Obama "The Greatest Deception In American History"!! - Exclusive Dr. Jerome Corsi And How No One Gets A Reassigned SS Number

Video: Exclusive Dr. Jerome Corsi, Obama "the greatest deception in American History"!!

by 1776umphreys

Appearing on Liberty Talk Radio, Dr. Jerome Corsi (author of Where's the Birth Certificate? and The Obama Nation) explains his latest article on wnd.com "Postman: Ayers family put 'foreigner' Obama through school" How Postman Allen Hulton came to know President Obama as the foreign exchange student the Ayers family put through college. Jerome also discusses the current investigation conducted by Sheriff Joe Arpaio, what information we could be seeing next, and how President Obama is the greatest deception in American History.

Some believe that this all is connected to Andrew Breitbart’s death, perhaps not natural?!?

The Plot Thickens: How No One Gets A Reassigned SS Number

THIS IS MORE LIKE RIPLEY'S BELIEVE IT OR NOT....AND THE BEAT
GOES ON ~~~~EVEN CHECKS OUT ON LEFTIST SNOPES…

HOW NO ONE GETS A REASSIGNED SS NUMBER

An intensive investigation has revealed the identity of the man whose Social Security number (SSN) is being used by President

Obama:

Jean Paul Ludwig, who was born in France in 1890, immigrated to the United States in 1924, and was assigned SSN 042-68-4425 (Obama's current SSN) on or about March 1977.

Ludwig lived most of his adult life in Connecticut . Because of that, his SSN begins with the digits 042, which are among only a select few reserved for Connecticut residents.

Obama never lived or worked in that state! Therefore, there is no
reason on earth for his SSN to start with the digits 042. None
whatsoever!

Now comes the best part! Ludwig spent the final months of his life in Hawaii , where he died.

Conveniently, Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Payne Dunham, worked part-time in the Probate Office in the Honolulu Hawaii Courthouse, and therefore had access to the SSNs of deceased individuals.

The Social Security Administration was never informed of Ludwig's death, and because he never received Social Security benefits there were no benefits to stop and therefore, no questions were ever raised.

The suspicion, of course, is that Dunham, knowing her grandson was not a U.S. Citizen, either because he was born in Kenya or became a citizen of Indonesia upon his adoption by Lolo Soetoro simply scoured the probate records until she found someone who died who was not receiving Social Security benefits, and selected Mr. Ludwigs Connecticut SSN for Obama.

Just wait until Trump gets past the birth certificate and onto
the issue of Barry O's use of a stolen SSN. You will see leftist heads exploding, because they will have no way of defending Obama.

Although many Americans do not understand the meaning of the term "natural born" there are few who do not understand that if you are using someone else's SSN it is a clear indication of fraud.

Let's all get this information out to everybody on our mailing lists.
If the voters of this great nation can succeed in bringing this lying,
deceitful, cheating, corrupt, impostor to justice it will be the
biggest and best news in decades for our country and the world.

*********************************************************************************

“Very Interesting Bit of Detective Work”

1. Back in 1961 people of color were called 'Negroes.' So how can the Obama 'birth certificate' state he is 'African-American when the term wasn't even used at that time?

2. The birth certificate that the White House released lists Obama's birth as August 4, 1961. It also lists Barack Hussein Obama as his father. No big deal, right? At the time of Obama's birth, it also shows that his father is aged 25 years old, and that Obama's father was born in " Kenya , East Africa ". This wouldn't seem like anything of concern, except the fact that Kenya did not even exist until 1963, two whole years after Obama's birth, and 27 years after his father's birth. How could Obama's father have been born in a country that did not yet exist? Up and until Kenya was formed in 1963, it was known as the " British East Africa Protectorate".

3. On the birth certificate released by the White House, the listed place of birth is "Kapi'olani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital ". This cannot be, because the hospital(s) in question in 1961 were called "KauiKeolani Children's Hospital" and "Kapi'olani Maternity Home", respectively. The name did not change to Kapi'olani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital until 1978, when these two hospitals merged. How can this particular name of the hospital be on a birth certificate dated 1961 if this name had not yet been applied to it until 1978?

Resources:

www.kapiolani.org/women-and-children/about-us/default.aspx

Post-colonial history (from Wikipedia)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Kenya

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenya

Why hasn't this been discussed in the major media???

Related:

Rock star: Obama not born in U.S.

h/t to John Rolls – Before It is News and WND

Eligibility invades U.S. town-hall meetings

Related:

Media Blackout Out on Obama Eligibility Near-Total as INS Dos Found: U.S. Certificate Issued to One East African-Born Child of U.S. Citizen In 1961!

