Ya Gotta love Universal Health Care

Duffy's vision of universal health care in this country: Duffy would get his identification card from the National Health Care office after showing them his passport and paying an annual fee of $250. He would be able to use the card to go to any doctor, any hospital, get any test, any drug and any medical procedure he wanted. No co pays, no upper limit on benefits, no pre-existing conditions limitation. This all would be "free" because the Government would not be taking any additional taxes. There would, however, be an additional 33% "health access fee" taken from his paycheck but this wasn't a "tax" strictly speaking, according to President Obama. All legal U.S. citizens were covered under this plan and Medicare and Medicaid were abolished and folded into the National Universal Health Care Plan.

Duffy did notice that waiting to see the doctor was now twice as long and the doctor, when he did get to see her, was noticeably more rushed as he had to be in and out of her office in five minutes. Until the new graduates of the 50 new medical schools that Obama promised started to appear, the American people would just have to put up with these inconveniences. Duffy noticed announcements appearing quite frequently of doctors retiring and turning over their practices to the government. Since all doctors were now strictly limited to how much they could charge, many doctors just retired or moved into other professions. Duffy heard many complaints about the many foreign doctors who could hardly speak English. Hundreds of thousands of insurance company employees were now out of work, but at least they had health care. Many of them went to work for the NUHC Department. Millions of health insurance agents went into other jobs such as selling real estate but at least they had health insurance. Duffy read of tens of thousands of illegal immigrants turned away from medical care because they didn't have their NUHC card. Thousands of illegals were "caught" this way and deported. Meanwhile crops went unpicked and more construction companies failed. Millions of employees lost their group health care benefits as companies ditched them in order not to pay a NUHC "fee" to the government . Famous names such as Blue Cross, United Healthcare and Hartford vanished into history. Their assets were confiscated by the NUHC to help pay for the program.

Duffy needed a knee replacement but was told that it would be at least 18 months at the earliest before he could have it done, and only if the NUHC Authorization Board deemed him sufficiently disabled to have the knee replaced. A tax on sugar and sugar products was instituted to fight the "obesity epidemic". Alcohol and tobacco taxes were increased 500% to encourage people to quit smoking and cut down on drinking. Senior citizens were made to go to mandatory sessions for counseling put on by the AARP on "end of life" decisions. Even funeral homes were limited in what they could charge to prevent "gouging." A National Universal Health Standards Board set national protocols on how all medical procedures should be done by all doctors and hospitals in every state. Failure to follow the national standards would result in loss of license.

Duffy thought how great this was now the U.S. had universal national health care. His taxes did not go up "one dime" just like Obama promised though his paycheck was now about one-third smaller. Even though American lives, as far as medical care was concerned, was 100% in the hands of the Government, Duffy knew that all the small inconveniences in the system would be fixed in the next 20 years according to projections by the NUHC Department. "Fees" might have to be raised another 25% soon to pay for the additional 5 million Federal employees to administer the program but it was well worth it to have universal health care.

Duffy thought how appropriate for Nancy Pelosi to retire from Congress and be named as the first Director of the National Universal Health Care Department at a salary of $1 million a year.

A little extreme? Yes, but this vision is shared by many far left liberals as the "solution" to UHC for America. Just warning ya.....

Afghanistan: I've seen this movie before

This week Duffy gets serious and gives his thoughts on our fight in Afghanistan. I well remember the days back in 1964-1968 when the U.S. escalated our forces in Vietnam. Looking back on that conflict which had such a serious impact on the nation and especially the leading edge of the baby boomer generation, I am still ambivalent about the reasons for fighting that war. In the end it was a huge waste of American lives, not to mention American resources and had a profound effect on American society. Vietnam was a civil war and we backed the wrong side using the wrong tactics with the wrong goals.

