Senator Clinton's Baby Fund

Senator Clinton has it all wrong with her proposal that the government should give every newborn child 5,000 dollars. I realize that her campaign strategy is that if she behaves as the panderer in chief she will become the commander in chief, but I think she'd be better off proposing the exact opposite. Instead of setting up a baby fund, the government should pay 5,000 dollars to every woman of child bearing age who agrees not to have a baby. This proposal would help control population growth, which would reduce global warming, and it would also result in fewer abortions and unwanted births. In addition, it would select for good parents, since any woman willing to forego the money would likely be committed to parenthood. Finally, it would select against bad parents, since anyone who would sacrifice the joy of raising a child just to get the money probably should not be a parent. We pay farmers not to grow crops, so maybe she could just add my proposal as an amendment to the next farm bill.

Senator Clinton's Healthcare Proposal

One of Senator Clinton’s Proposals is to set up an institute similar to the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) in the United Kingdom Below you can read the specific language in her proposal:

• Fund and Distribute Independent Research to Compare Effectiveness of Treatments:


In the past decade, there has been an 80 percent growth in the numberof drugs prescribed, 100 percent growth in new medical device patents, 300 percentgrowth in teaching hospital procedures, and 1,500 percent growth in diseases withgene tests.iv Patients, providers and payers need information on how treatmentscompare to one another. The American Health Choices Plan funds a Best PracticesInstitute that would work as a partnership between the existing Agency for HealthcareResearch and Quality and the private sector to fund research on what treatments workbest and to help disseminate this information to patients and doctors to increasequality and reduce costs.

This proposal sounds like the creation of a new bureaucracy similar to the UK’s NICE (National Institute for Clinical Excellence). This government entity serves as a gatekeeper, and has ruled against reimbursement for many drugs and devices. For example, neither the beta interferons nor Copaxone, which are used to treat multiple sclerosis, have been approved for reimbursement in the United Kingdom. I excerpt in bolded italic NICE press releases referring to other examples of drugs that are used in the U.S. but whose reimbursement has been denied or greatly restricted in the UK:

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has today published final guidance on the use of pemetrexed (Alimta) for the treatment of locally advanced or metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer. The guidance does not recommend the use of this drug and means that the appeal by Eli Lilly and Co. against the recommendations contained in the Final Appraisal Determination (FAD) has not been successful.

Draft guidance from NICE on the use of ranibizumab (Lucentis) and pegaptanib (Macugen) has been issued for public consultation today (14 June 2007). The guidance recommends the use of Lucentis for about 20% of patients with wet age-related macular degeneration, a condition which causes sight loss and blindness. The draft guidance recommends Lucentis for people with predominantly classic subfoveal choroidal neovascularisation (CNV) wet age-related macular degeneration. It recommends Lucentis should be used when both eyes are affected, and that it should be used in the better-seeing eye. The guidance does not recommend the use of Macugen.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has today published final guidance on the use of bevacizumab and cetuximab for the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer. The guidance does not recommend the use of these drugs for first line therapy for metastatic colorectal cancer (bevacizumab) and therapy following the failure of an irinotecan containing chemotherapy regimen (cetuximab). In this case, our advisory committee was certainly aware thatcolorectal cancer is an aggressive disease and that the treatment options availableare limited. However, the assessment of the evidence shows that neither of these drugs represents a good use of NHS resources.”

I’ve been thinking about her proposal, and I’ve come up with the perfect name for the institute:

Biomedical Institute To Control Healthcare

If the Hsu Fits....................

It now appears that we know the source of Norman Hsu's money. He swindled $40 million from a group of investors whose money is managed by NYC investor Joel Rosenman (see the Wall Street Journal, 9/12/07, page A1). Mr. Rosenman and his investors were under the impression they were providing financing for the importation of high fashion apparel from China, but when he attempted to cash checks from Mr. Hsu, they bounced. According to Mr. Rosenman's attorney "Norman Hsu has an extraordinary ability to deceive." Well, this description explains why Mr. Hsu and Hillary Clinton had a natural affinity for one another. I hesitate to refer to a former First Lady and a Junior Senator from the great state of New York as a master of deception.....but if the hsu fits.........I just pray that the average American voter wakes up to the reality that Hillary Clinton is a disingenuous, Machiavellian, ethically defunct, power hungry politician. She is not above selling a night in the Lincoln bedroom, hawking Presidential pardons , or overlooking her husband's sexual wanderings, if it will further her objective to obtain power. I understand that people identify with the Democratic party platform, but if one believes in the ideals of the Democratic party, there are other candidates, such as Barack Obama, who espouse the Democratic platform with honesty and legitimate idealism. I do not believe in socialism or class warfare, so I would find it hard to support any Democratic candidate, but at least Mr. Obama strikes me as being truthful and sincere. I think it was Abraham Lincoln who said that "you can fool some of the people some of the time." Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton has an uncanny ability (shared with her husband and with Norman Hsu) to fool the American people, but hopefully the upcoming election will not fall into the category of "some of the time." Honest Abe, where are you when we need you?

In The Beginning

This blog is my first entry, so I will explain what "FelTempReparatio" means. It is a Latin phrase that appeared on the reverse of Roman coins minted by the emperors Constans and Constantius II in 347 A.D. to commemorate the 1,100th anniversary of the founding of Rome. These two emperors were the sons of Constantine the Great. This phrase translates into English as the phrase "happy times are here again." The irony of this phrase appearing on these coins is that the Roman Empire was under assault from the outside and engaged in infighting among internal rivals when these coins were being minted - a set of circumstances not unlike the United States of America in 2007 A.D. The western Roman Empire eventually fell to the barbarians in 476 A.D. I hope the United States will still be a strong and independent nation in 2136 A.D.