I just learned that one of the sponsors of this week’s health fair in Los Angeles is the Tzu Chi Foundation, a Buddhist charity headquartered in Taiwan. Tzu Chi was organized by a nun, the Venerable Dharma Master Cheng Yen, and now claims 5 million members in 45 countries.

So I’m saying that if health care reform falls through, there’s a silver lining. As more and more Americans sink into medical destitution for lack of health care, we can round up Tzu Chi, Dharma Drum, and other international Buddhist charities to set up free clinics with a little dharma on the side. Heh.

This is a rumor you are welcome to spread.

Update: Now I’ve learned that Tzu Chi already has a permanent free clinic in Los Angeles. Hey, it’s how the Christian missions got started in Asia and Africa. Why not?

Update: Tzu Chi has already infiltrated Massachusetts. This was low-hanging fruit, of course. Once we have Texas, it’s all over. On to Dallas!

First, the President is speaking in Montana today at another town hall meeting. I understand tickets are being handed out first come, first serve, instead of by the White House, so the audience could be a bit livelier than in the recent New Hampshire event. The meeting is supposed to start at 12:50 local time, which I think would be 2:50 EST. I don’t know if I will live blog — we’ll see — but I will look in on it and comment if anything significant happens.

And I trust the Secret Service will send everyone through five metal detectors and two dozen bag searches before they can be seated.

The New York Times is running a story on the origins of the “death panel” rumors. There isn’t anything in it that you don’t already know, I believe, but the fact that the New York Times is publishing this is itself noteworthy. And the fact that it’s noteworthy when a major newspapers publishes stuff we all already know is itself noteworthy, huh?

Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani’s descent into political irrelevancy continues as he endorses the death panel rumors.

Scott Lehigh tells us that the anti-health reform mobs are made up of whackjobs. Wow, I wouldn’t have guessed.

Paul Krugman comments on how we are so not post partisan, are we?

There’s just way too much crazy going on for me to deal with. I want to go to a quiet place and play with small, gentle animals.

And you know that in a few months many of the same people screaming about death panels and Marxism will find themselves on the wrong end of a medical bill, or denied care, or lose their insurance, and then they’ll want to know why the government doesn’t do something about it. Well, if they need help, they should go ask Glenn Beck. He’ll be there for them, I’m sure.

The Secret Service has detained a man who was at a townhall meeting yesterday with a sign that said “Death To Obama, Death To Michelle And Her Two Stupid Kids.”

See:

Jonathan Cohn, “The Swiftboating of Health Reform”

Todd Gitlin, “Pre-Existing Conditions“

I wish cable television covered this as much as it covered whackjobs screaming about death panels.

“Thousands Line Up for Promise of Free Health Care.”

For the second day in a row, thousands of people lined up on Wednesday — starting after midnight and snaking into the early hours — for free dental, medical and vision services, courtesy of a nonprofit group that more typically provides mobile health care for the rural poor.

Like a giant MASH unit, the floor of the Los Angeles Forum, the arena where Madonna once played four sold-out shows, housed aisle upon aisle of dental chairs, where drilling, cleaning and extracting took place in the open. A few cushions were duct-taped to a folding table in a coat closet, an examining room where Dr. Eugene Taw, a volunteer, saw patients.

Super-clinic finds super-need in L.A. region

At the Forum, those seeking medical treatment included unemployed people who had lost insurance when they lost their jobs as well as some people with insurance who said they could not afford their deductibles or needed services that their carriers didn’t cover.

Volunteer nurse DeAnn McEwen, who works in Long Beach, said she saw one woman, a cancer patient, who had maxed-out her benefits under her HMO and couldn’t afford more out-of-pocket expenses.

Long lines as free health care offered in LA area

The tired, sweaty crowd outside The Forum grew noisy when volunteers announced that they would need to return the next day to see a dentist.

“I don’t have money to come back tomorrow! I borrowed money to get here today!” yelled Ontario resident Jocelyn Langham, 53. A cracked tooth and the fruitless 10-hour wait had frazzled her nerves.

Wow, and the righties tell us they only have waiting lines in Canada.