Obama’s Radical Friends…

What the Mailman Knows about Ayers and Obama

Why Obama’s Birth Certificate Matters, Especially Now

You be the judge… light is the best disinfectant!!

The 2012 Check List for America’s Survival

Many people make resolutions to start the year, but I think a list of things that must be done to protect and preserve the Republic should be tallied…

1. President Obama must be defeated in 2012 and the obstructionist Democratic Party must lose power in the Senate to ensure both houses of Congress will be Republican and in a position to initiate real change.
2. The Environmental Protection Agency must be reined in with increased Congressional oversight and legislative limits on its rule-making capacity. Having fulfilled its 1970 mandate to clean the nation’s air and water, it should be scaled back to the maintenance of these functions.
3. Americans, despite the administration’s efforts to redefine and distract us, must keep clearly in mind the threat of Islam to the nation and the world. A Middle East in turmoil lays ahead for 2012.
4. To jump-start the economy, taxes and spending must be reduced across the board. A tax on consumption, rather than income would be a good start. Only 49% of Americans currently pay income taxes, the lowest in decades.
5. Obamacare must be repealed should the Supreme Court fail to rule that the Commerce Clause takes precedence over its requirement that Americans must purchase health insurance or be fined for not doing so.
6. A serious restructuring of Social Security and Medicare must be undertaken. Older Americans who have paid into the system—it is involuntary—must be ensured their benefits will be paid, but younger citizens should have the freedom and responsibility to structure their own retirement and health plans.
7. Access to the nation’s vast reserves of coal, natural gas, and oil should be increased and encouraged. Oil companies should be encouraged to build more refineries via tax credits and removal of “environmental” obstacles.
8. Congress needs to identify and fund the repair to the nation’s aging infrastructure.
9. Utilities should be encouraged via tax credits and other incentives to expand the national “grid” for the distribution of electricity.
10. Term limits for Senators and Representatives should be added to the U.S. Constitution in the same fashion the presidency is limited. Salaries, pensions, and perks should be capped. A permanent political class is a danger to citizens.
11. The Federal government should be downsized with the elimination of the Departments of Education, Labor, and Energy, along with the Environmental Protection Agency. These powers should be returned to the individual States. (10th Amendment)
12. The nation’s military which has been significantly reduced in size and structure should be expanded with attention to the upgrade and increase of its naval fleet and aircraft.
13. Congress should reject and rescind all legislation based on “global warming” or “climate change” as the former has been demonstrated to be a hoax and the latter is meaningless insofar as the climate is beyond the control of humans.
14. The United States should significantly reduce its contribution to the United Nations and refuse to ratify any of its treaties.
15. Tort reform should be instituted to reduce the costs of health care.
16. The corporate tax rate should be significantly reduced from its present rate, one of the highest in the world, to increase expansion, new jobs, and competitiveness.
17. Public service unions should be illegal. The federal government does not permit such unionization and neither should states.
18. National Public Radio should no longer be funded. The “government entities” of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be eliminated.
19. The federal government should be restricted or significantly limited from the acquisition of more of the nation’s landmass.
20. Strenuous efforts must be undertaken to reduce the national debt and deficit. A devalued dollar impoverishes everyone.

These are just a few changes which, if implemented, would go a long way to reducing the ills associated with a federal government grown too large, subject to crony capitalism, and corruption.

As John Adams said, “Let us disappoint the men who are raising themselves upon the ruin of this Country.”

© Alan Caruba, 2012

Alan Caruba  -  Most recent columns

Alan has a daily blog called Warning Signs. His latest book is Right Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy.

Alan can be reached at acaruba@aol.com  -  Canada Free Press
Older articles by Alan Caruba

And prepare yourself for the worst and to help others!! – Preparedness and Survival

Obama’s Social Security Number

Whether you read this entire document or not is not the issue. The issue is this- "Why does congress not pursue the illegality or legality of Obama's birth certificate or Social Security Number?"

Most obvious answer is that congress is complicit in Obama's illegality of holding office of the president of the United States of America. Obviously, congress shares Obama's views for the transition of the United States into a socialist nation… controlled by the globalists and United Nations.

How Did Obama Obtain a Social Security Number from Connecticut?

A BLOGGER’S PERSPECTIVE

by Dwight Kehoe, blogging at TPATH

(Aug. 24, 2011) — Susan Daniels, a private investigator with almost 2 decades of experience has come to a very compelling conclusion – President Obama is using a Social Security number, issued to someone else. This is, as is the forgery of public documents, a crime.

