I’d like everyone to try something: next time you see someone sporting a liberal t-shirt, bumper-sticker, or spewing verbal diarrhea about Obama, ask them how much the war in Iraq has cost the American tax payer. Ten dollars says they will put forth an “exact” number, as if they’re a government accountant. Next, ask them how much socialized medical care will cost the American tax payer. Ten dollars says they will not have an exact number – rather they’ll provide a nebulous justification for it.

Obama supporters rabidly foam at the mouth when someone mentions the monetary cost of the war, yet they fail to even consider the enormous cost of socialized healthcare, let alone where that money is going to come from. Additionally, Obama supporters conveniently overlook the fact that most government sponsored social programs, in America, have failed (think: social security). Despite this, Obama supporters have this irrational belief that somehow socialized healthcare will be different. They’re wrong. It won’t be. In the short-run, it will be extremely costly, and an administrative nightmare. In the long-run, the results will be downright scary.

Health care should never be considered a universal right — it’s a service that someone, or some entity, must pay for. If you’re a socialist like Obama, then you believe that the government should pay for it. Since I am not a socialist, I believe it should be privately funded, with perhaps some small exceptions.

To put it bluntly, Obama’s healthcare ideas are absolutely awful. Unfortunately, as is common in times of economic slumps, many Americans are embracing his blatantly socialistic ideas. In a nut-shell, Obama wants to give everyone the same coverage offered through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. Although private insurance plans will still be available, he intends to remove market forces from the equation by forcing private insurers to offer the same coverage that the government does (or better).

Large employers will be forced to contribute a percentage of the payroll expenses towards healthcare, and smaller employers will be effectively subsidized (socialism). Unknowledgeable liberals think that sounds like a great idea, but the long-term repercussions are frightening.

First, who is going to pay for this enormously expensive program? Obama wants to increase taxes for the American citizens who already proportionally carry far more of the load than they rightfully should. Second, what affect will it have on America’s medical industry? His plans will greatly devalue healthcare which will consequently cause the stagnation of research and talent within the medical industry. Although Obama supporters have glorified the supposed “successes” of socialized healthcare programs in Canada and France, the reality is much darker. The truth is, socialized medicine turns the citizens of a country into mere cost functions that can be analyzed and ranked in terms of need.

Let’s take a look at what socialized medicine has done to Canada’s orthopedic industry. As this article mentions, Orthopedic care in Canada has become a full blown disaster. One of the major problems with socialized healthcare is that the government – as opposed to market forces – dictates how money will be spent. In Canada, training programs, resources, and staff requirements, for orthopedics, have been dangerously restricted. The ratio of orthopedic surgeons to citizens is grossly skewed. The former President of the Ontario Orthopedic Association has an explanation ,“We have had difficulty attracting foreign orthopedic surgeons as the United States is a much more attractive practice environment.”

This tells us a couple things, the first being that the U.S. has some of the best doctors/surgeons/researchers/specialists in the entire world. In one specific instance, 23 out of 30 trainees enrolled in an orthopedic-related training program left Canada. I wonder if these stupid liberals are ready to see many of our best doctors, surgeons, researchers, and specialists leave the U.S. simply because Obama made the country’s medical culture hostile towards them?

Believe it or not, the supposed “greed” of the medical industry has resulted in the best products and talent being available in the U.S. Also keep in mind that when a Canadian citizen goes into a clinic they are consuming government resources – thus they become a measurable cost that can be analyzed and denied.

When an American citizen goes into a clinic, the money outlaid by privatized health insurance becomes revenue, and provides an incentive for further development, and for hiring the best talent possible.

Obama’s plans would greatly decrease the incentive for new medical research and development, which means the quality of healthcare stagnates. Not exactly what I’d call positive “change”.

An article in the Toronto Star highlighted the story of a North Vancouver couple who traveled to Belgium, and spent $35,000 on a procedure related to their osteoarthritis. The procedure that was performed in Belgium was arguably superior to what they would have received, had they painfully suffered through the wait in Canada.

