According to this CNS report, a provision of the stimulus bill passed last year requires that the Body Mass Index be calculated and reported in the electronic medical records mandated by 2014.  The BMI is a bogus, highly misleading metric using the ratio of height to weight.  It doesn’t take into account muscle mass, for instance, so that an NFL linebacker with the body fat of a granite slab will fall into the obese category.

As a way for an individual to get a rough sense of an appropriate weight range, it’s fine, but it has become the standard measure in public health.  The BMI serves as a convenient way to radically inflate the percentages of overweight and obese adults and children.  This is the source of the CDC’s claim, repeated in the media, that 73% of adults and 43% of children in the United States are overweight or obese.

My problem with the BMI is simple.  Just take a look at the handy chart from AARP below.   A person is considered obese with a a BMI of 30 or above.  A guy who is 6 feet, 220 lbs, has a BMI of 30–that fits a bunch of guys I know, and none of them is even close to obese.  Could some stand to drop ten pounds?  Sure, but others are just fine where they are.  To get to a ‘healthy weight’ (BMI 18.5-24.9) they would have to drop to 180.  The only way that’s happening in Alabama is if we have a return of hookworm.  These guys haven’t weighed 180 since tenth grade.  It’s like failing to make a distinction between Chris Christie and Glenn Beck, or between the past and present Mike Huckabee.

I can only imagine what use will be made of the BMI by federal bureaucrats when they have access to a national database of electronic medical records.  Certainly we will see round after round of nanny state-ism on a grand scale.  The BMI is the perfect tool for bureaucrats because it grossly overstates the problem and justifies ever more invasive ‘solutions.’

HT Drudge

The British game site GameStation went a bit over the top in the terms of use they asked customers to accept prior to purchase.  Buried in the fine print was a clause granting the company an option on the buyer’s immortal soul.

“By placing an order via this Web site on the first day of the fourth month of the year 2010 Anno Domini, you agree to grant Us a non transferable option to claim, for now and for ever more, your immortal soul. Should We wish to exercise this option, you agree to surrender your immortal soul, and any claim you may have on it, within 5 (five) working days of receiving written notification from gamesation.co.uk or one of its duly authorised minions.”

GameStation’s form also points out that “we reserve the right to serve such notice in 6 (six) foot high letters of fire, however we can accept no liability for any loss or damage caused by such an act. If you a) do not believe you have an immortal soul, b) have already given it to another party, or c) do not wish to grant Us such a license, please click the link below to nullify this sub-clause and proceed with your transaction.”

I’m pretty sure there was a similar clause somewhere in the 2000 page health care bill.

HT Corner

After folding like a lawnchair on his ostentatious stand against abortion funding during the passage of healthcare reform which elicited challenges form both the left and right, Stupak decides to pick up his toys and go home.

SA minstrel, a song please!

Brave Sir [Stupak] ran away.
Bravely ran away, away!
When danger reared its ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
Yes, brave Sir [Stupak] turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
Bravely taking to his feet
He beat a very brave retreat,
Bravest of the brave, Sir [Stupak]!

Evidently, Obamacare is causing mass confusion out there with folks somehow expecting free care available now.  The McClatchy writer has one guess at the source of the misconceptions:

Questions reflecting confusion have flooded insurance companies, doctors’ offices, human resources departments and business groups.

“They’re saying, ‘Where do we get the free Obama care, and how do I sign up for that?’ ” said Carrie McLean, a licensed agent for eHealthInsurance.com. The California-based company sells coverage from 185 health insurance carriers in 50 states.

McLean said the call center had been inundated by uninsured consumers who were hoping that the overhaul would translate into instant, affordable coverage. That widespread misconception may have originated in part from distorted rhetoric about the legislation bubbling up from the hyper-partisan debate about it in Washington and some media outlets, such as when opponents denounced it as socialism [emphasis mine].

So it was all that talk about socialism?  Or perhaps these expectations were created by the campaign of world-transforming ‘change,’ or the trotting out of terminally ill patients during the health care debate as reasons why we couldn’t afford to wait.

Then again, maybe it’s just common sense.  Why would we be paying for something now if we don’t get any benefit from it until 2014?  Why on earth would we be talking about spending 2.5 trillion over the first ten years if we’re not talking about free health care?

I’m interested in what the legal eagles here have to say about this recent post at the American Thinker:

A young mother finds that the IRS has withheld several hundred dollars from her paycheck as a “penalty” for not having health insurance. (Despite whatever incentives are in the law, this woman did not want to fill out the forms or apply for aid, or she had other more pressing financial problems to address. In short, she simply didn’t want or perhaps did not have the time and resources to purchase health insurance.)

