The New Welfare State - video added

When new is old … and scary too. Two stories jumped out at me this morning and they are worth noting.First … Hugh Hewitt talked with South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford … the money would be nice, he told him … but it comes with strings. One of the strings … “loosen work requirements for WELFARE RECIPIENTS.”

Congressional Democrats are proposing to “stimulate” the economy by discouraging Americans from working, loosening welfare reform’s work requirements, and encouraging more Americans to become dependent on government programs.

But that’s not all … more disturbing is the provision concerning “electronic medical records.”

Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.

But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”

Make sure you read both. Stimulus … not exactly. The revival of the welfare state … exactly.

Update: Yesterday on Morning Joe, Joe, Mika and the gang discuss the Newsweek cover story “We are all socialists now”. They kick the idea around like its some abstract. Amazingly they all start out agreeing that it is true … and then close trying to cover their tracks. But no real concern or worry about the path we are headed down … and that worries me. Perhaps because they all make so much money they wouldn’t be on the crummy plan … planned.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yN_JSXwrI0