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Health care reforms are turning into health care revolts. Americans are turning up the heat on congressmen in town hall meetings across the U.S., who apparently hoped that citizens would simply swallow the hook of Obamacare.

It's unfortunate that rather than respecting and welcoming citizens' questions and grievances, many of our national leaders are belittling, demonizing and marginalizing them as extremists. They refuse to believe these groups represent any real grass roots resistance. Instead, they concoct conspiracy theories that they are conservatives who are secretly mobilizing these irrational marches.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said that protesters of Obamacare are "un-American" and "carrying Swastikas." Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., accused the protesters of trying to "sabotage" the democratic process. And Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., responded that "well-dressed" protesters are out to "hurt our president."

So who are the real extremists – citizens who voice their First Amendment grievances or politicians who through their rhetoric try socially to quarantine citizens and impede democratic debate?

While watching these political hot August nights, I decided to research the reasons why so many are so opposed to Obamacare – to separate facts from fantasy. What I discovered was that there are indeed dirty little secrets buried deep within the 1,000-plus page proposed health care bill.

Having already given "Six reasons Obamacare is bad medicine" for America in a previous column, I thought through August I'd expose the political syringes through which it will be injected into the veins of America if Obamacare passes.

Dirty secret No. 1 in Obamacare is about the government coming into homes and usurping parental rights over child care development.

It's outlined in passages like Section 440 and Section 1904 of the House bill (page 838 ) under the heading: "Home visitation programs for families with young children and families expecting children," which would provide (via grants to states) for home visitation programs to educate parents on child behavior and parenting skills.

Home visitation programs? Sounds so quaint!? You mean, for parents endangering their children or for those who want to better their parenting skills? If it's for those who endanger their children, we already have a government agency for that – Child Protective Services. And if it's merely for family education, most communities have a plethora of help there through local and state agencies and schools, outside of that other government vassal – Planned Parenthood. So do we need another federal bureaucracy for training parents and families? Or is there a hidden agenda in that vague outline?

The bill says that the government agents, the "well-trained and competent staff," will "provide parents with knowledge of age-appropriate child development in cognitive language, social, emotional and motor domains … modeling, consulting, and coaching on parenting practices, skills to interact with their child to enhance age-appropriate development."

Are you kidding me?! And with whose parental principles and values? Their own? Certain experts? Who? From what field and theory of childhood development? As if there are one-size-fits-all parenting techniques? Do we really believe they will contextualize and personalize every form of parenting in their education or merely universally indoctrinate with their own?

Are we to assume the State's mediators will understand every parent's social or religious core values on parenting? Or will they teach some secular-progressive and religiously neutered version of parental values and wisdom? And when they "consult and coach" those who are expecting babies, will they ever decide circumstances are not beneficial for the child and encourage abortion?

One government rebuttal is that this program is "voluntary." Is that right? Does that infer that this agency will just sit back passively until some parent says, "I need parenting skills. I don't think I'll call my parents, priest or friends, or read a plethora of books, but I'll go down to the local government offices"? Not according to the specific targeted groups and problems, as identified on page 840 of the bill: the State "shall identify and prioritize serving communities that are in high need of such services, especially communities with a high proportion of low-income families. …"

Are we further to conclude by those words that low-income families know less about parenting? Are middle and upper-class parents really better parents? Less neglectful of their children? Less needful of parental help and training? Is this "prioritized" parental care giving not a biased, discriminatory and even prejudicial stereotype and generalization that has no place in federal government, law or practice?

Bottom line, is all this what you want or expected in a universal health care bill being rushed through Congress: government agents coming into your home and telling you how to parent your children? When did government health care turn into government child care?

Or as Glenn Beck asked, "When did we go from being a nation that believed in hard work and picking yourself up by the bootstraps, to a nation that wants government to control everything from our light bulbs to our parenting techniques?"

Government needs less of a role in running our children's lives and more of a role in supporting parents' decisions for their children. Children belong to their parents, not the government. And the parents ought to have the right, and government support, to parent them without the fed's mandates, education or intervention in our homes.

Kids are very important to me and my wife. That's why we've spent the last 17 years developing our non-profit KICKSTART program in public schools in Texas. It builds up their self-esteem and teaches them respect and discipline. Of course, whether or not they participate in the program is theirs and their parents' choice.

How contrary is Obamacare's home intrusion and indoctrination family services, in which state agents prioritize houses to enter and enforce their universal values and principles upon the hearts and minds of families across America?

Government's real motives and rationale is quite simple, though rarely if ever stated. If one wants to control the future ebbs and flows of a country, one must have command over future generations. This is done by seizing parental and educational power, legislating preferred educational methods and materials, and limiting private educational options. It is so simple any socialist can understand it. As Joseph Stalin once stated, "Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed."

