Time for Some Small-Government Optimism…and to Repeal ObamaCare
Advocates of limited government have been playing defense for so long that they seem to have a hard time believing they might actually be winning a public debate. After years of playing for moral victories or embracing strategic defeats, many seem more inclined to look a gift horse in the mouth than to believe they can ride it down the front stretch, across the finish line, and into the winner’s circle.
How else to account for the fact that, on the heels of the greatest Republican swing in the House since 1938 — despite exit polls showing that voters blamed the sluggish economy more on President Bush than on President Obama — many opponents of ObamaCare actually continue to doubt whether its repeal is “realistic.”
Such an attitude stems largely from an ingrained, misplaced pessimism about the persuasiveness of the case and the reasonableness of the American people. But it also stems in part from some confusion over the polling on ObamaCare — confusion perpetuated by the White House. Opponents of ObamaCare wonder which is right: the exit polls showing about 50 percent of Americans favoring repeal, or the Rasmussen polls showing about 60 percent?
The answer is both. In each case, Americans favor repeal by a margin of 15 to 20 percentage points over any other option. The exit polling gave three options for what to do with ObamaCare: “Repeal it” (48 percent of voters picked this), “Leave it as is” (16 percent), or “Expand it” (31 percent). Rasmussen gives only two, while also allowing respondents to say whether their preference is “Strongly” or only “Somewhat” felt: “Favor” repeal (57 percent across its eight post-election polls) or “Oppose” repeal (38 percent).
When Americans are given two options for dealing with ObamaCare, repeal beats the alternative by 15 to 20 points. When they’re given three options, repeal beats the most popular of the alternatives by 15 to 20 points. Either way, the result is the same: repeal in a landslide.
It’s important to note that the three options provided by the exit polls are mutually exclusive. President Obama has tried to add two of the three together to mask the embarrassing fact that only one in six Americans likes his signature legislation as written. But you can’t expand ObamaCare and leave it alone at the same time. Nor can you repeal it while expanding it, or leave it alone while repealing it. Any of these options is like having your cake and eating it too — or like looting Medicare to fund ObamaCare while claiming that this same money will also be used to extend the life of Medicare (as this administration has shamelessly done).
ObamaCare’s opponents should rest assured that they not only have the bulk of public opinion on their side, but also the intensity of public opinion. Far more people vehemently oppose ObamaCare than vehemently support it. The November Kaiser Health Tracking Poll showed that, among “health care voters” — defined as those who “named health care or health care reform as one of the top two factors in deciding their vote for Congress” — 56 percent have a “very unfavorable” opinion of ObamaCare while only a meager 13 percent have a “very favorable” opinion of it. That’s an intensity gap of more than four-to-one.
The Kaiser poll also showed that, when health-care voters are presented with partial repeal as a fourth potential option, full repeal still wins by 15 to 20 points: 5 percent said lawmakers should “Repeal the entire law,” versus 26 percent who said lawmakers should “Repeal parts of the law.” (A distant 15 percent want to see the law expanded, while only 11 percent like it as it is.)
The fight for repeal is a fight that advocates of limited government and fiscal responsibility are clearly winning and are poised to win for good — provided they can summon enough optimism and determination to do so.
Is repealing ObamaCare “realistic”? Why on earth wouldn’t it be?
The public can be opposed to 0bamacare as much as it likes- but we’re stuck with it for now. The House can vote to repeal it in whole or part, and may even get some Senators to go along… but repeal dies in the Senate. In the remote chance that a repeal bill makes it to Zero’s desk, he vetoes it- and the votes to override aren’t there.
I personally don’t think the new GOP-led House will accomplish much of anything. Meet the new boss- same as the old boss. We’re still boar-hogged.
“I personally don’t think the new GOP-led House will accomplish much of anything.”
You mean, other than defunding Obamacare programs in the House? Right?
That’s where spending bills originate.
There are many ways to defeat Obamacare–repeal being only one.
Don’t slit your wrists just yet.
