Mount Virtus

Republican Presidential candidate John McCain was in town on Friday to lead a townhall discussion on his health care policy. Last week local health care guru Brian Schwartz previewed McCain’s arrival with a lukewarm analysis of the candidate’s plan to reform health care, summed up here:

So this tax-credit idea, while sort of on target, is even more social engineering via tax policy, instead of undoing existing tax policy that has created the problem in the first place.

Joshua Sharf, who saw the candidate in person, was left with a more favorable view of the tax credit proposal, but thought the good idea in McCain’s policy was watered down with many bits of “nanny-state hectoring.”

Joshua also noted McCain’s well-developed skills of personal retail politicking:

One moment stood out for me. I don’t think it was a planted question, but when one woman who runs a laser- and massage-therapy clinic with her husband asked a question, McCain interrupted to prompt her to define and discuss laser therapy and its benefits. It was obvious he knew the answer, but just as obvious that he wanted her to say it. He didn’t need to prove how smart he was by lecturing; he could do it just as well by letting her talk with pride about her work.

My guess is McCain wins more votes with his approach on the stump than with his health care plan.

Every once in awhile I step back and realize that I should bring my readers’ attention to people with important ideas who they may not have heard.

In that spirit, one of Colorado’s brightest and most articulate writers challenging the effort to socialize medicine is Brian Schwartz, who introduced a free market proposal to the state’s blue ribbon commission on health care reform (since the proposal advocated for more freedom, it was unsurprisingly rejected). Besides blogging regularly at wakalix, Brian also is quite prolific in penning published columns. His latest, assailing the arguments behind “universal health care,” appears in the Pueblo Chieftain (H/T We Stand Firm).

If you are interested in health care reform, make sure you are reading what Brian Schwartz has to say.

Have I been too easy on Hillary? Not much has seemed worthy of any sort of fresh attention here, but there is something about the combination of Clintons, Leftist ideas, and irony that’s hard to ignore.

According to a detailed report at Politico, paying campaign staffers’ health insurance premiums is not really a priority for Senator Hillary Clinton: nearly $292,000 in unpaid bills, while her opponent Republican Senator John McCain is all paid up. She must think her prescription for government-provided single payer health care has already kicked in. Thankfully it has not, and hopefully it will not.

Meanwhile, Scott Ott at Scrappleface takes the irony to another humorous level:

Ending weeks of speculation, Sen. Hillary Clinton today pulled out of the race for the Democrat presidential nomination, and announced she would endorse Prozac, a prescription drug used to combat depression and obsessive compulsive disorder among other conditions.

The New York senator, who launched her White House bid claiming that she didn’t want to start a campaign “but a conversation” that she was “in to win”, this morning said abruptly: “This conversation is over. I win.”

The former presumptive front runner then promptly inked a $7.9 million deal with Eli Lilly to become the national poster-woman for its flagship antidepressant drug.

A spokesman for the pharmaceutical company said, “If Prozac can keep Hillary Clinton on an even keel after the shattering of her life’s ambition and manifest destiny, think what it can do for those of us who are just feeling a little blue.”

Yes, the Prozac deal would more than cover the back payments for Hillary’s campaign workers’ health insurance, but it also would sure make her look small after railing at the Big Drug Companies day after day on the campaign trail.

Looking small? You’re right. I guess that’s never been much of a concern for the Clintons.

And who knows? Maybe Scrappleface is on to something. Another long look at the poll numbers from North Carolina might be speeding up those negotiations with the Prozac people as I write.

The Rocky Mountain News reports:


Each day in Colorado one person dies unnecessarily because he or she doesn’t have health insurance, a group advocating universal coverage said Tuesday.

The nonprofit Families USA used a 30-year study of deaths and insurance status to reach the conclusion that 360 Coloradans die prematurely every year because they didn’t have health insurance.

The assumption, based on death statistics, is that a person without coverage has a 25 percent greater chance of dying prematurely.

The touted report needs to be dissected carefully and critically, but you can expect Colorado’s typical Lefty suspects to tout the statistic both as the gospel and as airtight proof for universal health insurance - despite their suspect track record. More work needs to be done examining these claims and comparing them to the effects of various proposed reforms, and preferably not done alone by a group committed to advocacy for more government in health care.