The first part of my reply post was not posted. Here it is:

It appears to me you are right, but it is hard to tell if one is having conspiracy theory paranoia, or if it is indeed a brazen attempt to subvert our country. Don't forget "taking over energy" on the check off list for aspiring dictators, through Cap and Trade.

The Big Picture is that there is little else to explain all the frantic activity by this White House administration to tackle statist takeover of so many areas of our lives. In my area, healthcare, it makes no sense to offer 3 different reasons to nationalize healthcare unless you just want control. Mr. Obama first said health care reform was needed to right our economy, then he said it was to insure...

Even worse are the reports of large people pens on Army property all over the country. What are these for? Martial law is one thing, herding up people who are considered troublemakers is another thing.

Unfortunately, socialists have a long history of doing things that tear up countries and causing millions of people to die, all in the name of "revolution" and utopia. Once in control, they are hard to stop. Usually, these governments collapse from their own venality and greed, but it can take years to get them defeated.

Surely there is some hard evidence of the architecture of this plan. There have had to be meetings and records somewhere, because all this didn't happen by itself. Will someone involved with these...

All this discussion about how many millions Mao did or didn't murder is off topic. Is Mr. Obama a Marxist/Communist or not? Is he bent on "revolution" for America or not? Is he intent on taking America's consitutional government apart and replacing it with an authoritarian statist government or not? Is he purposely pushing our economy over the cliff or not? These are the questions most of America are asking, or at least the ones I know who are paying attention.

The link I gave was for the abstract. Here is a link for the whole article: http://econopundit.com/ezekiel_emmauel.pdf

Remember that Zeke Emanuel is the President's chief health policies adviser, and according to all who meet him, a gracious and sincere man. However, his philosophy is flawed, giving no moral weight to the life well lived, accumulating wealth and connections (networking), being self reliant, or going against his own religious beliefs, atheism and secular humanism. He does not believe in the 5th commandment, "Honor thy Father and Mother" or other Judeo-Christian values. His elaborate complete lives system could become the law of the land, because much of Obamacare is fill in the blanks after the law was...

The sad thing is that doctors are pawns in this socialist revolution power grab. Maybe slaves, but it remains to be seen if Obama will draft us for his "Ready Reserve Corps" as pointed out by Anne in posts #116, 117. By rewarding doctors for spending less and referring to specialists less, Obamacare goes for the jugular of the doctor-patient trusting relationship. Patients will think their doctor has even less of their best interest at heart than they do now. The Trial lawyers are crowing that no limits have been put on medical malpractice suits, and there will be lots more business for them as Americans suddenly find they have a cancer or disease not diagnosed or treated optimally by the few remaining doctors trying to cover the...

The Obamacare law is the worst thing to happen to American medicine since I've been alive, and arguably the worst thing done medically by the government since smallpox infected blankets were given to the Indians. I'm amazed by the gullibility of the Obamacare proponents, who really think it's about helping the uninsured in America. If that was the only plan, why not extend Medicare to those who want it on a sliding scale, then clean up Medicare's financial mess by connecting the real cost of everything spent on a patient to the patient's pocketbook, on a sliding scale again, but let patients decide what they want and don't want for elective medicine? Emergency medicine would continue to be all that's needed for all comers. Clean up...

One of my biggest fears is that heavy handed government rationing boards will take away care from truly helpless elderly people, handicapped children and other defenseless members of society as the Obama advisers advocate, with their QALY schemes. Single payer always leads to expensive bureaucracies, rationing, shortages, cost over-runs and poor care. I hope we can end up with a balanced system that rewards good behaviour, keeps costs down by connecting the cost of everything spent for a patient to the patient's pocketbook, even if heavily subsidized, and relies on increased free market choice. And yes, tort reform is an obvious need.

BTW, thanks William (post #23) for your words of encouragement.

There are interesting truths throughout these posts and the article itself, but I have become less and less convinced that some single idea will really serve us best, such as "single payer" or "all free market." We are at the confluence of 50 years of a medical care bubble, where the real cost of care has been insulated from the consumers of care, and as a result we have developed tremendous, expensive medical advancements which probably would not have been developed if consumers were more connected to their cost. Now that we have them, however, it is difficult to go backwards to old cheaper treatments, when the new expensive treatments work so much better. Life expectancy has jumped, so people are older and needing more care, baby...

As a practicing Internist, I don't agree with Ms. Bandes' numbers. Medicare may approve about 80% of what the biggest insurers pay, but remember that Medicare then only pays 80% of that and leaves a 20% copay to the patient or his Medicare coinsurance. That brings it down to 64%. The bottom line is that Medicare pays about 5 or 10% above my overhead costs, even counting the copay, which means I work for about $5 to $10 per hour for Medicare patients. My income comes from charging insured patients an ever increasing fee to make up for the Medicare underpayment. This is why I have to carefuly watch the percentage of Medicare patients in my patient list, and limit it to what I can afford. A drop in Medicare fees or a drop in private...

William, I am no lawyer, but I think the local DA's are going to look at these tapes, pull in the employees who were shown discussing how to get the proposed brothel off the ground, and threaten them with prosecution, then offer immunity to them to testify against the ACORN leadership. However, this would be a long shot to me, even though there are broad laws against aiding or promotion of child abuse, since there were no specific children involved. A good defense attorney would point that out and call the DA's bluff. However, my point is that Giles/O'Keefe have opened the door for further investigations, because any reasonable person can see there is a criminal culture present. A grand jury can now be formed, call in witnesses, and...