Rebutting, rephrasing, resisting and unmasking the most socialistic, propagandistic, deadliest and partisan fakeries in the week’s fake news.
We are all socialists now
The leftist website Huffington Post tells us that American conservatives are about to embrace a single payer health insurance system. Never mind that the Republican-controlled Congress is scuffling to meld disparate ideas about replacing Obamacare with a new Trumpcare/McConnellcare/Ryancare bill that, like Obamacare, is little more than an insurance subsidy/wealth transfer bill: And this while the Republican base clamors for Obamacare repeal.
Conservative voters – at least those with cognitive abilities greater than slugs – prefer to return to the pre-Obamacare system if not an outright free market health insurance system. But as HuffPo tells us:

Don’t tell anyone, but American conservatives will soon be embracing single-payer healthcare, or some other form of socialized healthcare.
Yes, that’s a bold claim given that a GOP-controlled Congress and President are poised to un-socialize a great deal of healthcare, and may even pull it off. But within five years, plenty of Republicans will be loudly supporting or quietly assenting to universal Medicare.
And that’s a good thing, because socializing healthcare is the only demonstrably effective way to control costs and cover everyone. It results in a healthier country and it saves a ton of money.

Oh wait! That’s not from HuffPo at all. That’s from the homepage of American Conservative. So a website that supposedly advocates for conservative ideas of smaller government and more personal freedom is running a column advocating for a government-run socialized healthcare system?
In “The Conservative Case for Universal Healthcare,” author Chase Madar, tells us that socialized medicine costs less because:

Getting rid of private insurers, which suck up a lot money without adding any value, would result in a huge savings, as much as 15 percent by one academic estimate published in the American Journal of Public Health. When the government flexing its monopsony muscle as the overwhelmingly largest buyer of medical services, drugs and technology, it would also lower prices-–that’s what happens in nearly every other country.

There is so much fakery in Madar’s tale it’s tough to know where to start. Let’s first examine why insurers “suck up a lot of money.” There hasn’t been a free market in health care or health insurance — and there’s a big difference between those two things – for many years.
That’s because the government – both state and federal – regulates what must be covered. That’s central planning, which never works to anyone’s benefit unless you are a politician, a government bureaucrat or a crony corporation.
Government involvement in the process through Medicare and Medicaid payments (that began by paying “cost-plus,” which included a markup over the actual cost), tax policies, and government policies limiting doctors, healthcare facilities and insurance choices while subsidizing their usage drove up prices far beyond the rate of inflation.
And if by “Republicans,” Madar is referring to Republican politicians in Washington, then he has a point. They are, indeed, embracing socialized medicine, as evidenced by the plans being floated.
But the only way government can solve a problem it created is to get out of the way and quit doing what it’s been doing – interfering in the market. But that’s not likely to happen because too much money is at stake.
Once again, Obamacare is not healthcare
No matter how many times politicians tell you it is, Obamacare is nothealthcare.
When Sen. Chuck Schumer (Communist—New York) goes on the Senate floor and says that repealing Obamacare will leave millions without healthcare, he’s lying. Obamacare is a health insurance subsidy bill. It is not healthcare.
And no one will be without healthcare if Obamacare is repealed root and branch. Laws remain in place requiring hospitals to treat anyone who shows up at their doors regardless of ability to pay.
Supplements… Oh the horrors!
The medical-industrial complex wants people drug dependent and is terrified that people might learn they can take care of their own health by eating right – which means eschewing processed foods and consuming whole, natural foods — and using natural supplements. And the mainstream media whole-heartedly supports the medical-industrial complex because Big Pharma spends billions of dollars annually running ads telling people that their latest chemical concoction is the path to health utopia. It’s a marriage made in financial heaven.
So it’s no surprise that CBS fired a salvo against natural supplements with a report that lumps natural supplements in with energy drinks and weight lifting and weight loss supplement concoctions and implies that natural supplements are bad and are responsible for a rise in calls to poison control centers nationwide.
Like the chemical supplements created in labs, many natural supplements have maximum dosages and taking them in larger than recommended doses can cause harm. But chemical supplements created in labs cause far more harm than natural supplements — killing some 209 people every day who are taking them as prescribed. And that doesn’t include the millions who annually abuse prescriptions drugs. Overdose deaths from opioids alone surpassed 34,000 annually in 2015.
Conversely, most natural supplements – vitamin C, for instance – can be taken in massive quantities with no adverse health effects.
If we handed out Pinocchios for fakery, like some sites do, this one would rate a sackful.
Speaker Ryan jumps to defense of Robert Mueller
House Speaker Paul Ryan (Globalist—Wisconsin) jumped to the defense of special counsel Robert Mueller in a radio interview on Monday. As The Washington Examiner tells it, Ryan was appearing with Wisconsin-based radio host Jay Weber, when the conversation turned to Donald Trump’s criticism of Robert Mueller’s “witch hunt”:

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., defended Robert Mueller, special counsel leading the Russia investigation, on Monday and argued he is “anything but” a partisan amid ongoing concerns from the Trump administration about the direction of his investigation.
“Remember, Bob Mueller is a Republican who was appointed by a Republican who served in the Republican administration who crossed over and stayed on ’til his term ended.”

So how “non-partisan” is Mueller? He was appointed FBI director by George W. Bush in 2001 and served until 2013. He was so “non-partisan” that President Obama extended his 10-year term by two years. Since then we have learned that under Mueller Iraq war intelligence was fabricated by the CIA; Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder ran a gun-running operation called Fast and Furious that armed Mexican narcoterrorists and resulted in the deaths of Americans; that the Hillary Clinton State Department was running guns to terrorists in Syria (that resulted in the deaths of Americans); that the FBI was investigating and wiretapping reporters like Fox News’ James Rosen, some with the Associated Press and, likely, hacked investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson’s computer; that Hillary Clinton had kept classified emails on a home-brew server; the IRS was targeting conservative groups; and that Holder was held in contempt of Congress. Mueller’s FBI did nothing about any of these things.
So if by bi-partisan Ryan means that Mueller covers for both Democrat and Republican criminals, I guess that’s not fake news after all.
Oh, and under Mueller’s leadership, the FBI purged all anti-terrorism training material deemed “offensive” to Muslims after secret meetings between Islamic organizations and the FBI chief, according to documents uncovered by Judicial Watch.
Better off dead
The parents of poor Charlie Gard gave up their fight to keep their ill infant son alive and move him to America for experimental treatment after medical scans showed that his condition had deteriorated to such a point that further treatment was fruitless.
That was not the case when they began their fight. But when government controls medicine it controls who gets what treatment and, conversely, who gets no treatment.
European courts ruled that it alone, not Charlie’s parents, controlled his fate. With that ruling, the courts ruled that Charlie belonged to the state rather than his parents…. and that Charlie’s and his parents’ rights were subservient to the state’s.
According to The Telegraph:

European judges agreed that undergoing experimental treatment would “continue to cause Charlie significant harm” and said their decision was “final”.

The court had already determined that Charlie was brain dead. If he’s brain dead there can be no harm in continuing treatment.
In its lede for this story, The Telegraph reporter wrote:

Terminally ill baby Charlie Gard will be allowed to die after his parents lost their final legal bid to take him to the USA for specialist treatment.

Interesting wording, that. The truth is Charlie will be killed now that his parents lost their legal bid.
This would be America’s future under universal healthcare, Mr. Madar, and why universal healthcare is not better than a free market.