When will Washington learn there are millions of us Americans who aren't just going to sit back and swallow the hook of this candy-coated Obamacare (child care) legislation? We're tired of it! Tired of America going into trillions of dollars of debt. Tired of government over-reaching its arms into our lives. Tired of government refusing to hear our grievances. Tired of government turning our opposing voices into battering rams of its rhetoric. Tired of government making us feel guilty (and as if we don't care) unless we accept and support its rushed decisions. After all, who is working for whom?

Before so-called universal health care turns into universal hell care, write or call your representatives today and protest their voting Obamacare into law. Remind them what is needed in Washington is a truly bipartisan group that is allowed ample amount of time to work on a compromise health care law that doesn't raise taxes (for anyone), regulate personal medical choices, ration health care or restrict American citizens.

By the way, if you think "Dirty secret No. 1 in Obamacare" is oppressive, just wait until you see "Dirty secret No. 2" next week.

I've read on several blogs that if Chuck Norris' tears can cure cancer, he should take care of universal health care. Cute.

The real fact is that neither I nor Obamacare (in its present form in any of the 1,000+ page versions like H.R. 3200) can provide the remedy.

In my last column I explained that dirty secret No. 1 in Obamacare is that the House bill grants government the authority to come into homes and usurp parental rights over child care development.

I have a few more secrets to share over these hot August political nights.

Dirty secret No. 2 in Obamacare is that Obama is not the leader of Obamacare. And neither is Congress. The one who has been spearheading the initiative behind the scenes is one who goes under the misnomer "adviser" to the Obama administration, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a bioethicist and breast oncologist and brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. And "his bible" for health care reform is his book, "Healthcare Guaranteed."

Dr. Emanuel has served as special adviser to the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget for health policy as far back as February, when he confessed to the Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times that he was "working on (the) health care reform effort." The first draft of Obamacare?

If you want to know the future of America's universal health care, then you must understand the health care principles and plans of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel. I find it far more than coincidence how much Dr. Emanuel's book parallels Obamacare's philosophy, strategy and legislation.

First, Dr. Emanuel rejects any attempts at incremental change or reform to our health care system (Page 185). What's needed, he concludes in his book (p. 171), is an immediate and totally comprehensive reconstruction of health care as we know it. That of course describes the vision of Obamacare to a tee.

Second, in the chapter "Opening the door to comprehensive change" starting on p. 171 (which reads more like a political and mass-manipulating strategy than a health care manual), Emanuel drives home "a key political lesson: the need to rush the legislation through." (Seen this methodology being used lately?!)

He then cites historical proof: "Within a few months, President Johnson rammed the four central elements of his Great Society program through," and Medicare and Medicaid were born. Emanuel says that the reason the Clinton administration couldn't pass a health care bill was because it waited too long (after his inauguration – the political honeymoon period) and it "established a large task force that worked in secret. … The delay and the secrecy were deadly" (p. 181). Sounds to me that Dr. Emanuel is as much a political strategist as he is a doctor.

You are bearing witness to these political principles at work at this very moment in Washington and across this nation with Obamacare. President Obama and Dr. Emanuel both know that if too much time elapses their legislation is likely to die (and their preferences with it) because Americans will actually have time to examine it and come up with better alternatives.

Third, as Obama crusades around the country pitching Obamacare, he continues to avoid giving virtually any specific details of the program. That too is a strategy of Dr. Emanuel: "Americans need to avoid the policy weeds. Focusing on details will only distract and create tangles and traps" (p. 183). So "details" of health care reform are "weeds"? That is why we continue to hear only only warm-and-fuzzy generalities from Obama like,"If you've got health care, the only thing we're going to do is we're going to reform the insurance companies so that they can't cheat you."

Fourth, Dr. Emanuel describes a comprehensive government health care program that is completely run by a national health board with 12 regional health boards ("modeled on the Federal Reserve system" – p. 83).

Imagine a national health board with the power of the Federal Reserve?! Imagine them doing with medicine and health what the Fed does with interest rates and the financial system. An apolitical board like that sounds appealing at first, until it is immune in ways (like the Federal Reserve) to congressional protocol and oversight. Once these boards are in place, like the Federal Reserve system over our financial system, they will have absolute power over the ebbs and flows of the medical world.

Critics would say, "But that is not the national board as described in Obamacare or H.R. 3200." Not yet anyway. Of course, Obamacare uses much softer language for describing a national board – they call it the "Health Benefits Advisory Committee" (there's that "advisory" word again!), which would be under the executive branch (like the Federal Reserve).

Does anyone doubt that the duties and power of the Health Benefits Advisory Committee will morph and grow over time? And what liberties and controls will they have 10 years from now? I have a hunch they will be very reflective of the power of the Federal Reserve – I'll let you guess why.