I will honestly say that I have lost all hope in any potential repeal of Obamacare – an act which shouldn’t be necessary in the first place, since it was an illegal act from the beginning ot the end. I also believe that most of the energy and momentum 2010 has been exhausted.
I cannot disguise my true feelings – I believe that Obama has incurred catostrophic, irreparable harm to this country of which we have forever been tarnished
I and others have pointed out that the individual States can nullify ObamaScare by using the 10th Amendment.
Your state through the legislature can write a bill that deems ObamaScare null and void and not enforceable. The House must pass as well as the Senate of your state a bill that words do such and are signed by the Governor. This approach is much easier and does not depend on the Supreme Court or the federal government at all!
Not so fast; the O’Bozo will take the States to Court (he did it with Arizona on the illegal immigration issue), and we all know who controls the “Courts” – commies/progressives/liberals/whatever.
Health Insurance across state lines would be a good start. And variable policies.
I like the way Progressives are dealt with in the new animated web movie A Not Too Grimm Fairy Tale… you’ll laugh your butt off as the truth about America is unveiled along with a new American symbol (weapon) – the Liberal “head-up-the-butt” person
http://www.marcrubin.com/Hairmerica.ivnu
It is always good to attempt to see things from unfogged spectacles as you have done.
All to many folks haven’t a clue what the full processes are involving the repealing of an enacted piece of legislation. Other have the precise knowledge yet, intentionally mislead the people in their rhetoric and movements. First, there is specific mandates requiring a showing *injury* and and in any event any repeal must me accompanied by a *replacement* piece of legislation. Putting all the other factors aside, the best place of *temporary* resolve rests in the Supreme Court….should they not turn a blind eye to overreach of the commerce clause and the fact the legislation lacks a severability clause. Even then, the bill, if reversed by the Supreme Court, will simply arise again corrected, at the next opportune time by the democrats because, nobody will address the underlying causes that allows for such a piece of legislation.
The bottom line is that a majority of the voting Americans including republicans and independents, got exactly what they wanted in 2006 and again in 2008 and now want to cry foul. Obama was openly honest during two years of campaigning, in what his ideology was and what he wanted the next congress to accomplish…including the health care act.
Is brain dead a defense?
Don’t lose hope because the minute you or the rest of America stops believing is the exact minute that the vultures (democrats) swoop in for the kill. Obamacare will be repealed. It may take some work on our part but we can do it. We the people have to keep pushing and pushing for repeal. We have to make our voices heard, we have to let the new Congress know what we want….afterall, they are elected to serve us. Check out http://www.takingonissues.com you will be glad you did.
ObamaCare must be repealed, NOW! The Republicans should keep voting for repeal every month from now until the 2012 election. Or, the Republicans should vote to de-fund it as much as possible, thereby killing it. Make the Democrats, and the President, have to defend it every day until the elections. Do this so that it reminds people what a terrible and dangerous piece of legislation it is. Force Obama to veto it again and again, making him explain (if he can) why the country needs this terrible law, one that already has hundreds of exemptions tacked on to it from companies that cannot afford to be a part of it. Make Obama explain why his union thugs were also given an exemption for paying into this program. Keep this battle in the public’s eye until the very next election, when people can actually do something about it.
This is no time for the Republicans to shrink from a major battle. They have the public on their side and they should use the good will that comes with that. As long as they keep fighting to uphold the Constitution and defeating the far-left progressives who tried to destroy it, they can’t go wrong.
@#’s 1 and 2;
This sounds like 2012 presidential debate material. Given enough heat in the campaign I think Obama would flip-flop and repeal the damned thing himself if he thought it would get him re-elected.
Knock on wood…..
Jones I am afraid your about right. But we could and maybe should hope a little more on the legal side of things and see the “law” crushed in the courts.
Now that we have a few people in Congress that don’t have all OUR CASH stuffed in their ears, maybe we’ll get some attention.
Repeal is a battle flag, and battle flags are important.
