Pete Sessions and the GOP Obamacare Cave
It’s hard to escape the conclusion that the GOP now has an active strategy to crush the grassroots conservative movement. It seems they’re prepared to sustain heavy electoral losses (which they will no doubt reap if they don’t shift strategy soon) in the short term for a hoped consolidation of establishment power long-term. Witness the embrace of Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion ruse by Republican governors John Kasich (OH), Jan Brewer (AZ), Brian Sandoval (NV), Susana Martinez (NM), and Jack Dalrymple (North Dakota).
It’s a surrender that’s so crazy it kills the damn fox. The states, after all, were supposed to be the last line of defense against universal Obamacare bedlam. Said Texas Congressman and Chairman of the House Rules Committee Pete Sessions during a townhall meeting with around 50 constituents:
What we’re trying to do is let [Obama] be a failure. … Otherwise it’s “Republicans stopped us from achieving what you wanted.” We do not want to stop it. And I think these governors are probably pretty smart.
The crowd wasn’t buying the argument. Cari Kelemen, an attendee:
The thing that got me off the sofa in 2009 was the health care issue. What I saw after November 6 was just air being let out of the balloon. … I want to fight. I’m spittin’ mad. I’ve got energy. I’ve got time. I see them peeling away governors. Five governors are on board with Obamacare.
Nothing in recent memory energized and mobilized voters like the threat of healthcare reform in 2010. With a faltering economy and an ever-bleaker jobs picture, President Obama and the Democratic Congress damned the torpedoes and steamed ahead with their quest to control one-sixth of the national economy, and with it the life and death of virtually every American. To do it, the Democrats simultaneously ignored or attacked intense and widespread voter opposition while resorting to a strategy of serial corruption: the carve-out for Medicare Advantage beneficiaries in Florida; the $300 million bribe to get Senator Landrieu’s vote in Louisiana; $100 million in bonus Medicaid dollars for Nebraska to buy Senator Ben Nelson’s vote; and a payoff to unions exempting their “Cadillac” insurance plans from Obamacare’s 40 percent excise tax on benefit-rich coverage.
They topped this off with procedural chicanery to pass the bill after the election of Republican Senator Scott Brown dismantled their filibuster-proof majority. After all, Brown made history in deep-blue Massachusetts only by vowing to be the 41st vote against Obamacare, effectively killing it.
It’s this rat’s nest of corruption and looming destruction of healthcare and the American job creation engine that animated the Tea Party. It figured prominently in the GOP’s “Pledge to America,” a legislative agenda Republicans promised to pursue if they won the House majority in 2010.
But not long after Republicans took power, Obamacare disappeared from the front burner. There was no consistent messaging strategy or ceaseless series of votes on the House floor to make Democrats go on record defending the most egregious elements of the legislation. (Perhaps the GOP thought the Supreme Court would take care of Obamacare, thereby avoiding the messy business of taking a stand on principle.) Mitt Romney didn’t talk much about it (perhaps to skirt the Romneycare reminder), and it certainly didn’t figure in Republican Senate elections.
Why would the strategy of stoking an issue that largely handed Republicans the House (and state governorship) majority be surrendered so quickly? Sessions thinks fighting Obamacare now will only result in stalemate, which is what Obama and the Democrats want:
They want it in limbo to keep the taxes flowing and people to slowly suffer and then blame Republicans so that Hillary can ride to the rescue. … We won’t lose if it gets bad. We lose if it goes in limbo.
Obamacare is teed-up to be a miserable failure, Sessions said. Los Angeles will be among the first exchanges, and it will collapse after people rush in and overwhelm the system:
I want them to fall on their own. And it will start with Los Angeles County.
But isn’t that ultimately what the Democrats want, too? To nudge the system into collapse so they can achieve their ultimate dream — single payer? It is, if you actually listen to them.
Kelemen shot back:
There’s so much destruction ahead of us. This is a defensive posture. I want to go on the offense. What is the offensive plan?
Sessions responded:
You write it, I’ll look at it.