Because of the IRS “penalty,” the young mother cannot pay her rent. She and her child are suddenly without a place to live.

Constitutional legal foundations (and perhaps some state attorneys general) step in to represent the young mother. Their argument should go something like this: The woman’s constitutional rights under the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th Amendments have been violated . . .

I was glad to hear Rush mention Hillsdale prof Paul Rahe’s more optimistic take on the present times and our prospects.  I’ve enjoyed Rahe’s guest posts over at Powerline for a while now, and it’s good to see him getting a wider audience.

Rahe disagrees with the pessimistic (and always entertaining) assessment of Mark Steyn, who sees no real prospect of evading our fate as a European style entitlement culture facing demographic doom.  For Rahe, Obama’s agenda is the last act of the 20th century–the one that will finally provoke a backlash against the progressive agenda and unmask the radicals.  I’m inclined to agree.  Europe succumbed after the exhaustion of two world wars.  We’ve got a bit more fight left in us yet, and the Democrats have profoundly misjudged the American people.

This is what gives me hope. For we are not yet a people apt to acquiesce in dictates handed down by our lords and masters. When Britain and Canada drifted into socialism, there were no tea parties spontaneously formed by ordinary citizens to buck the trend. The British and the Canadians lacked the spirit of resistance – though, to be fair, it lived on in the likes of Margaret Thatcher.

We Americans are made of sterner stuff. During the Cold War, we defended the Free World. In our absence, I am convinced, everyone else would have given way. I do not mean that we are everything that once we were. The public school system, the welfare state, the consumer culture, the sexual revolution, social security, and Medicare have sapped our sense of self-reliance, our energies, and our strength. After Pearl Harbor, entire fraternities marched into town to join the armed forces. On 9/11, I was teaching a class at the University of Tulsa entitled Historical Studies in the Origins of War. That evening my students interrupted my lecture to ask that I speak about what had happened that day. When I told them that we were at war and asked how many of them intended to enlist, not a single hand went up. We are, sadly, less instinctively apt to insist on looking after ourselves than were our forebears.

But, Mark Steyn to the contrary notwithstanding, we have not yet entirely lost the American spirit. What happened at the town halls in August, what took place in Virginia, in New Jersey, and, most dramatically, in Massachusetts proves the contrary. Barack Obama and his minions are indeed persuaded that public sentiment does not matter. They could not care less that the citizens do not consent, and they believe that what they have done cannot be undone. “Yes, we can,” they chant. But the truth is they can’t, for they are wrong.

The AP has a story today on the coming increases in health premiums for younger Americans.  According to the AP analysis, premiums for those folks could climb 17% in 2014 because of cost shifting to reduce premiums for older folks and those with preexisting conditions.  Now, leaving aside the fact that this estimate is very conservative, what’s remarkable about the story is the cooperative, progressive disposition of the ‘young people’ they managed to interview.

Here are a few samples:

Consider 24-year-old Nils Higdon. The self-employed percussionist and part-time teacher in Chicago pays $140 each month for health insurance. But he’s healthy and so far hasn’t needed it.

“I suppose it all depends on how much more people in my situation, who are already struggling for coverage, are expected to pay,” Higdon says. He’d prefer a single-payer health care system and calls age-based premiums part of the “broken morality” of for-profit health care.

Ah yes, the ‘broken morality’ of for-profit care–that sounds like your average young guy on the street, doesn’t it?

Ari Matusiak, 33, a Georgetown University law student, founded Young Invincibles with other Obama campaign volunteers to rally youth support for health care overhaul.

Age rating fails as a wedge issue because the pluses of the new law outweigh the minuses for young adults, Matusiak says.

“And we’re not going to be 26, 27, 33 forever,” Matusiak says. “Guess what? We’re going to be in a different demographic soon enough.”

A perfect example of the average 20-something’s awareness of decay and mortality.  They’re just eaten up with it.

They did manage to find one woman in Nashville who wasn’t happy and stuck her in briefly, but overall you’d get the feeling that folks in their 20s are just happy as clams about things, except for those evil insurance agencies and the lack of single payer.

Are you kidding me?  What about the 22 year old guitarist who doesn’t pay anything for health insurance and doesn’t want it?  What does he think?

What about the young lady who did some time as a claims adjuster before starting her own business, the sort who might think that premiums should be based on–wait for it–risk?

How about a few more voices with the young lady in Nashville (God bless her) who just say, “Hell, no!  I don’t have any more money to pay!”  Isn’t that the response you’d expect from folks working without benefits early in their careers?

