Sen. Arlen Specter – that living argument for term limits – was shouted down by a woman at a healthcare town hall on Sunday: “I look at this health care plan and I see nothing that is about health or about care. What I see is a bureaucratic nightmare, senator. Medicaid is broke, Medicare is broke, Social Security is broke and you want us to believe that a government that can’t even run a cash for clunkers program is going to run one-seventh of our U.S. economy? No sir, no,” she said.
You may be shocked to hear the woman got loud applause, drowning out Specter. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was on the scene to defend the Pennsylvania Senator, but apparently wasn’t particularly well-received either.
The irony, as most of us know, is that Specter has had his very public and admittedly courageous battles with cancer, battles for which he undoubtedly had the best, spare-no-expense, medical treatment. Has he even begun to investigate how the various Obama proposals floating around would help people in similar conditions? As Specter himself admitted at the Town Hall, he hasn’t as yet read the bill since there is no bill. [Didn't you see one in DC?-ed. Never mind.] And, furthermore, he doesn’t read the entire bills himself, relying on staff. [So it goes.-ed. Indeed.]
“The irony, as most of us know, is that S”
I think your post borked up, Roger. No criticism intended; rather, I’m just pointing out that something went wrong.
No hurry. If something’s good, it’s worth waiting for.
These town meeting “uprisings, and widespread negative reaction to the grand “teaching moment” pronouncements of The Professor and The Messiah, perhaps indicate that the Regressives will no longer have a monopoly on the public expression of disapproval of public policy.
It seems that a few Americans have awakened to how late in the day it is and how very close we are to losing our freedoms and rights, not to mentions our means of earning a loivelihood.
To vote yes should mean to read all 1000 pages. To vote no, one must simply find something repugnant enough and skip the rest, probably by page 1 or 2.
It’s worse than that, if you watch the video of this spectacle.
When Specter said “we have to make judgments very fast” the crowd erupted with cries of ‘Why!?’ and other angry protests.
Why indeed. Why do they ‘have to make judgments very fast’?
It’s a dereliction of duty to make very fast judgments in the Senate.
The Senate is supposed to be a deliberative body, not highly paid rubber stamps.
Instapundit has come to the same guidelines
I have: if they don’t give you time to read it, or it’s hard to understand, vote no.
I’m currently on 40mg of Prozac a day. Medi-Cal (Medicaid in California) only pays for 20mg tablets. So instead of taking one 40 mg tablet—which is only slightly costlier than the 20mg ones—I have to take 2 of the smaller. This costing the state of California more than if they paid for the bigger pills.
The virtue of any bureaucracy is that it follows instructions, regardless of how nonsensical they are.
Specter is soon to become political history, but it’s good for him to get an idea of what people think of him before he steps into the shadows. All those years in the bloviating world of the Senate where everyone bows and scrapes and calls you “My honorable friend” is so isolating he must be both shocked and surprised.
I like the fact Sebelius jumps in and say don’t criticize Arlen, there’s no bill for him to read. WTF? Why doesn’t he say I can go for this and can’t go for that and then work on legislation?
“Whatever we’re going to do is going to be better than what we’re doing now. I’d tell you what it is but since I don’t know what it is you’ll just have to trust me.”
There’s never been a better “Hi, I’m from the government and I’m here to help” moment.
“The irony, as most of us know, is that Specter has had his very public and admittedly courageous battles with cancer, battles for which he undoubtedly had the best, spare-no-expense, medical treatment.”
It would actually be interesting to see the details of his cancer treatment. What paper work did he have to fill out? What were his co-pays? How much was his experience unlike the average American’s? Did he have the ability to just show up when they needed him for the medical things and to ignore the rest because Congress took care of it? Or did he actually have to go through the same paper work hell as everyone else? Let’s see it.
In many respects, our representatives in Washington are like our lawyers. They represent us and our interests. Can you imagine being involved in civil litigation with someone and your lawyer advises you to sign a legal agreement ending the case and then you find out your lawyer hasn’t actually read it? Can you imagine? (In a criminal case you could get a verdict overturned for inadequate counsel.)
What if he tried to convince you to sign it because he’d skimmed through it and it looked okay? Or that the opposing counsel had promised him it was a win-win for everybody? Or, although the final version had only become available that morning, he was in a hurry and needed to move along? Or it was so complicated it was just too much trouble to read and understand? Wouldn’t we fire our lawyer at that point.
These are all arguments our representatives are using. In essence, we’re getting taxation without representation since the people we elected to represent us are abdicating their responsibilities. It actually seems like they think of themselves more as Washington’s (and Nancy Pelosi’s) representatives to us, rather than our representatives in Washington. If they don’t have time do their job and represent us well, they’re doing it wrong.
Arlen political career is done. Congress is moving Obamacare quickly not because they want power to themselves, relatives, friends and their cronies. Similar what is going to happen to Cap and Trade. Tyranny starts small chipping away individual liberty.
If Specter had had to use the plan proposed for the American people, he would be dead. It would not be legal to save the life of an old non-productive guy of 79? Dr Zeke (Kevorkian lite) Emanuel–health care advisor to Obama– would not agree to prolonging his useless life. He’d be under a concrete slab.