Fifth, Dr. Emanuel believes in the "phasing out of Medicare and Medicaid" (Pages 88-89, 94-95). Of course, no proposed legislative wording by the current administration is going to describe the eventual elimination of these programs, at least in these incipient stages – remember, this bill is a sales pitch, too. But what stops the "Health Benefits Advisory Committee" care from "phasing them out" down the road? Could their eventual termination be the reason this administration won't merely reform those programs to accommodate their universal health care desires? But then again, maybe you believe Obama when he "avoids the policy weeds" by saying, "Nobody is talking about trying to change Medicare benefits. What we want to do is to eliminate some of the waste that is being paid for out of the Medicare trust fund."

Sixth, Dr. Emanuel believes in ending employer-based health care (Pages 109-112). President Obama knows that to propose such a restriction on American freedoms and choice would mean certain death to this legislation, let alone likely his popularity as president. However, throughout all Obama's rhetoric about how Americans will have the choice of health care insurance, they will have little choice in the matter, especially when employers are footing the bill. As any businessman knows, why would a company pay the exorbitant costs for employees' private health care insurance when they can benefit big time from a free ticket for government health care coverage? Some have even proposed that provisions in the House's health care legislation, under the titles "Limitation of New Enrollment" and "Limitation on Changes in Terms or Conditions" (p. 16), could essentially make individual private medical insurance illegal.

Seventh, Dr. Emanuel believes a universal health care program could be paid for by phasing out Medicare and Medicaid, adopting a value-added tax of at least 10 percent, etc., and then allowing Americans themselves to "pay extra with after-tax dollars" (p. 100) for additional medical benefits (beyond the norm of the government program). Ironically, Obamacare proposes cutting $500 billion from Medicare and proposing taxes upon the wealthy, as just a couple ways to pay for the $1 trillion it will cost to run the new national health care program over 10 years. But even the Congressional Budget Office says that won't be near enough.

Just last week at a Montana town hall meeting, the president continued to struggle to explain how he would pay for Obamacare without taxing the middle class. Of course, three of his top advisers (Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers and White House senior adviser David Axlrod) have already gone on the record saying they will not rule out the need for a middle-class tax hike to pay for Obamacare.

The truth is, whether the money comes from higher corporate taxes, taxing employer-provided health insurance, eliminating health savings accounts or flexible spending accounts, limiting the deductibility of medical expenses, increasing taxes on selective consumptives, etc., or all the above, trust me, sooner or later, we all will pay.

Eighth, speaking of ethics, enough has been written lately about Dr. Emanuel's end-of-life counsel and consultation, including his advice from The Hastings Center Report (1996) that medical care should be withheld from those "who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens. ... An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia."

I find it striking that Obama's ethics have similarly allowed him already to pass more laws increasing the terminations of life in the womb than any administration since Roe v. Wade. To add insult to injury, Congress has repeatedly rejected amendments to this universal health care bill that would prevent federal funds to be used for abortions.

Friends, if you don't think Dr. Emanuel's and President Obama's "life ethics" will bear out in the practice of the policies within their future universal health care program, I have a London bridge to sell you in Lake Havasu City, Ariz. Obama was telling the truth about this campaign promise: His presidency would provide "the most sweeping ethics reform in history." I guess more Americans should have been watching which way he was sweeping.

In short, whether in title or not, Dr. Emanuel is Obama's health care czar. Obamacare is a junior version of Emanuel-care, or should I say the beginning stage of Emanuel-care. What's almost eerie is how they both could be juxtaposed to intersect in full bloom sometime in America's future.

One last thing: Someone once said to me, "If two people think so much alike, you can bet that one person is not thinking." Think about it.

Healthcare reform bill = loss of privacy
OneNewsNow - 8/28/2009 7:00:00 AM

A free-market think tank is warning that the House healthcare bill could potentially give thousands of federal employees access to citizens' financial records.

 
The House healthcare bill, H.R. 3200, expressly gives the new Health Choices Commissioner the right to look at an individual's tax return to determine what medical benefits or subsidies that person qualifies for. Section 431 of the bill allows the new commissioner to view individuals' filing status, adjusted gross income, number of dependents, and tax credits taken.
 
Tom Giovanetti with the Institute for Policy Innovation says there are egregious violations of privacy in the draft legislation.
 
"A lot of people who are concerned about privacy, they're concerned about privacy from corporations. They're worried about things like browser cookies....And our point here is that what we really ought to be concerned about is privacy from government," he suggests. "Hewlett Packard can't knock my door in, handcuff me, and carry my child away; but the federal government can do that. It does have that kind of power."
 
Giovanetti calls it a "top-down, government-knows-all approach."
 
"So, it's for the government to decide who qualifies for what and who needs what assistance. So to make those decisions, they've got to find out all sorts of details about your finances," he points out. "There's another provision in the bill that gives them the right to look at your Social Security records. They'll be able to look and see what your Social Security benefits are. They'll be able to look and see how much you've paid in."
 
According to Giovanetti, a companion bill in the Senate leaves open the possibility that the new government Health Choices Commission would have the ability to look into a person's bank accounts to view the account balance at the time of medical service to determine whether he or she has the ability to pay.