RUTHFULLY YOURS

[[See Update at the end of this post]]

I guess Obama’s handlers have entered the paralytic stage. Here’s Obamacon David Axelrod a day or two ago on Meet the Press ^[1]: “I think that health care, over time, is going to become more popular.”

Jaw-dropping, what?  Just why, Dave, do you think it will become more popular?  I mean, it was unpopular before it passed and has become steadily less popular since.

So what was his reason?  Here’s the main one: “people are focused on this economy right now — they’ve got anxiety about this economy. That’s what’s driving the vote right now.”

Right you are, Dave!  And you know what, they are going to become more anxious. Why? Because the administration you serve is clueless when it comes to the economy.

How do I know?  How’s this for desperation row: When Vice-President Joe Biden spoke about the “summer of recovery” (remember that?) he wasn’t (as it turns out now) talking about jobs—oh, no, he was talking about construction projects. That’s what the administration’s latest magic man, economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, told Fox News this weekend ^[2]. “The vice president was talking about the summer of recovery in reference to the Recovery Act, that you would see the creation of a series of infrastructure and other projects ramping up over the summer.”  He said it with a straight face, too!

But back to Mr. A-Rod. One reason that I could hardly suppress a snort when I read the account of his comments about the popularity of the the Obama health care disaster was that, just moments before, a friend sent me a list of statistics that have been making their way around cyber space. (See stats on next page.)

Percentage of men and women who survived a cancer five years after diagnosis:

U.S.            65%

England       46%

Canada        42%

Percentage of patients diagnosed with diabetes who received treatment within six months:

U.S.           93%

England      15%

Canada        43%

Percentage of seniors needing hip replacement who received it within six months:

U.S.            90%

England       15%

Canada        43%

Percentage referred to a medical specialist who see one within one month:

U.S.            77%

England       40%

Canada        43%

Number of MRI scanners (a prime diagnostic tool) per million people

U.S.            71%

England       14%

Canada        18%

Percentage of seniors (65+), with low income, who say they are in “excellent health”:

U.S.           12%

England        2%

Canada         6%

In sum, you can have health care, or you can have ObamaCare.  People have looked at the latter, Dave, and they don’t like what they see. That’s the reason it’s unpopular, and will become more so.

[UPDATE: some knickers are apparently ensnarled because I did not provide a source for these data points which, as I said, have been making their way around cyber space.  If you are in any doubt about the substance, have a look at Betsy McCaughey’s Broadside: Obama Health Law: What It Says and How to Overturn It ^[3]. Or check out this item ^[4]from Congressman Mark Kirk, which compares medical care in the US with the UK and Canada and iterates the statistics listed here.]