Joe Scarborough Gets Anthony Weiner (D-NY) To Admit He Doesn't Believe in Private Health Insurance

Why does anyone want Medicare, which will go bankrupt in 10 years, to be the basis for everyone's health care?

And Scarborough catches Weiner, who tries to use the populist line that the health care industry doesn't deserve its profits, by askying why any corporation deserve profits.

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Why Would Anyone Want A Medicare-Based Public Plan?

It is time to address a small, but important, issue in the health insurance reform debate. Many "progressives", including Reps. Lynn Woosley and Anthony Weiner in recent Politico editorials, want, as a subsitute for politically unpalatable single-payer, a public plan based on Medicare. Any impartial analysis shows that this is an awful idea. Even if you support the concept, Medicare, in its current form, has been a cost boondoggle. There is no reason to make the same mistake twice.

So why would any sane person support this proposal. Because Medicare (along with Medicaid) is the only socialized health care currently in this country, and is next to impossible to cut politically. A public plan based upon it would accomplish two things:

1. Prevent Republicans and moderate Democrats from ever removing it if it begins to show that it was a mistake/unnecessary/too costly. Health debates would always have to be fought on the left's terms, just as entitlement reform and health debates in England and Canada are.
2. Put in place the basis for a complete government take-over of one-sixth of the U.S. economy through a single-payer system, as soon as a bad conservative (see: GWB) gets elected, leading to a liberal follow-up willing to put such a plan in place.

Definition of Insanity: We Want A New Housing Bubble!

Politicos on both the left and the right are getting upset with President Obama for his inability to stem rising foreclosures. There are calls for revisiting the idea of letting bankruptcy judges modify mortgages, a terrible precedent that would further trample creditors' rights. Even normally reasonable economists such as Mark Zandi are calling for some kind of new Homeowners stimulus. Of course, Barney Frank and Anthony Weiner (the Hot Dog reps) are looking to loosen Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae's lending standards, this time to help condo owners.

The fact of the matter is that the market is recorrecting itself, and the only way the government could stop this would be to form a new housing bubble through targeted tax cuts and subsidies and reduced lending standards. Unfortunately, some seem to be ok with that, which brings to mind Benjamin Franklin's famous definition of insanity.

Source: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25095.html