President Obama spoke to the Congress and the country about health care in a speech Wednesday night. The full text of the speech is available here. I have not witnessed previously any previous forty-eight minutes as crammed packed with lies, falsehoods, and prevarications. If this speech were made under oath it would be almost in its entirety perjurious.

Here are just some examples.

Obama begins by talking about health insurance and those that do not have it. He mentions that "these are middle-class Americans." Yet the ranks of the uninsured is not primarily middle class Americans. One third are not Americans at all. One third are not middle class but those poor enough to be eligible for Medicaid and the children's health insurance plan who do not enroll. 

He continues: "Some can’t get insurance on the job. Others are self-employed, and can’t afford it, since buying insurance on your own costs you three times as much as the coverage you get from your employer." What are we to make of this statement. Buying individual insurance does not cost three times as much as the cost of employer provided insurance. The key to the half-truth here is the you as 'costs you three times as much'. This really is a lie. The employer may not directly charge you for the health insurance the employer is paying for, but you are paying for it in lower wages. The insurance itself does not cost three times as much, in fact if you could buy a policy that provided you the coverage you wanted and allowed you to accept the risks you wanted you could pay substantially less than the employer does.   read more »

An extraordinarily alarming <a href=" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6127514/Sentenced-to-death-... in the UK <span style="font-style:italic;">Daily Telegraph</span> describes the adoption by Britain's National Health Service of a protocol to end the life of patients considered terminal by withdrawing food and water and other care.  The denial of care decisions are made without consultation or notice to the patient or the patients family. The policy, the Liverpool Care Pathway, was recommended by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice). Nice is the model for the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research established in the Department of Health and Human Services under the <a href=" http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2009pres/03/20090319a.html">stimulus</a> act.While the comparative effectiveness research council would do research and make clinical recommendations, Americans receiving their health care at government expense could expect to have that care conform to the recommendations developed by the council, just as the Liverpool Care Pathway was adopted by National Health Service hospitals on recommendation by Nice.When we begin to describe health care as costing the nation too much money, instead of recognizing the costs are borne by individuals with individual, personal rights and decision making capability we are on the same path which led to the adoption of this policy by the National Health Service.No private health care plan, doctor of organization in the United States could adopt a policy of purposeful death of patients today without criminal and civil penalties. The fifth amendment to the Constitution states no person shall... be deprived of life...without due process of law. The current proposals to move more of the management and control of health care expenditures and decision making from individuals to government will inevitably lead to adoption of the same type of death protocols as now adopted in Britain. Government decisions to end the life of citizens without criminal conviction and without due process can have no other name than tyranny. Sic Semper Tyrannis is a proper motto for opposing the health care proposals now before the Congress. Read the <a href=" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6127514/Sentenced-to-death-..., read the accompanying comments. Who has a pike.