CALIFORNIA YANKEE

Obama Budget Dangerous Step to Rationed Medical Care

How much is a life worth? That is the question President Obama asks in his latest budget when he proposes the federal government negotiate drug prices under Medicare Part D. The truth is, as Europe’s experience shows, governments don't "negotiate" prices, they either set prices or prohibit access in their countries to higher-cost medicine.

This new budget continues Obama’s lurch toward a full-blown government-run healthcare system. The president wants to allow bean counters to conduct cost-benefit analyses on life-saving treatments, bypassing both doctors and patients. That will cost lives and crush medical innovation.

Consider the nationalized approach of some European socialist democracies. National health systems from Switzerland and Great Britain refuse to pay for cutting-edge drugs, limiting availability and subjecting patients to substandard care. Britain, in particular, forces drug manufacturers into an all-or-nothing program, where they either negotiate with the government or are unable to sell any drugs in the country.

That’s why Nivolumab, a drug that is "twice as effective as chemotherapy and carries far fewer side effects" will not be available to cancer patients in Britain.

By everyone’s estimates, Nivolumab is revolutionary; it took the one-year survival rate of severely-ill lung cancer patients up nearly 100 percent – from 24 percent under current treatments to 42 percent. The drug doesn’t just extend lives, but it also helps shrink tumors - an outcome experts say is "almost unthinkable on chemotherapy."

Yet as many life-saving procedures are, it is also costly: Around $90,000 per year for treatment.

That forced Britain’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence into a position to quantify the value of lung cancer patients' lives. Their analysis: the costs are too high to justify the amount of lives saved. Potentially, more than 17,000 lung and skin-cancer patients a year will go without access to this innovative treatment.

But there’s another, potentially more disturbing trend in Britain – a disparity in care between patients in poor and affluent areas. How does that play out? A study of medical records from 2002 to 2013 found that patients in poor areas were substantially less likely to be prescribed anti-dementia drugs, according to the University College London:

"When access to any treatment is rationed, wealthier patients and their families tend to be better-equipped to navigate the healthcare system and get around the restrictions," explains study author Dr Claudia Cooper (UCL Psychiatry). "They might do more research and know what to do to get the diagnosis and treatment that they want. They could also be more confident and assertive in asking doctors for specific treatments. Observational studies like this can increase our understanding of possible links between inequality and treatment outcomes, but they do not show direct cause and effect as we cannot rule out other explanations."

For now, the U.S. is a great place to receive medical care, particularly as it relates to early access to prescription medication:

Americans also have faster access to new drugs than patients in many other countries. That’s in part because the U.S. has always been a very attractive market for pharmaceutical companies: It’s big, accounting for 34 percent of the world market; has low levels of price regulation; and offers few barriers to market entry once FDA approval has been secured. (By contrast, in some other countries there may be a time lag between clinical approval of a drug and the point when it is added to official lists of reimbursable drugs.)

The result is that companies often choose the U.S. to launch new products. And, because the US market is so big and profitable, investments in research and development have long been steered towards meeting its clinical needs.

That’s why Nivolumab is available in the United States, where the government does not yet hold the power to ration care.

Cross posted from RedState.

Trump Wins Some Hispanic Immigrants

After Donald Trump called illegal immigrants drug-dealing, rapists, he went to the Mexican border and declared "the Hispanics love me." Entrance polls from Tuesday's Nevada Republican Caucus show that the Donald won the Hispanic vote. To be clear, Trump won the votes of some Hispanic immigrant voters. Not the votes of drug-dealing, raping illegals, because not even New York City has yet been able to get authorization to let illegal immigrants vote.

The Trump's share of  Hispanic voters almost as much as the combined share received by the two Cuban-American Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio:

• Trump - 44%
• Rubio - 28%
• Cruz - 18%

Trump was pleased with the finding:

"You know what I really am happy about, because I've been saying it for a long time," Trump told supporters in his victory speech early Wednesday. "46 percent with the Hispanics ... number one with Hispanics!"