Afghanistan is a country larger than Texas, with a 13% literacy rate, no history of democracy or ever much of a functioning national government. In the countryside the population lives in almost feudal conditions in family clans outside the reach of any sort of government. The central government has a long history of corruption. No outside nation has ever "conquered" Afghanistan. The Russians and British tried in the 19th century, the Russians again in the 20th century and now the Americans in the 21st century. Fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda is somewhat like fighting the Vietcong except now we are fighting religious fanatics with the goal of establishing a extreme form of Islam not only in Afghanistan but across the Middle East. Radical Islam is supplying fighters and arms into Afghanistan from many Islamic countries to fight the Americans. The American forces will never kill "enough" Taliban to "win" the war. There will always be more fighters infiltrating the country to fight the infidels. The U.S. is not fighting a country, we are fighting a radical religion that despises all things Western. This is a civil and religious war going on in Afghanistan.

I've yet to hear Obama state clearly what our objectives are in Afghanistan. How do we "win" and declare victory? Set up a democratic government with control over the whole country? Establish an effective police force and army not riddled with corruption that is respected by the population? Duffy doesn't believe this is possible in Afghanistan. Ever. But, if that is Obama's goal, then he should tell the American people that it will require many thousands of more troops, much more money from American taxpayers, much more time, years and years, much more casualties and with a very uncertain and unpleasant outcome if not successful.

Duffy would reduce forces and concentrate on training the Afghan army and police. Concentrate on the Afghan border working closely with the Pakistani army who now seem to be serious about stopping the Taliban in their country. Concentrate on killing Al Qaeda leaders. (Why haven't we killed Osama Bin Ladin?)
"Nation building"? Forget it. A waste of American lives and resources. Afghanistan is too big, too backward and too primitive to "build a nation". There really never has been one there.

If Obama persists in feeding more and more troops into Afghanistan it will turn into his Vietnam. I have seen this movie before.

The U.S. and Western nations will be fighting radical Islam for many years and the American people will have to understand and accept that reality. The Cold War is over but the Long War started even before 9/11.

Keep the BCS! (but with a few modifications)

Duffy was going to write a blog about Afghanistan but decided to put that depressing subject away for another day and since tonight is the start of the college football season give you my thoughts on the BCS system and determining a National Champion.

Supposedly there is an overwhelming majority of support for abolishing the current BCS and staging a playoff system to determine the "true" national champion. Well, I've yet to see a playoff system format that makes sense to me or that would satisfy all critics of the current system. And, it appears that the folks who really matter, i.e. the college presidents and athletic directors are firmly against a playoff system. And I agree with them. And I'm just as avid college fan and anybody else out there. I think the current system is just fine. And here's why. From the very first game of the season, every game for every team in the BCS conferences means something. Every week's game is in essence a "playoff" game. Though LSU proved a two loss team can make it to the the NC game, I don't think that will happen very often if at all anytime soon. From the very start, every game means something to the BCS formula mix to determine the top two teams. Excitement every Saturday!

It seems to me that the REAL reason there is so much grumbling is that there are only the six major conferences who make up the BCS and the other seven "less major" conferences are outside looking in. The crux of the problem, in my view, all boils down to one thing: MONEY. The five BCS bowls last year distributed, I believe, $16 million to each team while the other bowls paid out anywhere from $5 million to $750,000. Sure, teams like Boise State, Utah and Hawaii don't get to play for the NC, but what really galls them is that their other conference teams play in lesser bowls with much reduced payoffs.

With that in mind, here is Duffy's solution to the BCS shortcomings. Do away with the top six conference monoply. ALL 120 teams in Division I football (I refuse to use the silly "Bowl Championship Division" classification) are to be included in the BCS system. No team is left out of being able to play in the NC game no matter which conference they're in. The big pot of gold of the five BCS games will be distributed to all 120 teams in Division I. However, to mollify the critics of this socialist redistribution of wealth, the conferences of the ten teams who do end up playing in the BCS games will get half of the payouts with the other half distributed to all the teams in D-I. In practice I can see that what will happen is that the six major conferences currently in the BCS formula will continue to supply most of the teams to the BCS bowls. But, teams like Utah and Boise State and other "lesser" conferences will have an equal chance to play for all the marbles.

Duffy believes that the current BCS conferences, The Big 10, Big 12, SEC, ACC, PAC 10 and Big East should quit being so piggy and agree to share the wealth or else somebody like Barack Obama or Congress will do it for them. Every game from the start will still mean something and everyone will have a chance for the NC. And most importantly, BCS Bowl money will be spread far and wide.