Translation: What’s an offensive plan? The problem is not that the GOP doesn’t know how to fight, the problem is that they have no desire to fight with their alleged political opposition. Grassroots conservatives? That’s another story.
The institutional GOP is fine with the status quo, and energizing the grassroots with talk of widespread losses of healthcare coverage, the coming loss of coverage for children, and insurance premium price spikes of 190 percent would disrupt that.
Said another town hall participant:
We are perpetually on defense. We never go on offense. And if you’re perpetually on defense, it’s just a question of how long it takes you to lose.
Sessions’ answer? It’s tough to go on offense when the other party controls the bully pulpit and all you’ve got is control of one-half of the Congress: “Barack Obama, if he gets a hangnail, he gets on national TV.”
Funny how Democrats managed to get their message out when they controlled nothing.
More: ObamaCare to Young People: Bend Over
Who is Pete Sessions? The junior senator from Alabama is Jeff Sessions.
The article is a little hard to read with all the links added (was that really necessary), but he says near the beginning”
“Texas Congressman and Chairman of the House Rules Committee Pete Sessions”
The current GOP “leadership” has embraced a strategy of surrender on account of personal experience and heredity.
Just watch them fold….really wimpering like whipped puppies. These are all the “big government” republicans. Boehner just kicked all the conservatives off the committees. By their silence, they are providing the answer. They are quite content to help manage the welfare state, Obamacare included. You see, it give THEM the power over the populace and the all that money. And they intend to keep it that way. Karl Rove has just broadcasted loud and clear that they will have no more grassroots candidates that don’t walk the party line on big government. You see we have two battles, first against the Democrats and second against the big government
Republicans. And its all uphill.
PattyMor – There is no difference between them.
I doubt there is any way out of the mess other than catastrophe, hemp rope and street lights.
It ain’t gonna be pretty.
What, exactly, hasn’t the Beltway GOP caved on? Talk about a dog bites man story…
As for crushing the grassroots, well, they’ve been trying that for decades. It won’t happen since the grassroots folks are far stronger and more motivated than the Inside-the-Beltway Squish Brigade. What they might succeed in doing, though, is finally motivating a large enough chunk of the moderate/conservative grassroots types (especially Tea Partiers) to form a new political party. I have no illusions about a 3rd party winning national elections, etc. (the system is too biased toward a 2-party setup for that to happen), but nothing is written in stone that the GOP (as it’s currently constituted) has to be one of the two major political parties either. So, go right ahead, Rove and McCain and the rest of your ilk, with anti-grassroots stuff. Help make the Beltway GOP extinct.
Well, it’s taken a long time, but in England the people are so sick to death of the labour and tory parties that the new ukip has now gained significant numbers in their House. Same thing could happen here, but a new party HAS to be formed first.
Constitution Party
Check out their platform and principles…
http://www.constitutionparty.com/
The GOP may have to die.
Obamacare is the kind of issue that motivates the GOP base.
But the GOP base doesn’t need more motivation at this point. Not from what I’ve seen.
What the GOP needs is to reverse its declines among voters who aren’t already loyal Republicans. For example, membership in the College Republicans has declined sharply in recent years.
To do that, the GOP can’t just keep fighting ObamaCare. It has to come up with a plausible alternative health care plan. A real PLAN, with real numbers, not a bunch of slogans and handwaving.
Folks here seem to be making the same mistake they made in 2012: They’re assuming that the rest of the country hates Obama as much as they do. And that’s not true. The rest of the country might be open to a positive alternative. But without that, they’ll stick with Obama.
Multiple plans have been proposed.
Dr. Carson has one, and so does the Whole Foods CEO.
Watching today’s GOP reminds me of the kid in the school yard who always talked big about taking on the school bully. “I,ll stand up to him, I’ll knock his block off if it comes to it” says the big mouth. Then when he sees the bully approach him in the school yard he puts his arm around the bully and offers to buy him a soda.
Democrats: the party of the enemy.
Republicans: the party of traitors.