Before we declare the efforts of some Hispanic organizations to defeat Trump a failure, remember that entrance polls are not that reliable. And especially in this case, the poll results need to be taken with a huge grain of salt. Only eight percent of Nevada Republican caucus voters identified as Latino, according to the entrance polls. And the Fox News Republican caucuses entrance poll consisted of surveys of 1,573 voters at 25 precincts across Nevada. As Henry Olson, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, cautioned the sample side was "[t]oo small to trust."

cross posted from RedState.

The 'Poorly Educated' Trump Ad (video)

During Donald's Trump victory speech after winning the Nevada Republican Caucuses, he declared that he loved "the poorly educated":

I won with the evangelicals. We won with young, we won with old, we won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated -- I LOVE the poorly educated.

According to the Washington Post, journalists have been getting guff for months for pointing out that Trump's base of support includes those who don't have college degrees and are less formally educated. The politically correct say its wrong to call these folks even "less-educated."

Jimmy Kimmel decided to help the poorly educated people of America cut an in support of the Donald. Just Watch:

America needs a Leeder.

Someone who is tough enough to stand up to the terists.

And secure the Mexico/Merica border.

We need a president who will stand up to dictators like Lil' Kim, Voldemot Putin and Chinese President XI.

Donald Trump believes in the Constipation. And he will protect your rights under the Second Commencement.

Lets make America Grate Again.

Cross posted from RedState.

Someone Tell Trump, Cruz And Rubio That New York City Wants Illegals To Vote

The New York Post reports that "new legislation is being pushed that would give illegal aliens the right to vote" in certain New York City Elections. The proposal was recently discussed at a Black and Latino Legislative Caucus event in Albany and according to the Post, which is winning support from the city’s black and Hispanic activists. Fortunately New York Conservatives oppose this misguided attempt to further boost  Democratic Party enrollment. New York State Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long threw cold water on the idea:

This is outrageous . . . American Citizens have the right to determine the destiny of towns, villages, cities, states and the country.

The proposal would allow New York City's estimated 1.3 million non-citizen residents, about 500,000 of whom are undocumented, to vote in New York City’s 2017 elections for mayor, comptroller, public advocate, borough president and City Council.

Chairman Long has it exactly right. This is just another very bad, old idea that left-wing Liberal/Progressive extremists won't let stay dead.

During the last century this dumb idea was put to rest. By 1900, nearly one-half of the states and territories had some experience with voting by aliens. But then, anti-immigration feeling ran very high and States started to end the practice of aliens voting. According to Wikipedia, Non-citizen voting in elections became extinct when Arkansas became the last state to ban it in 1926. In 1931, political scientist Leon Aylsworth noted: "For the first time in over a hundred years, a national election was held in 1928 in which no alien in any state had the right to cast a vote for a candidate for any office – national, state, or local."

At least until the era of Barack Obama. According to a study by professors at Old Dominion University and George Mason University, approximately 6.4 percent of non-citizens voted in the 2008 presidential election. The figure for the 2010 midterm elections was 2.2 percent. The Obama administration is fighting state-led efforts to ensure that only American citizens are electing our leaders. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) — a small federal agency that exists primarily to assist the states in creating the federal form citizens used to register to vote by mail, stopped Arizona and Kansas from requiring people to verify their citizenship before voting.

This dispute went all the way to the Supreme Court. In the 2013 case, Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, a divided Court said that Arizona could not implement such a requirement unless and until the EAC agreed to change the instructions for use of the federal form to include the Arizona requirements. The majority opinion in that case, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, stipulated that if the EAC refused Arizona’s request to accommodate the proof-of-citizenship requirement, the state could sue the EAC and establish in court that "a mere oath will not suffice to effectuate its citizenship requirement and that the EAC is therefore under a non-discretionary duty to include Arizona’s concrete evidence requirement on the Federal Form."