Who knows? If 20 or 30 Dems vote for it in the House, the Senate will hear the footsteps. Momentum could mount. Sure, it’s a stretch, but how much time will it take to pass the thing anyway? Other than cutting spending, I would prefer for the congress critters to sit on their hands anyway. Every legislative thing they do, even the better guys, is dangerous.
Repeal it every month. Investigate every aspect of the marxist administration. Block everything they try to do. Cut spending. Remind the country every day the damage the marxists actually did when they were in power. Hard stop.
…agreed. no matter how many times it is stopped the repeal needs to be pushed over and over.
and the Republicans need to keep stating that those who stop the repeal are working against the majority of Americans.
“Is repealing ObamaCare realistic”? Why on earth wouldn’t it be?
~ Jos 24:15 ¶ And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.~
Will you side with Joshua? This is our choice not the choice of Obama or of Congress and the courts. We have been choosing Socialism which is somewhat the choice Joshua was holding up.
Socialism has an appeal to each individual yet that appeal is deceitful because it transgresses the ten commandments. Of these ten commandments one is positive and the rest negative. We are to love God and His righteousness then we are told that if we do that we cannot bear false witness — which Socialism and big government does. We cannot steal for how can that be a token of love? We cannot covet because that leads to lies, theft, murder,and the like. Our Constitution is not divine but it lays out a pattern that supports these commandments and, if we stay within those Constitutional bounds we will prosper and have prospered but we cannot follow any form of Socialism and stay within the bounds of our Constitution.
Obamacare is already impacting my health care negatively and it will get worse due to the laws of physics which it ignores.
Likewise,the Farm Subsidy program initiated by Franklin Delano Roosevelt was both unnecessary and unconstitutional. It has done nothing the free market would not have done.
By law Roosevelt restricted farm production at taxpayer’s expense but did not improve the lot of the farmer. Instead, it shut down many opportunities.
The free market, when flooded, drops the price below the profit level, forcing those dependent on profit to do something different.
If the price of cotton was so low that there would be not increase by planting cotton, why bother. Roosevelt said we had no choice except to plow under a percentage of the planted crop. Thus we would prosper by scarcity because that would cause an increase in price. It did and has increased prices but decreased affordability — all according to the laws of physics and these laws are immutable, not subject to the whims of Congress or any government.
Engineers work with these immutable laws and do wonderful things in the way they apply those laws and we are the better for it.
Socialism is predicated on lack of choice and reserves that choice to government apparatchiks. The free market operates on opportunities to produce goods and services which are in sufficient demand to produce a profit and the buyer must have sufficient value to consummate the trade. Why this is anathema to the Socialist is incomprehensible to me.
I could go a long ways down this road but this should be sufficient to check our navigation and make a course correction. We cannot modify Socialism and make it work. We must reject it.
Rejecting Obamacare without rejecting the underlying philosophy will get us nowhere. We, like Joshua, must make a choice between two mutually exclusive systems. A house divided cannot stand and we are definitely falling. This choice is our choice and we should not let Congress forget that.
You saved the greatest bit-o-wisdom for your last paragraph which I think bears repeating!
["Rejecting Obamacare *without rejecting the underlying philosophy* will get us nowhere. We, like Joshua, must make a choice between two mutually exclusive systems. A house divided cannot stand and we are definitely falling. This choice is our choice and we should not let Congress forget that."]
Once the major policy features of President Barak Obama’s Health Care Bill go into effect, there will be no turning back.
Who is going to vote for taking away health care for children, or people with pre-existing conditions, or going back to shutting off the funding for health care for sick people who have reached their limit?
You folks on this board are collectively under some kind of spell.
Repeal with never happen. Oh, and Obama WILL be re-elected (look at the numbers in the key states) and no, he won’t need to talk very much about this issue during the campaign. Just watch the Republican nominee get twisted into knots over this. LOL!!!
Health care is a human right in a Modern Western Society. Single payer now.