Replacing the Republican Party with the Libertarian Party might work. I’m sure that the TEA party would be happy as Libertarians. Libertarians don’t see “big government” as the “solution” for “anything”! Big government creates monopolies that increase the cost of living. Eliminate professional monopolies that cost us a trillion dollars a year and everyone’s standard of living would increase. The return on an investment that is 1/2 the entire stock market and 1/2 the total bond market considerably exceeds the return on Social Security and Medicare. Take away the doctors’ government enforced monopoly over access to medical drugs (or even just require they write “lifetime” prescriptions for chronic diseases and the cost of health care drops a “lot”. See my blog at “muskegonlibertarian.wordpress.com”.
Libertarian: the party of the stubbornly confused.
The RNC and the national GOP has been a false flag operation for DECADES. Its purpose is to keep any conservatives who believe in the Constitution out of Washington DC, and to make sure that the federal grabbermint keeps expanding.
The House has the power of the purse, but they have a spineless leader whose is terrible at messaging.
My Rep is too cowardly to hold a townhall, the GOP is shaking in the corner.
The tools are there, they won’t use them…nor will they educate the public.
Apparently, the establishment Republicans do not understand that Obamacare must be fought on the same principle that the Democrats’ gun-grab initiatives must be fought; because the government has no business doing what it’s doing.
Arguing over whether or not someone “needs” an AR-15 has already ceded ground to the gun-grab that the government is entitled to tell me what I “need,” or think I “need.” It doesn’t.
By the same token, the government does not have the right to tell me what kind of healthcare I’m going to get and how I will get it. The government, for that matter, has no “rights” at all. I do. Cooperating with Obamacare cedes the threshold determination to its supporters—and all subsequent arguments are deck chairs on the Titanic, arguing over details.
The fundamental lie of Obamacare was its initial conflation of what we as a society spend on healthcare with what the government spends. It equated the society with the government, with the result that the Congress passed a bill that does nothing but privatize the underwriting of massive government waste. That false equation of the American people, and of American society, with the government spending machine, must be fought at every turn.
The basis for Obamacare was that the uninsured were going to hospital emergency rooms because they could get treated for “free”. The truth of the matter is that this state of affairs came about because the government passed a law that those who wouldn’t pay couldn’t be turned away. What other business operates that way? Will a supermarket give you free food? Is there “free housing”? Actually using emergency rooms is economically inefficient. The hospitals could have set 24 hour a day “immediate care centers” for far less cost since most people who do show up at emergency rooms aren’t really having an “emergency”!
And the patrons should have to pay at least $25 for simple routine care and $100 for anything more. Take their iPhone as collateral if need be.
Any service that is “free” will be abused. The hospital makes up for it by pricing ER care 100 times what it’s worth for the rest of us. Which is why we can’t afford insurance any more. But since we’re working (though ill-paid), the hospital will attempt to collect the exorbitant fees from what little savings we have.
Those “patients” who are pretty much homeless (or crashing in somebody else’s barely-habitable living quarters), and strung out on recreational chemicals all the time, shouldn’t be able to use the ER as a comfortable place to rest up and maybe get their hands on some psychoactive drugs. Despite the ailments and injuries that result from their “lifestyle choices” there has to be a limit. After a certain point, somebody who refuses to practice any minimal standards of self care should be refused any further treatment until they shape up. If that means changing the laws, that’s long overdue!
Hey, I have my own place to live, but (thus far) there’s no law obligating me to take in every dangerous druggie who wants to come in out of the cold and rain, and let them use my bed while I have to sleep on the floor? That’s the equivalent of providing “free” care to the undeserving while making up for it by pricing it out of the market for those of us who might otherwise have the ability to pay.
I rarely watch Hannity but when I heard Levin was going to be on, I tuned in to watch. Too bad he is not the Speaker, Levin comes on strong, he is the voice for many Americans. Full interview at rightscoop
http://www.therightscoop.com/hannity-mark-levin-slams-obama-says-we-must-fight-obama-every-stop-of-the-way/
They’re afraid. They’re afraid of us. Now, they want the power to push us around just like the Democrats do because they see the end of their cushy DC lives, so they set about trying to crush us.