From RedState.

Is Kasich ready to quit?

The Washington Examiner reports that during an appearance at Georgia's Kennesaw State University Tuesday, Gov. John Kasich was urged by a member of the audience to take the gloves off. In response, Kasich started to sound like he is ready to quit the Residential race. Watch the video:

I don't know if my purpose is to be president. My purpose is to be out here, doing what I think I need to be doing and we'll see where it ends up. And if it's not this crusade, then it will be another one. Maybe it will be a really small one somewhere in my kid's school. Who knows?

That doesn't sound like he still has that fire in the belly thing. This also comes as the Republican Establishment is pressuring Kasich to end his Presidential campaign.

Earlier today Kasich was confronted with the new Quinnipiac University Ohio poll that shows Kasich trailing Donald Trump 31% to 26% among likely Republican primary voters, which is within the poll's +/-3.6 percent margin of error. Kasich replied that at least he isn’t doing as poorly as Sen. Marco Rubio is in his home state of Florida. the Real Clear Politics average for the Florida Republican Presidential primary Has Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz ahead of Rubio:

• Donald Trump - 40%
• Ted Cruz - 19%
• Marco Rubio - 13.7%

All the polls considered in the RCP average were conducted in January.

Cross posted from RedState.

Hispanic Coalition Seek To Destroy Trump, Rubio and Cruz

Nine Hispanic so-called advocacy groups have formed a coalition to partner with Google, Fuze, Instagram and YouTube to urge Hispanics to register and vote. The coalition, the National Latino Civic Engagement Table includes:

• Hispanic Federation Labor
• Council for Latin American Advancement
• Latino Victory Foundation
• Mi Familia Vota Education Fund
• National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials
• Educational Fund
• National Council of La Raza
• Voto Latino

The announcement came just before Nevada caucuses where Latino voters are expected to play a key role. Latinos represent 28 percent of the state's population, and about 17 percent of eligible voters. So Tuesday's Nevada Republican caucuses will be the first true test of Republican Latino voters.

The coalition of nine left-leaning organizations claims to be nonpartisan, but the leaders left no doubt that they intend to go after Trump, Rubio, Cruz and others who have criticized illegal immigrants and comprehensive immigration reform. Brent Wilkes, national director of the League of United Latin American Citizens made it clear:

In 2016 our organizations are working to ensure that the state's 328,000 registered Latino voters are well informed, not only on where to vote, but also on the candidates' views on issues that matter to Latinos. Our efforts in Nevada will build on our recent success in Iowa.

[. . .]

In the end, we will demonstrate that the Latino vote matters and candidates who engage in hateful rhetoric will pay the price at the ballot box.

LULAC contacted nearly 50,000 Latinos in Iowa through phone calls, mailers and caucus training, attracting more than 10,000 Latinos to participate in the Feb. 1 Iowa caucus.

Contrast the confrontational attitude of the new coalition to the Conservative Latino organization The LIBRE Initiative, which last week criticized President Obama's proposed fiscal year 2017 budget for failing the Hispanic community. Daniel Garza, Executive Director of The LIBRE Initiative, said the following in a written statement:

The Hispanic community is a critical part of America’s success. Each day we play a greater role in the economy, and in our political leadership. Nevertheless, in yielding to federal policies and programs that rely on the power of the state, over the individual - with promises of improved well-being and increased opportunities in the private sector - we are left with greater debt, lower wages, and potentially a reduced standard of living and a diminished private sector for our children and grandchildren. We can no longer acquiesce to those who seek to double down on these failed policies that have only served to hold back minority communities – especially to those who pursue a big government agenda on a much grander scale of magnitude. Lawmakers need to recognize where the agenda of the last seven years has failed us, and take a new approach.

In the past, several of the organizations in the new coalition criticized LIBRE for opposing Latino candidates. Now they're out to destroy the Latino candidates Cruz and Rubio.