Nate,
I’m a bit confused by something you said ‘a human right in Modern Western Societies’…. If it is a human right, shouldn’t it trancend time and place? Shouldn’t it have been a right from the dawn of time to the end of time? Shouldn’t a human right be a right for each person be they in Georgia or Georgia SSR? Or Bejing? Or Benin?
Why wouldn’t this have been ‘self evident’ as a right of people to those who wrote the declartion of independence ‘Life, Liberty, and PURSUIT of Happieness’ doesn’t include health care insurance, or even access. Simply that nobody’s actions could deprive a citizen of such without due process. Why didn’t other philosophers prior to 1776 mention this?
Maybe you don’t see rights as universal through time and space, but limited by the money available.
AC.
BTW, YES President Barrack Obama is on track to be a 2 term president if he wants it. He has the electoral votes at this point in time even after the census. Whether he gets the simple majority or not is another matter, but under our system irrelevant.
“YES President Barrack Obama is on track to be a 2 term president if he wants it. He has the electoral votes at this point in time even after the census.”
Not at this time, he doesn’t.
In fact, I could climb up on a table and squeeze out a brown stinky one that could beat Obama by 50 electoral votes.
AC…I’m sure you inadvertently left out one very important word in citing the Declaration of Independence…most people do, just as they fail to cite the continuance of the statement!
["We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that [AMONG] these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.– [That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men], deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”]
Fortunately, this document is not binding but it does offer a prescription for fundamental rights…and even the right for another ideology to form a new government to effect the safety and happiness of the people… should it be the will of the people…..presumably, a simple majority.
It is always good to keep things in its proper and full context.
“Health care is a human right in a Modern Western Society”
How is it a ‘right’ if it forces, by force of law, someone else to pay for that right? How is it a ‘right’ if it forces someone else (doctores and nurses in this case) to provide a service to someone else?
Rights do not compel money and/or services exchange from one set of people to another. That’s not how rights work.
Go back to Moscow, comrade.
Visited today with the family of a 25 year Army veteran who sustain a
self-inflicted gunshot wound to the brain. Been hospitalized for nearly four months in all the full ranges of critical care and now sent home for continued care and whatever therapy may be thought beneficial. A great thing he is provided TriCare through his service to his country…right?
Well guess what? The family is now having to fight TriCare to pay [all] bills and reverse their decision to not pay for anymore therapy! Want to donate the money needed for his continued therapy in hopes he may regain to approximately 50% of normal? He is a loving husband and father of five children but…. should we really care about him or them?
Easy to become pompous when somebody else is paying the potential of hundreds of thousands of dollars for [your] health care….and you throw stones at those who do not have the ability of your [government provided] resources.
The cancer of social health care has been allowed to fester for far to many decades and now it is becoming terminal to the cost of government. Casting stones is hardly a solution just as letting the the aged, the infirmed and indigent die from the lack of health care is no solution. I’m sure you have a better moral compass than the latter.
32 year USMC Veteran
self inflicted?
let him die.
Thanks for illuminating the kind of moral compass that has brought down the once greatest society on earth….and further proves what success the socialist progressives have had on America’s society over the past many decades.
In the 3rd millenium a.d., leftists “discover” that health care is a human right. How crazy is that?
The human race has been around for at least a couple hundred thousand years, probably much longer, and has done quite well even without MEDICINE, no matter a screwey idea that a person has a “right” to health care, which can only be granted by confiscating everything that other people have sweated and toiled for. It’s nothing short of insane. Why not a “right” to food, shelter, BMW’s, 747′s, eternal youth.
These people are flat-out crazy….and extremely dangerous, not just to us, not just to the country, not just to the world, but to humanity itself.
“Health care is a human right in a Modern Western Society.”
If the right to provide health care is relinquished to this or any government away from the individual’s own responsibilities, then that government has gained both life and death capacities over that individual.
Not all of us wish to be slaves.
Any debate on Obamacare must deal with what is actually in the bill. A guest blogger did just that in spelling out the consequences for its implementation. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. See http://clarespark.com/2010/11/21/dr-james-pagano-on-obamacare-2/.