The caving of the Repub governors is particularly distressing, as the states ARE the last defense against the ever-encroaching and dangerous FedGov. These governors were elected for PRECISELY that reason.
The only thing conservatives in those states can do now is to lean on their state legislators to not accede to the spineless governors’ demands.
In Ohio, this has a chance of succeeding, as their legislature is republican-controlled.
And as for this being an actual strategy? Please, just don’t even go there. The repubs are incapable of that kind of thinking and cohesion. Just spinelessness, all the way around.
Gather yourself, tea-partiers: it’s gonna be a bumpy ride. Let us prevail!
If you want to know what you’re in for with Obamacare check out the president’s role model over in Britain, the National Health Service (NHS). Its Stafford hospital killed something like 1200 patients in a 4 year period.
There’s a good take on it in: “Soul Dead NHS” at:
http://john-moloney.blogspot.com/
Have you ever marveled at how the situation for blacks keeps getting worse and worse yet blacks still overwhelmingly vote for Democrats? Well, marvel no more, boys and girls. The way Conservatives are treated by establishment Republicans is no different than how blacks are treated by establishment Democrats. Nothing is going to change until we wake up to that fact and do something about it.
For me, the handwriting was on the wall when Boehner removed four Conservative congressmen (one of which was mine) from their committee positions. Continuing to support the status-quo Republican party is just prolonging the agony. We need to rip the band-aid off and form a third party that is true to Conservative ideals.
This is why we need term limits and an end to the seniority system. I volunteered for the Pete Sessions campaign against Martin Frost in 2004. Pete is or was a sharp guy who had a real career with Southwestern Bell and Bell Labs before he ran for the House. Unfortunately, he’s been in congress for 16 years and appears to be going native.
We have enough states run by Democrats to demonstrate the failure of Medicaid expansion without Republican help. In my opinion, it would be better for Republicans to demonstrate what happens to states that don’t expand Medicaid. California can show what not to do without any help from Arizona and Nevada, for example.
I can’t believe p. sessions told one of the attendees to come up with an offense plan and he’d look at it! Really?! That’s all ya got?! The folks you represent just want you to fight for them, stand for the constitution for goodness sakes! Stop worrying about your precious image from the msm and do your job!
This lady shouldn’t have to come up with a plan, although I’m sure she and the rest of us could! What do we pay YOU people for?! Ugh!
Here’s the thing though. 35% of the nation is Committed Democrat. About 30% is Committed Republican. The remainder are “low information voters” who simply vote based on whim or “who seems cool.” In that environment, the bulk of the press and nearly all of the “entertainment news” have enormous power to define the terms of the debate. So, in every fight, Republicans are required to check its weapons at the door while the other side (Democrats) are given extra ammo. Doubt it? Look at the “fact checks” or blatant siding (witness Candy Crowley’s debate save of Obama) in the last election. How many people ever knew that Romney gave more of his income to charity than any candidate in history?
Those “low information voters”? They will simply stick their finger in the air and vote for whoever “seems cool.” Policy? You mean like the Republicans’ policy of raping women and then forcing them to have babies (or something like that)? History? History is a joke – folks know that Hitler was a Republican and, umm, Democrats saved the nation by passing the Civil Rights Bill. What other history is there to know?
Indeed, to the extent that they *do* fight, the entire conservative movement will be mocked and laughed at – while losing. This battle was lost 20 years ago when the Left completed its takeover of the media and academia. Well over 60% of people under 30 A) see nothing wrong with Daddy and Mommy government tucking them in at night, B) think that those old, white, & completely out-of-touch Republicans are meanies for standing in the way and C) don’t have the slightest clue that they are being financially raped to pay the way for the Lefties and the Baby Boomers that are screwing them.