We’ve seen several stories about the APs sources for these sorts of pieces:  the same ‘average joe’ quoted in multiple stories by different writers, sources provided by lobbying groups, etc.   The reporter is supposedly providing a representative sample of reaction nationally, so she conveniently finds three folks in Chicago and DC, throws in one backward Teaparty redneck from Nashville into the mix, and calls it a day.

Young people are certainly inclined to support single payer, since they want to help everyone (especially earth-loving blue people) and think rich folk and evil corporations will be footing the bill.  But I’m not buying this reaction to the prospect of their personally paying more out of pocket each month.

right where he belongs

This from LifeNews:

Stupak first faces a primary election challenge from a hardcore abortion advocate who, today finds herself getting national support from NARAL. … “Over the last several months, we’ve been forced to witness Rep. Bart Stupak’s despicable attempts to hijack health-care reform because of his extreme anti-choice agenda,” NARAL president Nancy Keenan said today an in [sic] email LifeNews.com obtained.

And if Stupak makes it through the primary, there will be a pro-life republican waiting to challenge him. But to make it through the primaries, he will likely have to downplay his ostensible pro-life stance which will make it tough to win many pro-life Michiganders.

Such is the fate of weak men.

If you won’t take responsibility for yourself, we take your money anyway. Is that cool, or what?

—————-

So, I’m in the car listening to talkradio’s postmortem on the health bill today.

Some gal calls up Michael Medved and sez “she knows” a family that couldn’t “afford” health insurance and a major illness came along and bankrupted them.

Never fear. Obamacare will force them to get health insurance, and if they don’t, the IRS will fine them.

Now that’s a solution!
Why didn’t Darth Cheney think of that? Karl Rove, you genius, you? You hate people, so force them to do the responsible thing, and no more bankruptcies!

Idiots!

I guess the really funny thing is that if John McCain had been elected [and I didn't cry when he wasn't], he’d have passed pretty much the same bill with bi-partisan support—but without the abortion rider and taking over the student loan program and some of the other crap—like Dubya’s compassionate yet conservative Pills for the Old thing. Uninsured would have got health care somehow someway.

And the republic would have said, OK, cool, whatever. It’s not like we want people dying in the streets.

In fact, in America, they don’t die in the streets. We don’t let them, between Medicaid, state programs like MediCal, the county health systems, and charity clinics.

The BBC guy last night on United States Public Radio was extremely shocked to hear that. Cognitive dissonance, I could hear his skulll cracking. Everybody knows America lets its poor die.

Dude must listen to too much BBC, or to Democrat congressmen.

Certainly not to Megan McArdle. Everyone knows that people without health insurance are more likely to die. But are they?

Oooops. Mebbe not.

[And the dirty little secret of the UK's pride'n'joy, the National Health Service, is that they confiscated all the private hospitals and charity clinics when they set up the NHS in 1948. A good start. Me, I could build a motor company if I confiscated Chrysler.

Oh, wait, we already did that. Never mind. Howz that workin' out?]

And as for “preventive” care, well, that’s mostly in the hands of America’s charity clinics, because Americans believe in charity over statism.

But that’s OK, let’s rock. I dunno if I’ll volunteer for the Americorps Colonoscopies for the Poor, but count me in as a volunteer to give them to Democrat congressmen and BBC presenters.

Just so I could show them on the video screen just how full of —- they are.

Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Florida) had this to say today, as they consider ‘passage’ of the most transformative legislation in the past thirty years:

“There ain’t no rules here, we’re trying to accomplish something. . .. All this talk about rules. . . .When the deal goes down . . . we make ‘em up as we go along.”

And they wonder why people are angry with this sham of a process. There is going to be hell to pay.

HT Daniel Foster in the Corner

Update:  Here’s the full transcription.  Somehow the fact that Edison was in a lab, while Hastings is on the Rules Committee, matters not to the venerable Congressman.  Edison at least was constrained by the laws of physics and the need to produce things that actually, well, worked.

I wish that I had been there when Thomas Edison made the remark that I think applies here: “There ain’t no rules around here, we’re trying to accomplish something.” And therefore, when the deal goes down, all this talk about rules, we make them up as we go along.
Update II via Drudge:

President Obama’s health care plan requires that no one can be denied insurance coverage because of pre-existing conditions. Yet, the insured may be denied procedures for a variety of reasons determined by a government board. So, one may be excluded from “coverage” based on post-existing conditions?