As a direct result of Canada’s socialized healthcare policies, this couple was forced to seek medical attention in a foreign country. Socialized healthcare eventually forces those who can afford it, to seek out care in countries where treatment doesn’t require a huge wait. In an ironic twist, the very policy meant to ensure that all citizens receive medical attention, creates an environment where only those who can afford private procedures actually receive timely and high-quality medical care.

Essentially, Obama’s dog-shit healthcare plans will completely devalue medical attention. Let’s paint a hypothetical picture: your car’s engine breaks down and the shop tells you that it will cost a couple thousand dollars to fix. Most people would begrudgingly pay the bill, and have a functioning car. However, what happens if a person breaks their ankle, and doesn’t have insurance? In that situation, most idiots would throw their hands in the air and curse the US government for not fixing their body. Ultimately, this story highlights a pretty scary notion: thanks to idiots like Obama, the average American is more willing to pay money to fix their car than to fix their own body. This sense of entitlement is extremely dangerous.

As individual citizens, we spend thousands of dollars each year on everything ranging from coffee, to movies, or car repair. Yet, Obama supporters are stubbornly unwilling to spend money on one of the most important things anyone can possess: good personal health. Instead, they want the government, and the people paying the most taxes, to pay for their health. There is no reason why Mark Wahlberg should pay for my healthcare, through his enormous tax bill. Obama represents socialism at its worst. In all but the most extreme cases of poverty, there is absolutely no reason that an American citizen shouldn’t have healthcare coverage. Even most menial jobs offer insurance plans to their full-time employees (example: Walgreens). Any person who has a family to take care of is being downright irresponsible if they think health insurance is low-priority enough that the government should provide it for them.

Barack Obama deserves some credit. He was right. When President Bush decided to invade Iraq, Obama was one of the few politicians outspoken against the war from the start. Several thousand lives and $1.9 trillion later, one can’t help but wish more had taken up Obama’s viewpoint back then. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out that way.

Invading Iraq was clearly a mistake, but there’s no going back. What’s done is done. The only question that matters now is: what is the best way to proceed from here? Barack Obama’s answer to that question is both unsettling and frequently changing.

Early in Obama’s campaign for President, he advocated an immediate troop withdraw from Iraq. This idealist stance, like many of Obama’s positions, might sound like sunshine and rose pedals on paper, but in reality, it would be disaster. Apparently Obama has comes to realize this. He now advocates a “responsible, phased withdraw” that will operate on a timetable of having our troops out of the region within 16 months.

Obama possesses a certain naivety that is very common among liberals who have spent most of their time in the field of academia: he thinks that just because he is a nice guy who wouldn’t harm a fly, that everyone else must be equally nice. This failure to understand how the world works is what drives his socialist taxation policies as well as the degree of confidence he and his supporters display regarding his chances of seizing the Oval Office.

What Obama doesn’t realize about Middle Eastern power-players like Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the leaders of Hamas is that they aren’t Harvard-educated pacifists who just want to pay a fair price for their arugula. These guys are power-hungry lunatics who wish to be major players in the international community.

By withdrawing our troops from Iraq on an arbitrary schedule rather than based on the completion of strategic objectives, we send the message to the Middle East that we won’t do anything. In other words, we are giving a guy dumb enough to think that there are no gays in his country (Ahmadinejad) a hall-pass to do whatever he pleases. It’s worth mentioning that this same guy is currently developing a nuclear program.

Does this mean Ahmadinejad, with suddenly no U.S. presense to deter him, will use the threat of nuclear force to invade an unstable Iraq? Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows what that nutjob is thinking? The point is, under Obama’s policies, the choice is his!

America can play a big game of “cross your fingers” by following Obama’s troop withdraw plan. Hey… maybe it will work! But if history tells us anything, picking a fight in the Middle East and then leaving before the job is done is a recipe for bigger and more costly problems down the road.

If you’ve been watching the Olymics at all, you might have seen a Barack Obama ad which ends in a way that perfectly captures his essense. You know how they always end their ads with “I’m [so and so], and I approve this message”? Obama’s ad does the same thing… but rather than showing him mingling with some union workers or laughing while holding a baby, it just shows him standing at a podium with his chin in the air.

See what I mean?

Oh it’s fun to watch the Democrats shit all over themselves trying to win an election in what should have been a “can’t lose” year for them.