Life's Inanities and Ironies

This venerable and much honored WW II vet is well known in Hawaii for his seventy-plus years of service to patriotic organizations and causes all over the country. A humble man without a political bone in his body, he has never spoken out before about a government official, until now. He dictated this letter to a friend, signed it and mailed it to the president. Dear President Obama, My name is Harold Estes, approaching 95 on December 13 of this year. People meeting me for the first time don't believe my age because I remain wrinkle free and pretty much mentally alert. I enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1934 and served proudly before, during and after WW II retiring as a Master Chief Bos'n Mate. Now I live in a "rest home" located on the western end of Pearl Harbor allowing me to keep alive the memories of 23 years of service to my country. One of the benefits of my age, perhaps the only one, is to speak my mind, blunt and direc...

Yes, Obama really said this: 'We also want to start rewarding doctors for quality, not just the quantity of care that they provide. Instead of rewarding them for how many procedures they perform or how many tests they order, we’ll bundle payments so providers aren’t paid for every treatment they offer to a patient with a chronic condition like diabetes, but instead are paid for how are they managing that disease overall." Make no mistake, this is not about health care. It’s about absolute power. It’s about playing God. Imagine a 78-year old man with heart disease who goes in for quadruple bypass surgery. The surgery was a success. He thinks so. His doctor thinks so. His family thinks so. But Obama doesn’t think so. Why would a successful procedure be unsuccessful under the Obama health care plan? Well, for starters, this man is 78 years old. By democrat standards that’s way too old for this type of procedure unless you’re Ted Kennedy and you need another lobotomy. This man cou...