Right Pundits is having a vote to determine the Conservative of the Year for 2009.

They have seven nominees.

Whichever nominee has the most votes as of January 15th at midnight will be named Conservative of the Year and a $100 prize will be donated to Soldiers’ Angels.

Go here to vote.

Vote in comments. Right Pundits donates 2 cents to Soldiers’ Angels for every comment made as well.

In the past week or so I heard someone on one of those talking heads show state that insurance companies and medical providers should be happy with the government’s health care bill because they’ll all get more customers and that means more money.

Mayo Clinic in Glendale, Arizona is going to stop taking Medicare patients because the government pays too little. This will be a two year pilot project that may or may not have implications for the rest of the Mayo system.

Through the government, Medicare and Medicaid pay a certain amount to doctors. The amount the government pays has no direct correlation to what it costs to provide the product or service. The government can’t cut the costs to the provider simply by paying said provider less.

I’d sure like to be able to do that. Mortgage payment too high? Why just pay a lower amount to the bank. The only costs that are cut are your own (and probably only temporarily at that – until the bank forecloses).

If it costs me, let’s say, $30.00 to provide a particular product or service (including all overhead, wholesale, etc) and the government only wants to pay me $17 for it, I lose money. One hundred customers for that product or service equals $1,300* loss.

More customers won’t necessarily reduce the cost. Sure, fixed costs are the same no matter how many customers one has, and the more customers, the less per customer the fixed costs are. So let’s assume that what costs me $30 with 100 customers may cost $28 with 200 customers. But the government is still only paying me $17. So now I’m losing $2,200* on 200 customers rather than losing $1,300* on 100 customers.

The government in its infinite wisdom wants to cut Medicare by half a trillion dollars. That means they’ll pay me even less than they are now for the same services. So let’s say there’re 200 customers for a product or service that costs me $28 to provide, but the government will now pay only $14. Oh, and they’ll send me 200 more customers. So even though, because of fixed costs, my costs goes down a dollar, but Big Government drops its payment to me by $3. So I’m getting $5,600 for something that costs me $11,200. Now, instead of losing $13 per customer with 100 customers, I’m losing $14 per customer with 400 customers.

You know what? I think I’ll just stop losing money on these customers. Why should I be paying even the $13 per customer with 100 customers (less work) let alone pay $14 per customer (much more work). Me paying for them to get my product or service. Not worth it.

I think I’ll do what Mayo Glendale is doing. I’ll stop taking those customers.

Update: Dr. C.L. Gray writes similarly from a physician’s point of view at Big Government.

Update 2: Ed Morrissey has more on the closing of the Glendale Mayo Clinic.

*amounts changed because math was previously wrong, thanks Jeanette!

For the geek in all of us.

Today is one of 01001 (9) binary dates this year:

010110  (01/01/10)

011010 (01/10/10)

011110 (01/11/10)

100110 (10/01/10)

101010 (10/10/10)

101110 (10/11/10)

110110 (11/01/10)

111010 (11/10/10)

111110 (11/11/10)

Good King Wenceslas

Good King Wenceslas looked out
On the feast of Stephen
When the snow lay round about
Deep and crisp and even
Brightly shone the moon that night
Though the frost was cruel
When a poor man came in sight
Gath’ring winter fuel

“Hither, page, and stand by me
If thou know’st it, telling
Yonder peasant, who is he?
Where and what his dwelling?”
“Sire, he lives a good league hence
Underneath the mountain
Right against the forest fence
By Saint Agnes’ fountain.”

“Bring me flesh and bring me wine
Bring me pine logs hither
Thou and I will see him dine
When we bear him thither.”
Page and monarch forth they went
Forth they went together
Through the rude wind’s wild lament
And the bitter weather

“Sire, the night is darker now
And the wind blows stronger
Fails my heart, I know not how,
I can go no longer.”
“Mark my footsteps, my good page
Tread thou in them boldly
Thou shalt find the winter’s rage
Freeze thy blood less coldly.”