Sorry, folks, the only way through is to let the Blue Model discredit itself and, out of the chaos, provide new alternatives. Canada is the best example. You may not want to *admit* those realities exist, but the Governors don’t have the luxury of posting a few Internet complaints and walking away…
Sorry Doc, your numbers are wrong. Only about 20% of the electorate are self-identified lefties with 40+% as self-identified conservatives. The remaining 40% are independents. Those numbers explain why lefties constantly try to court the independent vote; they know they will never win an election without independent support.
doomsday has arrived
I know Pete personally and well. He is a real fighter. If he is carrying the flag of surrender, it means that the strategy has been determined at a higher level, like the RNC and the Speaker.
There actually is valid reason to let Obamacare collapse under its own weight, which it will. It is political. But, the real question is how are we going to pick up the pieces once Obamacare collapses? The Left thinks it will be an excellent excuse to institute a one-payer system, which is what they have always wanted in the first place.
The Right is gambling, yes gambling, that Obamacare will destroy all faith in the Democrats and allow the GOP to gain power and make real reforms that will actually work. It is a gamble. It probably has a 50/50 chance of success. But, is that better than the odds of fighting? Unknown.
“The Right is gambling, yes gambling, that Obamacare will destroy all faith in the Democrats and allow the GOP to gain power and make real reforms that will actually work.”
The bigger gamble is that the GOP would actually “make real reforms that actually work”. Likely they will try to simply compromise the deal as the collapse rolls along and produce nothing but middle of the road mush. The GOP has been always aspired to be just simply better managers of the welfare state. So I would suspect that they will propose to be simply better managers of ObamaCare. The GOP leadership has never demonstrated the stomach nor the brain for doing the big things that need to be accomplished regarding rolling back the Leviathan so why would they do so regarding nationalized health care? They won’t.
Believe it or not, but Pete Sessions is a RINO from Texas. As a member of the Austin based chapter of the AFP, I know him well. I believe it is time for him to go, and I hope the Tea Party of Texas will see that it happens.
as a prominent and original member of the leadership of the Texas Tea Party, I can tell you with absolute certainty that Pete Sessions is not in the crosshairs. He actually is one of the most fiscally responsible and anti-tax members of Congress. We need more like him.
You may be, because I have never heard of you, but I don’t know of any Tea Party member who wants Obamacare to become ingrained into our society and ‘just fail on it’s on’. Believe me, when it fully becomes part of our health care, insurance and welfare systems, it will never go away. I not fond of any of the Dallas area Republicans. You also probably think Jeb Hesarling is great.
To Jack #19,
It seems much easier to fight tooth and nail now, instead of reversing law and dismantling massive government infrastructure later. I hear other people saying that we should let the Dem’s strategy fail, but in the meantime, when a bureaucrat gets to tell you and a family what quality of care is covered, and as an extension, whether you or one of your family members will live or die, you may have wished you opted to fight. Plus you’re assuming that you can predict what these tyrannical Dem’s will do. With all the treachery they’ve shown, I wouldn’t want to have to count on any assumption associated with them.
Given the apathy and sheer ignorance of most of the populace, perhaps giving people a dose of reality is what is needed. Regardless, conservatives need to capitalize on the numerous “I told you so” opportunities that will arise.
There is certainly something to be said for giving people enough rope to hang themselves. I suppose the tactic would have more credibility if it were not being implemented by the same people who have an interest in producing the rope and gallows, have historically benefited from the process called crony capitalism, and seem to have immunity from any of the hanging: for example, Senator Corzine does come to mind.
Could someone post the source of Pete Sessions remarks? There are so many pointless links in this piece, that I cannot find it.
Also, Issa’s probe of Fast and Furious has gone missing. Cantor is remarkably non combative also. It’s a sell out. The base will be staying home the next election, as they did in this last one. Then we will have complete Democrat control of the government, leftist justices appointed to SCOTUS, and the END of the Republic.
I think it’s worse than is being described here… merely surrendering – I think the Republicans were not successful in fighting Obamacare when it was proposed because they were all for it.
They are for it for the same reasons the Democrats are for it. Obamacare increases their political power. They’re all statists.