If you are still seeing spam in my Google Reader RSS feed, here is a fix. Unsubscribe to Mahablog and then resubscribe using this feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/mahablog/XYnP

This worked at my end.

I missed it, but apparently Arlen Specter held a townhall meeting today that was on all the cable channels and was a near riot. Anyone see it?

Update: “Health Care Protesters Largely From Out Of District, Sign-In Sheets Show”

Also,

MSNBC cameras found a man with a gun in the crowd waiting for the town hall meeting with President Obama later today. He’s carrying a sign saying “It’s time to water the tree of liberty.” I assume the Secret Service has been notified.

The latest on Kenneth Gladney, the alleged anti-health reform activist who allegedly was assaulted is that the allegations he has no health insurance were not true, according to the Right. The rightie blogger Gateway Pundit sets the record straight by refuting the Left’s allegations.

However, I haven’t heard some of these allegations, and I say they are alleged allegations. For example, I have not personally seen anyone claim that Gladney was “hired” to incite the attack. Maybe somebody alleged that, but on the Web you can find allegations of just about anything.

Gateway also takes umbrage at the allegation that Gladney was “recently laid off.” No, Gateway says, he is unemployed. Um, actually, “recently laid off” sounds better. It’s a common euphemism for “unemployed.”

And the allegation that Gladney has no health insurance is not true either, Gateway says. He is insured by his wife’s employee benefits, allegedly. Which begs the question, then why did he allegedly need to ask for donations to pay for his health care?

I’m guessing Gladney must have one of those “freedom” health insurance policies that Shawn Tully wrote about in Fortune, as described in item one, “The Freedom to Choose What’s in Your Plan.” This means that if your state doesn’t deprive you of your freedom by mandating that insurance policies provide comprehensive coverage, you are free to buy a junk policy that doesn’t cover anything you might actually need paid for.

For example, today we hear about Sarah Wildman, whose blessing of liberty include a six-month old daughter and a $22,000 medical bill for allegedly giving birth to her.

Birthing our daughter was so expensive precisely because we were insured, on the individual market. Our insurer, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, sold us exactly the type of flawed policy—riddled with holes and exceptions—that the health care reform bills in Congress should try to do away with. The “maternity” coverage we purchased didn’t cover my labor, delivery, or hospital stay. It was a sham. And so we spent the first months of her life getting the kind of hospital bills and increasingly aggressive calls from hospital administrators that I once believed were only possible without insurance.

Some people might argue that having to settle for a “junk” policy isn’t really freedom, because in some states that’s the only kind of private insurance policy most people can get. But no patriotic American talks like that. As long as it’s the free and unregulated market that determines you have to settle for a junk policy, and not the government, then Americans are still free. In most other countries people are forced to have their medical bills paid for by the government. And that means taxes. It’s so much more free to be stuck with a $22,000 medical bill than to have to pay a dime in taxes. Right?

But I digress. Let us return to the trials of Mr. Gladney. I have watched the video in which he is allegedly beaten to a pulp by Union thugs, and frankly I can’t make out who is doing what to whom in it. Beside the lady in the SEIU shirt who was walking laboriously with a cane, whom I allegedly saw in the video, another individual whom Gateway says is in the film is a terrifying Union thug and Baptist minister named Elston McCowan (see photo).

The Rev. McCowan alleges that Mr. Gladney attacked him and dislocated his shoulder. But Gateway says this is absurd. I assume Gateway has inside information he is not sharing with the public, because neither the video nor news reports of the incident clearly reveal what happened. There are just a lot of allegations flying around, from what I see. But Gateway alleges he has truth on his side, and the Rev. McCowan must be lying. Because. OK.

Gateway also repeats allegations that a woman was smashed in the face, but exactly what he is referring to isn’t clear. This seems to be a fact the right blogosphere is sharing with itself that the evil mainstream media and YouTube are suppressing. Allegedly.

