“A recent report by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that only 10% of U.S. health care spending goes toward prescription drugs. And as Columbia Professor Frank Lichtenberg has pointed out, for every dollar spent on newer pharmaceuticals, there is a savings of $7.17 in hospital costs. Hospital care and physician services account for more than 50%.”

>So, these expensive drugs are actually savings of  7 to 1 for hospital costs; and we are going to make it harder to produce innovative drugs and provide fewer and health costs are not going to go up ?

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=333241799097315

“In countries with nationalized care, medical outcomes are often catastrophically worse. Take breast cancer. According to the Heritage Foundation, breast cancer mortality in Germany is 52% higher than in the U.S.; the U.K.’s rate is 88% higher. For prostate cancer, mortality is 604% higher in the U.K. and 457% higher in Norway. Colorectal cancer? Forty percent higher in the U.K.”

>Easy here. The US percentages will increase. Practically everyone knows someone affected by cancer and most likely a survivor. You can expect survivors will decrease.

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=332723342557746

“In 1968 total spending by the federal government was $178.1 billion dollars. Forty years later in 2007, total spending had risen to $2,728.9 billion dollars. So the budget of the U.S. increased in dollar terms 15.3 times in that 40-year span.

But all programs did not rise in unison. Some rose more, others less.

Outlays for Social Security rose from $23.3 billion in 1968 to $581.4 billion in 2007, an increase of 25 times. So Social Security drove the budget higher at a substantially faster rate than the budget rose as a whole.

ObamaCare plans to expand the government’s role in insuring the American people. The government is already the largest insurer in the health care business through Medicare. We are now told ObamaCare will save money.

What kind of impact did Medicare, the first large government health insurance plan have in budgetary terms? Medicare rose from $5.1 billion in 1968 to $436.0 billion in 2007 an astounding increase of 85.5 times over the 40-year period. Will Obama-Care be better?

Beware of government estimates about the future cost of ObamaCare. When Medicare was being considered in the mid-1960s, the government projected that the outlays for the program 25 years down the road would be $10 billion. Instead, in 1990, 25 years later, the outlays were $107 billion. Government estimates were off by a factor of more than 10!

Medicaid, the other large medical program currently in effect, outdid Medicare. Medicaid outlays in 1968 were $1.8 billion. In 2007 they had risen to $190.6 billion, an increase in dollar terms of 105.9 times.”

>Ok, let’s apply this to you. Let’s put you at a starting of $30,000 with a 3% raise yearly. At 40 years with that scenario, you should be up to $97,861. Not bad, but that’s not even 4 times from where you started.

If your salary went up at the same rate as Medicaid(105 times), it would be $3,150,000.

If your salary went up at the same rate as Medicare(85 times), it would be $ 2,550,000.

If your salary went up at the same rate as Social Security(25 times), it would be $750,000.

This is the rate these costs are going up over your working lifetime, is your salary keeping up ? Mine isn’t.

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=333756899262999

Yes, officer.

Is that a pocket knife on your belt ?

Well, it’s my hunting knife. It’s deer season you know.

Well Bubba. You’re not going hunting today because you’re going to Jail.

>>This administration just keeps going and going. Now, they have the ability to throw you in the pokey for a pocket knife.

http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_06_14-2009_06_20.shtml#1245107316

“On May 21, U.S. Customs & Border Protection (CBP) proposed the revocation of four previous Ruling Letters; the effect would be a drastic expansion of the definition of non-importable knives. The organization KnifeRights warns that revocations would outlaw approximately 80 percent of the current market in folding knives.

The federal law does not apply to the mere possession or carrying of knives, but as KnifeRights explains, many state and local bans on possession or carrying are parasitic on the federal definition. Accordingly, if the proposed Customs change goes into effect, many millions of people who own or carry pocketknives would instantly be defined as criminals.”

>>Nice. First guns, then ammunition, now knives. I fully admit it’s one helluva longshot they start hauling people away for the wrong type of gun or knife; but they are putting the peices in place to do just that if they seem fit and it has been quite impressive what they have seem fit to do.

>>I’m just saying my grandfather wouldn’t believe that the country he grew up in is considering doing this if he were still here to see it.