The SS number Obama is illegally using will not be posted here, but it can be found easily enough if one wishes to verify these facts.

From the age of 15 to 25, there is no record of Obama using any Social Security number. While in school in Hawaii he may well have been able to get by without one. However, once he moved to California and began university schooling in Occidental College, he would need to provide one.

Conveniently, all of his college records have been sealed, so there is no way of knowing, at least for now, what SS number he used at that time. It is possible that the number he used may be at the heart of why he needed a new one. Maybe he was issued a foreign student SS number along with monetary aid for schooling. Not knowing the real reason, this of course is just the speculation of this writer, me. At this point only Obama knows why.

What is known, is that the SS number Obama is now using, does not show up on any data base as being used by anyone, until 1986 even though Social Security records show it was issued in the last two weeks of March, 1977. The number was issued to a person born in 1890 who apparently applied for it at age 87.

In 1935 when the Social Security System began, many people never applied because it was voluntary. This person most likely needed to get one very late in life in order to get some benefit or other. The number never shows up in data bases, so the person must have passed on very shortly after being assigned the number. This would make this number, a perfect candidate for criminal activity relating to false ID’s.

Enter Bill Ayers, the communist, revolutionary, terrorist that Obama claimed was just some guy living in his neighborhood, who’s children went to school with his, even though Ayers’ children are a half generation older than Obama’s. Later it was discovered that Bill Ayers, more than likely, wrote much of Obama’s book,’ Dreams From My Father’, as well as holding one of the first Obama fundraisers in his home.

Ayers has said, and proudly so, that a lot of what they did as terrorist bombers and murderers, was producing and falsifying identifications for their criminal activities. The most effective method was through the use of fraudulent Social Security numbers. A minimally used SS number issued to an 87 year old would some how seem to be a great candidate for that illegal SS number file.

Even though Ayers was just a “guy in the neighborhood,” if Obama needed to dump his legal SS number, for whatever reason, Professor Ayers may have taken a break from indoctrinating our youth and reached into his false ID vault and issued him one.

A few final facts about Social Security numbers.
1. No SS number is ever reused, even after the death of the user.
2. SS numbers are issued by state location. One must live in the state where it is issued.
3. Obama’s natural father, adopted father, mother or grand parents never lived in Connecticut.
4. When the SS number Obama is using was issued by Connecticut, Obama was 15 and living in Hawaii.

The question here is obvious. Is there no one one in Congress or the media with the backbone to stand up and ask, – What the heck is going on in my country?

Of course, there may well be a very honest and reasonable explanation for this, the forged birth certificate and the very suspicious Selective Service documents.

Someone has “a lot of splainin’ to do.” Will our Congress and media ever step up to the plate and demand it?

It’s looking very doubtful.

© 2011, The Post & Email. All rights reserved internationally, unless otherwise specified. To read more on our copyright restrictions, see our Copyright notice on the subheader of every page, along the left margin.

Related:

A Different Perspective On…

Occidental College transcripts provides concrete evidence to annul Obama presidency

Interview: Obama Administration Responsible for Legal Abortion in Kenya

Do You Support The Emergency Senior Citizens Relief Act?

Do you even know about it? So far no one I have asked does. Here's the deal:

Unless Congress passes the Emergency Senior Citizens Relief Act, Social Security monthly benefits would drop because the cost of Medicare prescription drug premiums, which are deducted from Social Security payments, are scheduled to increase.

The bill was introduced by Senators Sanders and DeFazio on September 17.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) today introduced legislation to provide Social Security recipients an extra one-time payment next year of $250. Without the legislation, millions of seniors will see their Social Security checks shrink because – for the first time since 1975 – there will be no cost-of-living adjustment.

Sanders said millions of senior citizens are especially hard hit by the recession. "Many have seen their savings disappear, their pension funds severely decline and the value of their homes dramatically diminish – all while poverty among seniors has gone up, as has the number of seniors declaring bankruptcy. Seniors deserve a fair increase in benefits to keep up with these added costs and economic hardships." Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) cosponsored Sanders’ bill.

DeFazio said too many seniors are experiencing a decline in their living standards. "Failure to provide a cost-of-living increase for seniors could not come at a worse time. It would simply be unacceptable for seniors on fixed incomes to not receive the help they deserve to keep up with increased prices seniors pay for prescription drugs and medical care."