WHIT, ANOTHER EXCELLENT POST – Thank you. I learn more from your posts than any others. Keep posting!
Delores Smith
Delores109@cox.net
the republicans often seem to get cold feet at inopportune times.
the right thing to do is THE RIGHT THING TO DO.PERIOD. stop worrying what the progressives think.
repeal the thing
Robbing Peter to pay Paul will always be popular with Paul. The Democrat strategy against repealing Obamacare seems to be an endless media parade of Paul individuals.
I’m not sure that works very well any more.
What this Congress will do is to really show how America (what’s left of it anyhow) has already been “fundamentally transformed” for good by BHO’s handlers (read: the Bilderberg Group and the like, who installed the kenyan/indonesian idiot in the WH).
What is really amazing to me is the ease with which this happened, and its speed.
Sadly, the authors opinion piece does the opposition movement no favors! It does however, refer to data that points to just how fickle minded the average citizen is. Pose the following questions to the average citizen and see what the results might be.
1. Should every American citizen have access to health care?
2. Should previous health histories limit or prevent insurability?
3. Should income limit or prevent health care?
4. Should there be insurability caps to health care?
5. Should employers be responsible for paying any portion of individual
health care?
6. Should the government subsidize the cost of health care for those who
are aged, infirmed or indigent?
When the right “polling” questions are ask then a proper debate can ensue. Until then, it is all an invalid dog & pony show. Americans today, are much better at [following] populist superficial rhetoric than comprehensive analytical thinking for themselves. It is American citizens who threw away their individual moral compass over the past several decades that has allowed for most all the consequences that are arising today and that has “forced” the government into the position of being a nanny. Remember, our nation once functioned quite well without any insurance or government health care…a point in time that will not be forthcoming anytime soon…. if ever! Social irresponsiblity can and often does carry with it, permanent consequences that stink!
The process of repealing enacted legislation is NOT what so many seemingly think it to be. If even possible, the rules mandate a [replacement] legislation. So far, the GOP is willing to retain many portions of the health care act that are most popular…thus the socialist progressives still win and the government cost even greater than currently….not to mention the real potential of placing insurance providers in an unsustainable economic position…then what?
“1. Should every American citizen have access to health care?”
Yes. But then they already do.
AF_Vet…. Thanks for volunteering to answer one of the posed questions.
The point in these types of questions versus a simple irrelevant question like “should the Health Care Act be repealed” is, that it misrepresents what is really relevant in the minds of most Americans.
The true fact is, that the overwhelming majority of American’s do believe that all Americans should have access to good health care. The question is whether it should be the federal governments authority to administer and pay for such access…. or…..some other form administered through the private sector.
The previous system was a failed, corrupted and very costly system that was a lose-lose economically for the taxpayers, the States and federal government and…. for those who couldn’t afford insurance. Furthermore, this circumstance was the perfect “crisis” for the socialist progressives but for having the perfect political machine in place. American’s voted in that perfect opportunity in, in 2006 and again in 2008.
The very same political fire storm has erupted with the passage of every social entitlement since the 30′s…and to no avail. With collective citizen irresponsibility comes horrible consequences for Traditional America. This is simply a repeat of history!
Remember this as you muddle through the details! The economic value for goods and services are purely arbitrary! Socialist Progressive Labor Unions and their following are responsible for setting the dastardly inflationary costs of goods and services that eventually leaves more and more citizens in poverty.
Ironically, think back over the past recent years of campaigning by the socialist progressive folks and count the number of times you can recall them having spoken directly to, or about the “poor/poverty” vs the middle class. They cannot succeed in their long term goals without growing the “poor/poverty class” to a majority. Study Cuba, Venezuela, and other South American countries of the recent past in contrast to the more well known communist/socialist countries of history. They come to fruition through quietly a growing poor/poverty class….they create in the very same way as is happening here in America.
You stop them in America by a constitutional amendment…not by futile efforts of appealing enacted legislation and other irrelevant dog & pony shows!