In his master’s steps he trod
Where the snow lay dinted
Heat was in the very sod
Which the Saint had printed
Therefore, Christian men, be sure
Wealth or rank possessing
Ye who now will bless the poor
Shall yourselves find blessing

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*** For the FTC, if someone clicks the link above (or any of the Amazon links in the sidebars) and purchases something, I will receive a small commission. It is a good deal however, especially if one can’t get out to shop.***

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen, but do you recall… the most famous reindeer of all?

Rudolph the red nosed reindeer
Had a very shiny nose
And if you ever saw it
You would even say it glowed
All of the other reindeer
Used to laugh and call him names
They never let poor Rudolph
Join in any reindeer games

Then one foggy Christmas Eve
Santa came to say
Rudolph with your nose so bright
Won’t you guide my sleigh tonight
Then all the reindeer loved him
And they shouted out with glee
Rudolph the red nosed reindeer
You’ll go down in his-to-ry!

White Christmas (The Incomparable Bing Crosby – from Holiday Inn)

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas
Just like the ones I used to know
Where the treetops glisten,
and children listen
To hear sleigh bells in the snow

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas
With every Christmas card I write
May your days be merry and bright
And may all your Christmases be white

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas
With every Christmas card I write
May your days be merry and bright
And may all your Christmases be white

That’s the name of a Star Trek: Voyager episode first aired November 1, 2000, right before the election.

It was recently rerun on Spike TV and it’s quite interesting in this day and age.

The Doctor’s Holographic Emitter that allows him to interact outside the sickbay or holodeck is stolen and sold to the administrator of an alien hospital. The Doctor is activated on Level Red, a dark, crowded level with many patients and few doctors. Many of these patients are dying for want of medication, but The Allocator – a computer program that decides who gets what – found that the Red Patient’s TC (treatment coefficient) was too low.

The Doctor did what he could for the patients on Level Red, so well that The Allocator reassigned him to Level Blue, where the TC per patient was much higher (Government workers vs laborers) and the doctor/patient ratio was one to one. These patients were more valuable don’t you know.

The Level Blue patients were being given a medication to slow arterial aging. Totally unnecessary to their health, was just supposed to help extend the life of the Level Blue patient. Kind of like a Botox injection for purely cosmetic reasons versus a Botox injection that would kill a tumor and save a life. Only there’s only so many injections and The Allocator has decided that the Level Blue people are more worthy than the Level Red people.

Of course the Doctor steals some of the medication from Level Blue and brings it to Level Red to treat the patients there and the hospital administrator comes down to chew him out. The doctor infects the Administrator with the disease so as to blackmail him into getting medication for those who really need it on Level Red.

This is where we are headed people. Because the government won’t be able to fund full health care for everyone, the government will have to find its own version of “The Allocator” that will use some kind of extremely complicated formula to determine who gets the necessary surgeries and who gets to take an aspirin, who gets medication and who will just have to do without.

Mary Did You Know?

Mary, did you know?

Mary, did you know
That your baby boy will one day walk on water?
Mary, did you know
That your baby boy will save our sons and daughters?
Did you know
That your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you’ve delivered
Will soon deliver you

Mary, did you know
That your baby boy will give sight to a blind man?
Mary, did you know
That your baby boy will calm a storm with his hand?
Did you know
That your baby boy has walked where angels trod?
When you kiss your little baby
You’ve kissed the face of God

Mary, did you know?
The blind will see
The deaf will hear
The dead will live again
The lame will leap
The dumb will speak
The praises of the lamb

Mary, did you know
That your baby boy is Lord of all creation?
Mary, did you know
That your baby boy will one day rule the nations?
Did you know
That your baby boy is heaven’s perfect lamb?
This sleeping child you’re holding
Is the great I AM

(buddy greene, mark lowry)

We Three Kings

Hugh Jackman! (Wolverine….), David Hobson, Peter Cousen