[Update: I see now the face smashing incident is in a separate video, which can be viewed here. I can't make out what's happening in it, either, but from the voices somebody did hit somebody. Again, I do not condone hitting people, whether with cameras or cell phones or anything else, nor do I think it's OK for "my" people to hit "their" people. However, I lack the moral clarity of most righties, who understand that all evil emanates from the Left, and if anyone on the Right does something violent, it is justified.]

Gateway goes on to assure us that the video shows Gladney being attacked by three Union thugs and a woman being smashed in the face, and I will have to take his word for that because I can’t tell what’s going on in the bleeping video. There is a lot of anger and some physical aggression, which I do not condone, no matter who is responsible. And I will take Gateway’s word that Mr. Gladney spent a night in the hospital and has real injuries, and I wish him a speedy recovery. I also wish the Rev. McGowan a speedy recovery for his alleged dislocated shoulder.

Via Josh Marshall, the genuinely demented Investors’ Business Daily published this in an editorial:

The U.K.’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) basically figures out who deserves treatment by using a cost-utility analysis based on the “quality adjusted life year.”

One year in perfect health gets you one point. Deductions are taken for blindness, for being in a wheelchair and so on.

The more points you have, the more your life is considered worth saving, and the likelier you are to get care.

People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.

As Josh points out, Hawking is, in fact, British, and has lived his entire life in the UK.

I Best He Has Whiplash, Too. You may have heard that a African-American, anti-health reform protester in St. Louis was attacked beaten by SEIU “thugs” last week. According to the rightie blogosphere, the protester, Kenneth Gladney, is in serious condition. This is supposed to be a video of the attack:

I’m with Steve Benen — I can’t make out what’s going on in this video, or who is doing what to whom. The only two people I see in SEIU shirts are women who don’t look physicially capable of harming anyone, unless the one limping lady smacked the guy with her cane off-camera.

Let me be clear that this kind of shouting and probable smacking around of somebody, although I can’t make out who exactly, is unacceptable and inexcusable.

Still, Steve Benen gives us this tidbit from local news:

Gladney did not address Saturday’s crowd of about 200 people. His attorney, David Brown, however, read a prepared statement Gladney wrote. “A few nights ago there was an assault on my liberty, and on yours, too.” Brown read. “This should never happen in this country.”

Supporters cheered. Brown finished by telling the crowd that Gladney is accepting donations toward his medical expenses. Gladney told reporters he was recently laid off and has no health insurance. [emphasis added]

And he has a lawyer, who no doubt is preparing to sue somebody. So much for tort reform.

Good Morning, Little Lulu. Malkin is outraged about the “freedoms” that will be taken away from Americans by “Obamacare.” What freedoms, you ask? Here they are listed; I paraphrase the first three somewhat to clear up some ambiguities.

1. The Freedom to be ripped off by less-than-comprehensive junk insurance policies.
2. The Freedom to see your premiums jacked up if you get sick.
3. The Freedom to pay for your health care out of your own pocket or savings, or do without.

Here Lulu pisses me off:

4. Freedom to keep your existing plan.

The entire reason the Obama Administration avoided marching to single payer or Medicare-for-All is to allow people to keep their employer-based insurance, and this is the thanks he gets. We shoulda just said “screw ‘em all” and go for single payer.

And the last is just a lie:

5. Freedom to choose your doctors

We lost that freedom already, after most of us got shuffled into HMOs. Catch up. Lulu.

See also: Chris Good and James Fallows at The Atlantic;

Linda Moore of the Memphis Commercial Appeal describes a townhall meeting held by U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Memphis. I want to point out one of the comments:

Posted by Mmmm on August 8, 2009 at 2:21 p.m.

I attended and most of the people in that meeting were not residents of the Congressional District 9. I support Health Care Reform and I voted for Obama and Cohen to deliver results. Don’t be afraid, Mr. Cohen to vote the interest of your constituents.

Some of these people even came from Mississipi with little navy blue folders that had a Republican party emblem. The folder had instructions about what to ask and how to cause a disturbance. In 2009 we are still trying to overcome ignorance.

Some of the other commenters denied this was true. The article itself is the usual — mostly senior citizens terrified of what will happen when government takes over Medicare and terrified of euthanasia.