Cross posted from RedState.

Romney To Rally Establishment Around Rubio

Numerous sources are reporting Mitt Romney will endorse Sen. Marco Rubio.  That's a story Rubio denies:

"That report is false, I have no reason to believe he's anywhere near endorsing anyone. I would love to have his endorsement. It's important to nominate someone who can bring everyone together ... and that's one reason I think I'll be the nominee, and Romney could be a part of that," Rubio said on CNN's "State of the Union."

The Establishment hesitated to rally behind Rubio as long as Jeb Bush remained in the race. The Republican Establishment, seeing the Bush campaign's inability to gain traction, actually began to rally around Rubio last week. At the New York Times' "FiveThirtyEight," Harry Enten noted the Establishment movement to endorse Rubio:

Rubio has picked up the endorsements of Gov. Sam Brownback of Kansas and Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina this week. Indeed, Rubio has greatly increased his endorsement pace since the Iowa caucuses, picking up 42 weighted endorsement points in the past two-and-a-half weeks, according to the FiveThirtyEight endorsement tracker. That’s nearly half of the 85 points he has overall.

FiveThirtyEight’s system gives 10 points for endorsements from governors, five points for endorsements from U.S. senators and one point for endorsements from U.S. representatives.

It's not clear how much endorsements help, But there can be little doubt that having Gov. Nikki Haley, Sen. Tim Scott and Congressman Trey Gowdy, all TEA Party favorites, was a big boost for Rubio in South Carolina. But can you really consider that Establishment support?

Will Romney's support help Rubio? It may make him more acceptable to the Establishment voters -- the nearly half of the Republican primary electorate not voting for Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz, giving Rubio an edge over Kasich. Politico is calling Rubio Romney 2.0:

But strip away Rubio’s rags-to-presidential contender biography, and his candidacy has more than a little in common with Romney’s -- from policy platforms that are largely in sync to a braintrust that boasts a number of the same key figures. When it comes to the substance of what he’d try to do in the job, at least, Rubio is not promising a sharp break from the last establishment favorite the party put forward.

"I think that they are very much on the same place on most of the issues," Vin Weber, a former House member and special adviser to Romney in 2012, said approvingly. On foreign policy, taxes and economic growth, “their positions are very similar, and on most of the other domestic and social issues they come down the same place as well.”

Romney's former political director Rich Beeson serves as deputy campaign manager for Rubio. Lanhee Chen of the Hoover Institute worked as Romney's policy director and now serves as a policy advisor to Rubio. And Rubio's political director, Jessica Ennis, was Romney's deputy operations director. Rubio's finance people, Annie Baker and Eli Miller, also worked for Romney's 2012 campaign. And Rubio's outside strategists, including Poolhouse Digital, which is run by two Romney alums: Will Ritter and Tim O’Toole.

The difference between Rubio and Romney is the messenger. It's Rubio's American Dream story versus Romney's silver spoon and Rubio's gift of being perhaps the most articulate candidate since Ronald Reagan. As Politico puts it:

At every campaign stop, Marco Rubio calls it “the biggest lie in American politics” – the notion that Republicans are the party of the super wealthy, and hopelessly out of touch with the working class and minorities.

The party, in other words, that Democrats eviscerated with Mitt Romney at the helm in 2012.

[. . .]

We can’t afford to keep being your father’s Republican Party. And if you want to stop talking about expanding the GOP tent and actually do it – without compromising on principle – I’m your guy.

Sure, there is a huge connection between the defeated Romney campaign and Rubio campaign, But that hardly makes the once TEA Party favorite Rubio Romney 2.0. As Rubio continues to morph into the Establishment favorite the question remains, can he make a dent in the Trump and Cruz anti-Establishment voters. Will enough of those voters give up the grudge they continue to hold against Rubio for his Gang of Eight work on comprehensive immigration reform? Or as those voters refer to it -- Amnesty.

Cross posted from RedState.