Consequently, in order to determine the efficacy of the president’s universal coverage, one cannot compare the present lack of universal coverage with his plan’s proposal. Rather, one must compare the efficacy and accessibility of treatment and procedures in the present with the efficacy of accessibility of treatment and procedures under “universal coverage.” In other words, the scope of who is covered by insurance–whether it includes everyone, most, or some–must be measured by who gets what at the end, not whether someone is “insured” at the beginning.

Via DrewM. over at Ace of Spades, we are provided with another gleaming example of David Frum’s genius. David Frum is the self-styled intellectual leader of the conservative movement who regularly insults conservatives and conservative ideas.

In a recent article Mr. Frum attempts to correct the misguided idea among many on the right that Obamacare might be constitutionally defective. However, Mr. Frum’s period of instruction might have been more convincing had he actually read the Constitution first. Check out this example of keen constitutional analysis:

DeMint’s and Ensign’s argument against the constitutionality of the Obama-Reid health reform rests upon the ancient theory of enumerated powers. Under this theory, Congress may do only what the Constitution specifically authorizes Congress to do. Since (for example) the Constitution speaks only of a Supreme Court, Congress has no power to create lower federal courts. Since the Constitution does not mention a national bank, Congress may not charter banks.

Wow! According to Section 1, Article III of my Constitution Congress DOES have the enumerated power to create lower courts.

At any rate, the rest of the article mistakenly conflates Medicare and Social Security with Obamacare’s requirement that individual’s buy a product (insurance) from a private company.

I did find Frum’s equation of small government conservatives with the jurisprudence of Roger Taney more humorous than insulting. Taney was the author of the Dred Scott decision, a decision in which an arm of the federal government (the Supreme Court) stripped individual states of the power to define what was property within their borders or who could be a citizen. According to Taney, the citizens of Illinois, or any other state, lacked the authority to decide that a black man was more than just an article of private property. It is impossible to imagine a decision more antithetical to small government conservatism than Dred Scott. However, you would have to know something about both the constitution and conservatism to understand that point, something Mr. Frum apparently lacks.

If you want to read an intelligent constitutional take down of Obamacare then you should read this article from Richard Epstein.

Over at NRO’s Critical Condition, Jeffrey Anderson of the Benjamin Rush Society has a piece on the true costs of Obamacare.

Obamacare would require Americans to buy government-approved health insurance. It would make it illegal to offer choices in insurance plans beyond the handful of very similar ones that the government would allow. It would become illegal to offer new and innovative plans. Under any of the government-approved plans, it would become illegal to pay your doctor directly for more than a certain percentage of your care. Higher deductible, consumer-driven plans would be severely altered or eliminated. By law, a greater percentage of money would have to be paid in insurance premiums, rather than directly for care. Competition and choice would diminish tremendously. One-size-fits-all conformity would rule the day.

At its core, what Obamacare really means is a loss of freedom.

Obamacare would significantly diminish Americans’ freedom to control the fruits of their own labors and to spend them as they choose and as they think best. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reports that American taxpayers would be on the hook for approximately $2.5 trillion for Obamacare in its real first ten years in operation (2014 to 2023) — about triple the false number of $871 billion that the Democrats are spreading. As the CBO conveys, $871 billion only covers the cost of insurance coverage expansions, which is only a portion of the bill. Furthermore, less than 2 percent of the costs for what the Democrats are calling the bill’s “first-ten-year costs” would hit prior to the fifth year of that period.  So the Democrats are really giving the six-year costs — for insurance coverage expansions alone — and calling them the ten-year costs for the whole bill. Either the Democrats know this and are being deliberately deceitful, or else they don’t understand their own bill and are in over their heads even more than it appears.

In my last post decrying the shameless legislative prostitution of congressional call girls legislators Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson I was taken to task by one of our liberal readers for my naivete regarding run of the mill legislative “log rolling.” Apparently, only a uninformed boob would object to legislators who, having previously carved out a position based on a highly publicized moral position, cave on that self same position once they are offered enough money. Wow, I thought all this “log rolling” was to be a thing of the past in the new transparent age of Obama who, after lowering sea levels and global temperatures, would bring a new tone to Washington.

While our associates on the left may have made their peace with corruption I have not. I remain disgusted at the performance of our legislature regarding healthcare reform. If this issue is as important as they say then why the artificial deadline of getting this thing done before Christmas? Why not take the necessary time to get this thing done right? Why do we have to rush this thing through?

Reelection. Thats it. These high priced whores in D.C couldn’t care less about the welfare of the nation. Its all about them and the retention of political power. Their shameless self promotion at the cost of the fiscal health of the public purse disgusts me to no end. Apparently, certain liberal readers believe such thinking is hopelessly naive. For them I offer the following clip:

Absolutely right. “When statesmen abandon their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties they lead their country by a short route to chaos.”