Nearly 70 percent of beneficiaries depend on Social Security for at least half of their income, and Social Security is the sole source of income for 15 percent of recipients.

To pay for the benefits boost, the legislation Sanders introduced in the Senate and DeFazio offered in the House of Representatives would apply the Social Security payroll tax on household incomes above $250,000 and below $359,000 in 2010. Under current law, only the first $106,800 of earned income is subject to the payroll tax. A worker earning $106,800 pays the same payroll tax as a CEO who makes millions of dollars a year. Their legislation begins to correct that inequity in 2010, while making sure that seniors receive a fair increase in benefits next year.

No one earning $250,000 or less would see their taxes go up under the Sanders and DeFazio bills.

Contacts:

Michael Briggs (Sanders) 202 224-5141

Molly Simmons (DeFazio) 202 226-5740

Universal Health and Old People

Voice: The Glenn Beck program presents more truth behind America's march to socialism.

Glenn: Yesterday, I told how you how the socialized health system in the UK was letting the last survivor of the Titanic go bankrupt because they weren't covering her health costs. Mark my words, they're going to start selling us universal healthcare as a solution to our Social Security and Medicare costs, Medicaid, it's all going under. They're going to revamp it. This is really dangerous. Why is it dangerous?

Because look how it's happening and how it's working so wonderfully anywhere it's being tried. Hollywood, it kills me. Hollywood actually had step in. Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet bailed this 97 year old woman out to save her from healthcare despite endless examples of healthcare rationing in the healthcare system, Obama still full speed ahead on pursuing universal healthcare. He actually said that, you know, we all got to have the top flight medical care. It's not good enough that some people in our country have the best medical care. Excuse me?

How are you going to be able to afford everyone having top flight medical care?

You won't. You'll level the playing field which means we'll all have crappy healthcare. Don't worry, old people, though, it's going to be great. You're going to love it. When I say you're going to love it, I don't mean healthcare. I mean, heaven. You should see it especially this time of year. You can't get there fast enough. Let me tell you universal healthcare will help you do it. Why?

Because of the cost benefit analysis. At the Senate finance committee hearings on healthcare reform, Professor Stuart Altman of Brandeis University said that resources get wasted in the American healthcare system. Wasted. Well, what does that mean?

He means that it gets wasted specifically in one segment of the population. Old people, if you think I'm hyping it, his tonight to his words himself. Here's the audio record.

Voice: Remember, our population is aging and at the very, very elderly, the costs go down so that percentage should be falling and it's not. Second, the cost of care is growing by so much so at the same percentage it's worth a lot more. So let's go back to the issue of comparative effectiveness which we're supporting. That's where that can have a big impact. It's not the only place. But that's where the waste is. That's where people are using technologies that really either don't work at all or keep people alive for very limited and very high costs. Hospice is one option, but we do need to take account of the?? you know, I hate to say it, the cost benefit of some of the things we do and either we can do it directly or we can do it by bundling payments and let the delivery system deal with it. So it's a combination of the delivery system dealing with it or?? and/or you providing more information for people that make the right decisions, both for themselves and for their care.

Glenn: Do you understand what he just said?

What he said?? this should terrify people. He's saying you can either let the delivery system do it, in other words, the healthcare system can just say, yeah, you're not going to get that. You're too old. You're a drain on society. I'm sorry, no kidney dialysis for people over 70. What is it in the UK?

60. Some the things they cut off once you outlived your usefulness.

This is Nazi Germany stuff.

This is the kind of stuff that is progressive in its nature. It is eugenics. It is survival of the fittist. It is the reason why the abortion argument makes so much difference. You can't devalue life at either end because these people are waiting to swoop in and say it's just not worth doing these things. Don't waste the money on old people. They're not going to live long anyway. Spend it on someone who meets the requirements of our cost benefit analysis. So old people, thanks for all the contributions you made to society during your better years but now we're sorry to say it's time to send you to a better place, heaven.

By:  The Glenn Beck Program - May 13, 2009 - 12:07 ET

Related Resources:

Social Security and Medicare Finances Worsen

 

America's March to Socialism: Why we're one step closer to giant missile parades
is now available as an audio book...

American Progressivism

Social Security and Medicare finances worsen

Recession hurts latest forecast for two biggest benefit programs

updated 2 hours, 31 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Social Security and Medicare are fading even faster under the weight of the recession, heading for insolvency years sooner than previously expected, the government warned Tuesday.

Social Security will start paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes in 2016, a year sooner than projected last year, and the giant trust fund will be depleted by 2037, four years sooner, trustees reported.

