You can always tell when a politician has an election coming up that they're a little worried about.  They start to talk like this:

Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., announced Wednesday that she would not support a bill that included a public option because she believed it would be too expensive.

Lincoln told the Elder Law Task Force at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences that a public option would create another entitlement program.

"And we can't afford that right now as a nation," she said.

I guess the only surprise is that it took her this long (and a month of being back home) to come to that conclussion.  And I'm sure that the fact that she's up for re-election next year in a state the didn't go blue even with Obama at the top of the ticket has nothing to do with it.

But we'll take what we can get.

Don't get too secure though, keep speaking out.  Especially if you live in Arkansas.

Click here to contact your members of Congress on the health care issue.

Yet another otherwise "non-partisan" and/or liberal outlet has confirmed what those of us on the right have been saying all along, that the so-called health care "reform" plan pushed by Obama and liberal members of Congress would indeed result in taxpayer funding of abortions.

In this case, it's Time magazine, who now joins the Associated Press and FactCheck.org in confirming what Obama has derisively referred to as a "fabrication".

Time reports that "The health-care reform proposed by House Democrats, if enacted, would in fact mark a significant change in the Federal Government's role in the financing of abortions." It goes on to report how the so-called "public option" would be set up and concludes that, "...in effect, anyone who wanted to sign up for the public option, a federally funded and administered program, would find themselves paying for abortion coverage."

They go on to point out that private insurance companies that receive any taxpayer subsidies to cover low-income Americans could potentially use those funds to cover abortions.

Add this to the fact that the House committees dealing with the legislation repeatedly voted down amendments that would have specifically prohibited abortion funding via government healthcare and you have a pretty good idea of what many of its supporters want to accomplish.

Despite Obama's claims that health care "reform" opponents were spreading "fabrications" and "bearing false witness" about his plan, even the non-partisan FactCheck.org has weighed in and admitted that currently proposed plans would indeed result in the use of taxpayer funds to pay for abortions.

The truth is that bills now before Congress don't require federal money to be used for supporting abortion coverage. So the president is right to that limited extent. But it's equally true that House and Senate legislation would allow a new "public" insurance plan to cover abortions, despite language added to the House bill that technically forbids using public funds to pay for them. Obama has said in the past that "reproductive services" would be covered by his public plan, so it's likely that any new federal insurance plan would cover abortion unless Congress expressly prohibits that. Low- and moderate-income persons who would choose the "public plan" would qualify for federal subsidies to purchase it. Private plans that cover abortion also could be purchased with the help of federal subsidies. Therefore, we judge that the president goes too far when he calls the statements that government would be funding abortions "fabrications."

Now we'll just sit back and wait for the White House to say FactCheck is "fabricating".

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It would seem that not only is Obamacare not healthy for Democrat political fortunes, but it doesn't seem to be too healthy for the AARP either.

CBS News has learned that up to 60,000 people have cancelled
their AARP memberships since July 1, angered over the group’s position
on health care.

Elaine Guardiani has been with AARP for 14 years, and said, "I’m extremely disappointed in AARP."

Retired nurse Dale Anderson has 12 years with AARP and said, "I don’t wanna be connected with AARP."

Many are switching to the American Seniors Association, a group that
calls itself the conservative alternative as CBS News Investigative
Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports.

Last week alone, they added more than 5,000 new members. Our camera was there Friday when the mail came.

Letters were filled with cut-up AARP cards.

"I think that probably the seniors are most upset with cuts in Medicare," said ASA President Stuart Barton.

Despite the trial balloon floated by Obama and Sebelius over the past few days, leading people to think that they’re really not that set on the "public" option (ie. government run healthcare) that has many people so upset, conservatives could do well not to lay down their arms, so to speak.

So what's going on?  It could mean several things.  It could be an attempt to allay the fears of some conservatives (or just folks in the middle) while town-halls are still going on...perhaps give Democrats some breathing room and reduce the incoming fire.  Maybe an attempt to gin up the liberal side of the debate by scaring them into seeing their dream of government run healthcare not coming to fruition...causing them to get more energized to counter conservatives.  Most likely all of the above.

But what we can rest fairly assuredly that it does NOT mean is that Obama and Company have given up on their objective of government run healthcare and eventually a single-payer system.

I asked for Christians to come up with a better plan a couple of weeks ago, but got no response.  Why?

I have some ideas:

- Allow for a high risk pool, like we have for auto insurance, so people with pre-existing conditions can get insurance.

- Allow health insurance companies to sell across state lines.  This would allow people to choose their plans and by having a larger group to sell to, would decrease premiums.

- If they don't want to do a high risk pool, why not allow people who have been denied insurance three or more times to be able to BUY INTO the current plans government employees have now.

- Prevent insurance companies from denying or non-renewing coverage to small businesses when an employee gets sick.

These options wouldn't break the bank, and would solve many of the problems we have now.