I think Oliver Cromwell’s rebuke of the House of Commons is particularly applicable to our legislature today.

“It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money. Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess?

AMEN!!!!!!

Here’s a little Ann Coulter to help you fight off those health reform disaster holiday blues.  She begins with horror stories from Oregon cited by liberal columnists, reminding us that Oregon already has universal health care:

How can this be happening? Oregon already has “universal health care”! (Probably just a coincidence, but isn’t Oregon also the only state with physician-assisted suicide?)

Once again forgetting about the existence of the Internet, the Times neglects to mention its own erstwhile enthusiasm for Oregon’s universal health care plan, introduced back in 1990.

Back then, the Times published an editorial titled “Oregon’s Brave Medical Experiment,” hailing this technocratic monstrosity as an example of “hardheaded compassion” designed to make “health coverage available to many more families.”

In the wake of the massive failures of the experiments in Oregon and Massachusetts (thanks, Mitt), what’s a politician to do?  Extend the disaster nationwide:

Only Democrats could propose fixing one Bernie Madoff-style scam with an even bigger Bernie Madoff-style scam…. Eighty-five percent of Americans are happy with their health care, but Democrats have a plan to make it worse for more money. As a bonus, national health care will add trillions of dollars to the national debt, and your insurance rates will skyrocket.

ReasonTV editor Nick Gillespie (and his groovin sideburns) addresses the inevitabile mission creep with health care ‘reform.”  HT The Corner

The Senate passed its health care bill last night and in doing so did not exactly cover itself in glory. The numerous high-profile payoffs and shameless sellouts used to secure the bill’s passage were enough to make one lose all faith in representative government. Rep. Cantor hit the nail on the head when he stated, “They’re allocating taxpayer dollars as if those dollars belonged to the senators. It borders on immoral. Just look at the way Senator Landrieu put her vote up for sale. Senator Nelson did the same.”

Michelle Malkin breaks down who got what in “Cash for Cloture.”

As my fellow Alabamian pointed out below:

“But when  you express moral opposition to a bill and that moral opposition suddenly evaporates when your state gets enough money – that is a whole different matter.  In Alabama, we have a word for a person who sells his self for money – a whore.”

Sen. Nelson, Sen. Landrieu, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world, but for extra Medicare funding?

Senator Nelson has agreed to vote for the revised version of the “Health care” bill.  What it does as described by a Congressional aide:

The Manager’s Amendment does NOT contain language similar to the Stupak amendment approved by the House.  Instead the section on abortion (starting on page 38) adds a provision allowing states to opt out of providing abortion coverage through the exchange and adds further layers of accounting requirements.  The result remains the same, contrary to longstanding policy, the federal government will subsidize private health insurance plans that cover abortion, and Americans will facilitate abortion by making it more easily available.  The result will be more lives lost to abortion and more wounded mothers.

Why the sudden change? According to National Review:

The deal for Ben Nelson includes additional Medicaid funding for Nebraska and carve outs for physician owned hospitals in Nebraska — and Nebraska only. Uncle Sam will take the hit for 100% of the Medicaid expansion for Nebraska, forever. Nebraska is the only state to get this deal.

If the bill is good for America, then vote for it.  If not, then don’t.  Selling your vote in order to get special treatment for your state may be legal but it is morally bankrupt.  I have no problem with Congressmen trying to getting money for their state and even stating he will oppose the bill unless there is more for his state.  But when  you express moral opposition to a bill and that moral opposition suddenly evaporates when your state gets enough money – that is a whole different matter.  In Alabama, we have a word for a person who sells his self for money – a whore.

Another Mule was born to the world this week.  Mrs. Mule is doing fine after the c-section.  The new arrival has a v-shaped mark between his eyebrows that the nurses referred to as a ‘stork bite.’  I had to point out that they were clearly mule’s ears.

What’s been interesting is the hospital chatter regarding ObamaCare.  During the surgery, the doctors were lamenting the new recommendations regarding mammograms and speculating about the next targets for rationing.  Once in our room, Mrs. Mule had sufficient morphine in her system to watch CNN.  Two of our nurses (one a native of Ireland) have started conversations about ObamaCare after hearing a commentator.  Both were opposed, and the Irish lass suggested we had better get used to ‘queueing up.’  Even the tech taking vitals had a few dire predictions.

This kind of anxiety is not a good thing when we need more nurses, more doctors, more techs.  If ObamaCare passes, that anxiety is going to worsen over the three or four years to full implementation.  A lot of decisions will be made in that time, and far too many of them will be against a career in health care.