Medicare is in even worse shape. The trustees said the program for hospital expenses will pay out more in benefits than it collects this year, just as it did for the first time in 2008. The trustees project that the Medicare fund will be depleted by 2017, two years earlier than the date projected in last year's report.

 Social Security, Medicare finances worsen   | Video
May 12: The government's two biggest benefit programs, Social Security and Medicare, will start paying out more in benefits than they collect in taxes sooner than experts previously predicted. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

Nightly News

The trust funds — which exist in paper form in a filing cabinet in Parkersburg, W.Va. — are bonds that are backed by the government's "full faith and credit" but not by any actual assets. That money has been spent over the years to fund other parts of government. To redeem the trust fund bonds, the government would have to borrow in public debt markets or raise taxes.

'The harder the options will be'
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the head of the trustees group, said the new reports were a reminder that "the longer we wait to address the long-term solvency of Medicare and Social Security, the sooner those challenges will be upon us and the harder the options will be."

Geithner said that President Barack Obama was committed to working with Congress to find ways to control runaway growth in both public and private health care expenditures, noting the promise Monday by major health care providers to trim costs by $2 trillion over the next decade.

However, Republicans pointed to the newly dire assessments as evidence the Obama administration has failed to come forward with actual entitlement reform to close the funding gaps.

"Instead of getting existing public programs in order right now, some are saying we should create a new government-run health insurance plan," Sen. Chuck Grassley, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, said in a reference to the administration's health care proposals. "When we can't afford the public health plan we have already, does it make sense to add more?"

House Republican leader John Boehner said the trustees report "confirms what we already knew: Our nation cannot afford to continue this reckless borrowing and spending spree."

The findings in the trustees report, the annual checkup given the two benefit programs, did not come as a surprise. Private economists had been predicting that the dates the programs would begin to pay out more than they take in and the dates the trust funds would be insolvent would occur sooner given the economic recession.

The deep recession, the worst the country has endured in decades, has resulted in a loss of 5.7 million jobs since it began in December 2007. The unemployment rate hit a 25-year high of 8.9 percent in April.

Less being paid into funds
Fewer people working means less being paid into the trust funds for Social Security and Medicare.

The Congressional Budget Office recently projected that Social Security will collect just $3 billion more in 2010 than it will pay out in benefits. A year ago, the CBO had projected that Social Security would have a much higher $86 billion cash surplus for the 2010 budget year, which begins Oct. 1.

The trustees report projected that Social Security's annual surpluses would "fall sharply this year," then remain at a reduced level in 2010 and be lower in the following years than last year's projections. The report said that the Social Security annual surplus would be eliminated entirely in 2016, reflecting increased demands from the wave of 78 million baby boomers retiring.

That means Social Security will have to turn to its trust fund to make up the difference between Social Security taxes and the benefits being paid out beginning in 2016. The trustees projected the trust fund would be depleted in 2037, four years earlier than the 2041 date in last year's report.

At that point, the annual Social Security taxes collected would be enough to pay for three-fourths of current benefits through 2083. To tap the trust fund, the government would have to increase borrowing or raise taxes because Social Security bonds exist only as bookkeeping entries.

Video

 No cost of living adjustment on Social Security - Social Security, Medicare finances worsen   | Video
May 4: Budget officials say the low inflation rate makes it unlikely that there will be any cost of living adjustment on Social Security checks this year. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

Nightly News

While the smaller surpluses that will begin this year will not have any impact on Social Security benefit payments, the government will need to borrow more at a time when the federal deficit is already exploding because of the recession and the billions of dollars being spent to prop up a shaky banking system.

Medicare's condition is more precarious
Medicare's condition is more precarious, reflecting the pressures from soaring health care costs as well as the drop in tax collections.

The options available to deal with the Social Security shortfall include raising the payroll tax that funds Social Security, such as removing the cap on income subject to the tax, or cutting benefits in some fashion such as raising the retirement age.

he administration is pushing Congress to pass legislation this year to extend health care coverage to some 50 million uninsured Americans, preferring to tackle health care before Social Security.

The trustees report is likely to set off renewed debate over Social Security and Medicare. Critics have charged that the Obama administration has failed to tackle the most serious problems in the budget — soaring entitlement spending.

The administration on Monday revised its federal deficit forecasts upward to project an imbalance this year of $1.84 trillion, four times last year's record, and said the deficits will remain above $500 billion every year over the next decade.