When one studies the real and relative data surrounding health care in America, you will note a rather significant historical and systemic problem. A historical problem of arbitrary inflation that supercedes all other inflationary data in any other industries. An inflationary cost that provides no positive ratio of increased ROI. Now, if one takes a good look at the historical data of personal income to the inflation index of health cares inflation you will note still another significant problem. When one correlates the two sets of data you will see that while personal income stagnates or decreases and health care systemically increases, eventually health care becomes unaffordable to the general market being served. That eventual unaffordability also attaches to the governments health care programs encompassing the total health care market.
Whether anybody like Obamacare or not, the preliminary indications of controlling health care inflation is positive thus far.
http://forecast-chart.com/inflation-medical-care-cost.html
The significant rate increases depicted from the latter part of 2011 and throughout 2012 was created by the healthcare industry ‘padding’ what they determined as front-end cost adjustments — in other words more arbitrary inflation.
There are endless numbers of legitimate historical charts one can review and each will note that health care inflated costs was becoming unsustainable to both the private and government markets. A serious matter of ‘drag’ on the national economy! Another classic example of free enterprise becoming corrupted by greed for wealth over the common good of the people and the nations economy. As an example of arbitrary inflation: $12 at end of 2012, had the same buying power as $1.43 in 1950. Health care inflation again, significantly supercedes that example!
What is an appropriate alternative solution for such a track of unsustainability?
The majority of state governors have so far rejected a key element of Obamacare; the state run health exchanges. So far it’s 27 states that have rejected the exchanges and they’re a key part of Obamacare. The more states reject’m the more likely things slow down and the more likely implementation is delayed passed the ’14 midterms. Maybe even ’16 if things are kept up. Freedom Works is the key group of why majority of state governors have rejected the health care exchanges. Don’t ever give up hope. There’s always a spark of hope. There’s even a separate lawsuit towards Obamacare coming my home state Oklahoma making it’s way through the courts. The longer it has to fight for its life, the more hope there is for it’s eventual overturn. Note: Ever heard of the Obamacare Survival Guide?
The health exchanges, whether a state chooses to create their own as an option, or submit to the federal exchange, they are ALL private sector insurance companies. These very same states are among the rest, that run to the federal government for every kind of monetary handout there is, now want to push the exchange program completely to the federal government at the same time screaming about the size of and cost of the federal government — not to mention their Tenth Amendment rights.
The hypocrisy of the current ‘conservative’ movement is self defeating! Either, the states are willing to take back their own states rights and thus, great economic responsibilities OR they chose to remain a ward of the federal government. You can’t have it both ways and expect to be considered a legitmate movement. When all the states refuse to take federal government handouts in the hundreds of billions or trillions and become far more self sufficient thus, reducing the size and cost of the federal government then the movement becomes legitimate.
Insurance companies is what has removed the conpetitiveness from health care allowing for unsustainable and circular arbitrary inflation at a rate far superceding that of any other industry sector in America. Have a solution for that?
Also in the GOP controlled states economic activity is THRIVING. Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana just as a few examples. There’s still opposition going on at the state level.
The problem is this –
What does the GOP stand for?
Based on it’s actions what does the GOP really stand for?
That is why the GOP at the federal level is dying and good riddance to them.
It’s about time the Democrat lite brand was destroyed, they won’t be missed.
Remember, every six months the Republicans have a chance to pull the plug on the Obama administration just by not raising the debt ceiling. Without a constant flow of plundered wealth from the provinces, our fat imperial capital would quickly turn into a starving slum. The R’s would never do this of course, because an incumbent’s first loyalty is to the Government, not the People.
Exactly. The Republicans are part of the problem because they benefit from big government also. Don’t expect them to stand up for anything except keeping the jobs that reward them with wealth, perks, power, and status. The jobs that exempt them from all the laws they pass, that they expect the rest of us to follow, like Obamacare.
The Republican Establishment has been drinking at the DC waterhole with Democrats so long they will not just walk away. If they are not forced out, they will become Democrats and marginalize the rest of us. This is the pragmatic political response of a machine bent on preserving it’s cash flow. They must be ‘forced’ out. Real simple, but you gotta do it. They will not walk away. Too much money, stolen too easily.