Blood-sucking bad ideas reappear in rearview mirror

By Jim Waters

Not even the arrest of "if-he-did-it" icon O.J. Simpson last week completely overshadowed Hillary Clinton's attempt to replay the nightmare that Americans escaped the first time around - a government takeover of the nation's health-care system. She first proposed her European-style health care model during the heady days of her husband's presidency.

"Clinton II: The Sequel" fits with her recent rejection of an "ownership society" in favor of a "we're all in it together" world. That sounds good on the surface - sort of like her idea for "universal health care" did at first.

But a closer look reveals that the "we're all in it together" society really means stealing hard-earned bread from hard-working people in the form of higher taxes, massive increases in government spending and bloated bureaucracies.

Tradition says doctors used leeches to try and bleed disease from President George Washington when he developed pneumonia and a throat problem. Elisha Dick, the youngest physician attending Washington, suggested a tracheotomy.

After Washington died, history determined that Dick was right. A simply tracheotomy would likely have saved the life of the Revolutionary Wars greatest hero.

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