Posted:  MSNBC

And the sad truth is that everyone… both parties and any American that wanted to take the time to think about it has known for at least 15-years that both social security and Medicare was going to run out of money and bankrupt us when the huge Baby-Boomer retirement time came, if the those programs weren’t addressed and if the government didn’t stop borrowing money as quick as it was put in for everything but related needs… without ever paying a penny back.

This is a huge ‘shame on us issue’ for which we all need to take some responsibility.  Now the recession, depression, U.S. and World financial crisis or whatever you choose to call it has hit to make it even worse.  Or perhaps it was always part of ‘the’ bigger plan.  But however you want to see it… senior citizens and Americans in general are in big trouble!!! 

We must wake up and stand up!!  M~

Obama: The Grand Strategy

Unified theory of Obamaism, fifth (final?) installment:

In the service of his ultimate mission -- the leveling of social inequalities -- President Obama offers a tripartite social democratic agenda: nationalized health care, federalized education (ultimately guaranteed through college) and a cash-cow carbon tax (or its equivalent) to subsidize the other two.

Problem is, the math doesn't add up. Not even a carbon tax would pay for Obama's vastly expanded welfare state. Nor will Midwest Democrats stand for a tax that would devastate their already crumbling region.

What is obviously required is entitlement reform, meaning Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. That's where the real money is -- trillions saved that could not only fund hugely expensive health and education programs but also restore budgetary balance.

Except that Obama has offered no real entitlement reform. His universal health-care proposal would increase costs by perhaps $1 trillion. Medicare/Medicaid reform is supposed to decrease costs.

Obama's own budget projections show staggering budget deficits going out to 2019. If he knows his social agenda is going to drown us in debt, what's he up to?

He has an idea. But he dare not speak of it yet. He has only hinted. When asked in his March 24 news conference about the huge debt he's incurring, Obama spoke vaguely of "additional adjustments" that will be unfolding in future budgets.

Rarely have two more anodyne words carried such import. "Additional adjustments" equals major cuts in Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid.

Social Security is relatively easy. A bipartisan commission (like the 1983 Alan Greenspan commission) recommends some combination of means testing for richer people, increasing the retirement age and a technical change in the inflation measure (indexing benefits to prices instead of wages). The proposal is brought to Congress for a no-amendment up-or-down vote. Done.

The hard part is Medicare and Medicaid. In an aging population, how do you keep them from blowing up the budget? There is only one answer: rationing.

Why do you think the stimulus package pours $1.1 billion into medical "comparative effectiveness research"? It is the perfect setup for rationing. Once you establish what is "best practice" for expensive operations, medical tests and aggressive therapies, you've laid the premise for funding some and denying others.

It is estimated that a third to a half of one's lifetime health costs are consumed in the last six months of life. Accordingly, Britain's National Health Service can deny treatments it deems not cost-effective -- and if you're old and infirm, the cost-effectiveness of treating you plummets. In Canada, they ration by queuing. You can wait forever for so-called elective procedures like hip replacements.

Rationing is not quite as alien to America as we think. We already ration kidneys and hearts for transplant according to survivability criteria as well as by queuing. A nationalized health insurance system would ration everything from MRIs to intensive care by myriad similar criteria.

The more acute thinkers on the left can see rationing coming, provoking Slate blogger Mickey Kaus to warn of the political danger. "Isn't it an epic mistake to try to sell Democratic health care reform on this basis? Possible sales pitch: 'Our plan will deny you unnecessary treatments!' . . . Is that really why the middle class will sign on to a revolutionary multitrillion-dollar shift in spending -- so the government can decide their life or health 'is not worth the price'?"

My own preference is for a highly competitive, privatized health insurance system with a government-subsidized transition to portability, breaking the absurd and ruinous link between health insurance and employment. But if you believe that health care is a public good to be guaranteed by the state, then a single-payer system is the next best alternative. Unfortunately, it is fiscally unsustainable without rationing.

Social Security used to be the third rail of American politics. Not anymore. Health-care rationing is taking its place -- which is why Obama, the consummate politician, knows to offer the candy (universality) today before serving the spinach (rationing) tomorrow.

Taken as a whole, Obama's social democratic agenda is breathtaking. And the rollout has thus far been brilliant. It follows Kaus's advice to "give pandering a chance" and adheres to the Democratic tradition of being the party that gives things away, while leaving the green-eyeshade stinginess to those heartless Republicans.

It will work for a while, but there is no escaping rationing. In the end, the spinach must be served.

By Charles Krauthammer – Washington Post
Friday, April 24, 2009

Posted:  Knowledge Creates Power