantee that every American man, woman and child can obtain affordable health care!

Is that what you want? Is that what's best for Americans? Lets look at what got us here in the first place.

It started in 1943, when the Internal Revenue Service ruled that workers did not have to pay taxes on health benefits purchased through their employers. With wage and price controls in place during World War II and labor scarce, many employers took advantage of the favorable tax status to attract workers. In 1954, the ruling became a permanent part of the tax code. As a result, by 2006, employer-sponsored plans accounted for 64 percent of coverage in the U.S., according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation. With government programs covering an additional 30 percent, only 6 percent of Americans actually purchase their own health insurance. Over time, the unintended consequences of that ruling have become obvious.

The biggest consequence our current employer-based private insurance model is that, combined with Medicare and Medicaid, it helped create a system in which most Americans are isolated from the ultimate costs of health care. Like teenagers with their parents' credit cards, most Americans have no incentive to shop around for the best deal or to limit their spending to what is medically necessary. We value shop for all other goods and services. In a normal competitive market, it is precisely this process that encourages businesses to innovate, allowing them to reduce costs and improve quality.

The employer-based system limits choice. Most employers offer just a few options. It makes people afraid to leave their jobs because they are worried about losing heath benefits. And ultimately, the current system is unfair because the favorable tax treatment is not extended to the growing ranks of self-employed Americans, who are forced to purchase insurance in the inflated individual market. Individual state regulations drive up costs by requiring insurers to provide certain benefits. It’s no coincidence that New York, one of the most regulated states, is also among the most expensive markets.

So, do you think that the answer to this mess is more government regulation? Why is it that Democrats, who are so suspicious of our government, are willing to let them take over our health care system? Is it because they want more "free" stuff, paid for by "greedy" corporations?

Do you really want your government to dominate the health care sector in which spending tops $2 trillion annually? That's about one-seventh of the U.S. economy!

John McCain is an advocate of the free market, consumer-driven approach to health care in which the market for medical services resembles the market for other goods and services, where competition has forced prices to decline and quality to improve. You don't think it will work? It works with tv's and computers, why not with health care?

In the current health-care system, there are several reasons why technological progress hasn't had the same results. There is the third-party buyer problem as discussed above, but there is also a lack of transparency. In the rest of the U.S. economy, there is a wealth of information available to shoppers who want to compare prices and quality. Websites such as CNET.com and epinions.com, as well as magazines such as Consumer Reports, give Americans the ability to comparison shop; J.D. Power and Associates and Car and Driver allow those looking for an automobile to find a wide range of data, from performance to fuel efficiency. And yet, in the midst of the information age, Americans are forced to make life and death health-care decisions with little or no information available to help them.

Americans have a hunger for health care-related information. WebMD Health Corp. owns and operates more than a half-dozen Internet-based sites for health information that attract more than 50 million visitors each month. Another site, eHealthInsurance.com, which makes it about as easy for consumers to shop for health plans online as it would be for them to purchase airline tickets, has enjoyed tremendous growth in recent years. The revenue of its parent company, eHealth Inc., has rocketed from $16.5 million in 2002 to $88 million in 2007, and the firm recently projected it would be as high as $117 million this year. While this is just a drop in the bucket compared to overall health-care spending in the U.S., its growth suggests that consumers will respond when given the opportunity to compare prices and quality. Quickly browsing the site shows that in the low-regulation state of Wyoming, a 30-year-old male can choose from 61 plans ranging from a bare-bones policy with a $5,000 deductible that costs $50.82 per month to a plan with zero deductible for $217 a month. In New York City, only 12 plans are available, ranging from a $136.85 per month policy that only covers hospital services to a comprehensive plan costing a staggering $887.85 a month.

Evidence suggests that the free market system will work in a consumer-driven health care system. For instance, the cost of LASIK eye surgery has declined by 30 percent in the past decade, and the inflation-adjusted price of cosmetic surgery has declined over the past 15 years despite a six-fold increase in demand.

Health Care analysts offer several ideas for reforms that would usher in a consumer-based market. Most pressing is the need to change the tax code that makes the country overly dependent on employer-based policies. One option would be to extend the same tax status to individuals purchasing insurance on their own, which would lower the ranks of the uninsured and allow people to maintain their insurance when they leave their jobs.

Another reform would be to allow individuals to purchase insurance across state lines, which would create a national market. Also, require hospitals and doctors to publish prices, so that consumers can make informed choices.

What about pre-existing conditions and chronic illness? One option is to create risk pools, which have already been experimented with in some states. Under this system, all the riskiest patients would be taken out of the normal insurance market and given the option to choose among a number of plans. At the end of each year, an administrator would tally up the cost of the losses for treating those patients, and insurers would divide up the cost among themselves. The result is that the losses get spread out, so no single insurer has to worry about getting stuck with a high concentration of the difficult cases. The point is that there are ways to approach caring for the sick that don't involve destroying the private health-care market.

So why not give the free market approach a chance? Why not limit government involvement instead of increase it? You know, once the government gets a hold of our health care system it will never give it back to free enterprise. Can you trust your government to NOT be involved?