Why ObamaCare Must Be Defeated
In an article by Jonathan Cohn, it is reported that the Democrats will not convene a formal conference committee made up of both House and Senate members to reconcile the versions of the health reform bills in both houses. Instead, Cohn has learned from his sources, they will negotiate informally, thereby avoiding what he writes would be “a series of procedural steps — not least among them, a series of special motions in the Senate, each requiring a vote with full debate — that Republicans could use to stall deliberations, just as they did in November and December.”
To put it differently, the Democrats will bypass the procedures of democratic debate and process in order to quickly put through what they know will be a slowing down of enactment, giving the public and opponents of the bill less time to mobilize and hopefully stop it from passing. It will be done in the name of democracy — since every “small d” democrat knows the current measure is good for the people, and hence undemocratic means must be used to protect the overall democratic good.
They will avoid “procedural hurdles” that would occur in a formal full tilt conference route in the Senate, thereby putting a stop to Mitch McConnell’s promise that “this fight isn’t over.” So while the first round failed to produce the promised open sessions televised on C-Span that Obama said would take place during the campaign, now the reconciliation process will also take place completely out of the Senate conference room. Once again the public is kept out of the process, only to find the results after a successful Senate vote.
Of course, reporter Cohn reflects the liberal view that now holds forth on domestic policy in the pages of TNR, and hence he thinks it is “a good thing.”
For the rest of us, there has been a good indication of what ObamaCare will bring forth in the future in the news from the Mayo Clinic. Last week, the organization, cited by Obama as well as others as a good model of a health institution that really works, announced that as of now, one of its clinic facilities in Arizona will stop accepting Medicare payments! Three-thousand patients who now use that clinic in Glendale will be asked to pay cash at full price if they want to continue seeing their regular doctors at this family treatment center.
Governance in the sunshine is currently suffering a total eclipse.
This should not come as much of a surprise. The entrenched media, that at one time reveled in being called the fourth estate, is merely the rear flank in the Contract Against America.
From the administration that brought you the off switch on the credit card system checks and balances during the campaign, and the media pawns who intentionally looked the other way, we now have not just cram down legislation, but “shove up” legislation to boot.
Not only is there no time to read it any more, there is no light by which to even skim the words. Governance in the darkness, governance in the shadows, governance behind the baseboards.
Determined vermin, tossing aside every procedural check and balance…a group of elitists who weep openly for enemy terrorist’s well being and care not a whit for the well being of the fly over country…you know, the rest of us.
We, however,…have been give the “right to die”.
Jonathan Cohn is your typical Harvard educated Progressive following in the tradition of Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt. He denies it, but in his heart of hearts he desires to be one of our benevolent dictators. Cohn is not a nasty guy. He is likely very nice to little puppies and stray cats. I suspect he is fairly charming and amiable in person—and this is what makes individuals like him so destructive. They perceive themselves as warm, kind, and well educated. We should appreciate their power grab of our health services. After all, don’t they mean well? Aren’t Cohn and his buddies among the best and the brightest? And why in heaven’s name should they listen to any of the common folk? These folks probably never walked the corridors of any of the Ivy League schools. Cohn is a wonderful human being doing the rest of us a favor.
Barack Obama, Jonathon Cohn, and the entire Democratic Party establishment are indifferent toward cost overruns and other problems associated with government run health services. They simply refuse to truly pay attention to such minor details. It gets so boring. These are merely minor glitches that will eventually be resolved in the future. The main thing is to currently seize power. Yes, they are that arrogant. One is often better off confronting a burglar or pickpocket intentionally trying to harm them. The altruistic and brilliant elites can be far more dangerous.
As the televised Watergate hearings once exposed an overreaching and thuggish Republican Executive, so the sleazy shystering on public display in both houses over health care deform is exposing a arrogant and thuggish Democrat controlled Legislature.
The long term effects impoverish us all and should not be underestimated. The social contract between the government and the governed is corroded resulting in a cynical, distrustful, and ultimately disloyal citizenry.
Before the Watergate revelations there was not a book published or a film produced that portrayed an American president, historic or fictional, as anything less than honorable. Since Watergate, American presidents cast as incompetents, thieves and murderers have become standard fare. The federal government is routinely cast as villain.
It may be argued that public opinion of our legislators could hardly be lower. But Pelosi, Ried, Frank and their ilk are redefining the depths of legalistic depravity. There’s low, there’s lower and then there’s lower than whaleshit.
It is the tea party that suggest how things ultimately may go if our politicians continue to insult public sensibility. This nation began with a tax revolt and if the contempt for laboring citizenry and the spilling of its hard earned tax dollars down the toilet continues, a tax revolt we may see again. For all the terror the IRS currently exerts on the individual taxpayer, it isn’t equipped to face an organized, popular tax boycott. Elected shysters beware.
ObamaCare isn’t going to be defeated. Neither is amnesty for illegal Hispanics, cap and trade, higher taxes, super-high inflation, increased terrorist attacks, massive wealth redistribution or anything else Obama and Congress have in mind as part of their agenda.
In case you haven’t noticed these people do whatever they want regardless of who challenges them.
The point being, “Who can or is going to stop them?” Tea Party revelers? Sarah Palin? Ron Paul? McCain? Hillary Clinton?
America slit its own throat in Election 2008. That’s what “We won, you lost means.” Get used to it.
Big deal. It’ll come to a vote – it’ll just come to a vote sooner. If opponents don’t like it, they don’t vote for it.
Meanwhile, this is the same congress which had to make sure that somebody went in and switched the lights on once a day during breaks to prevent the decider-in-chief from using recess appointments as his primary means for appointing officials. Was there an article on that on PJM? Just curious.
The Corruptocrats are just tightening the noose around their political careers with all the secrecy. Even the politicians don’t know what’s in the bill!
However, in trying to save their necks, the Corruptocrats are trying to write a new bill–with ACORN–for Universal Voter Registration:
http://www.examiner.com/x-25466-DC-Independent-Examiner~y2010m1d4-What-the-Dems-know-that-we-dont-Universal-Voter-Registration
This is fraught with corruption & not a good thing. But it will help keep the Corruptocrats in power in the November 2010 elections with fictional, dead, or pets as registered voters.
The Democrats must be stopped.
“to prevent the decider-in-chief from using recess appointments as his primary means for appointing officials.”
Because the Democrats refusded to hold confirmation votes on Bush nominations. “If opponents don’t like [him], they don’t vote for [him].” Apparently Democrats only like that logic if it’s their guy.
One of the problems in health care is that doctors don’t know much about business models and administrators don’t know much about medicine. That’s the gap to fill.
We need a grass roots rebellion fom Democrats who are against what the Treasoncrats are doing to our country to show there contempt by changing there voter registration to either Republican or Independent and let the local Democratic Party know that they will not vote for a Dem. until they get straight with whats good for America, and not themselves.
@8. vivo: – That’s the gap to fill.
Oh, please. You think the federal government has the slightest clue about business models? Or medicine, for that matter?
And I’m just curious: which section of the Constitution gives the federal government authority to fill this gap, in your opinion?
The ONLY problems with health care in the U.S. are the overreaching government regulations and the lack of tort limits. Fix those, and reinstate the direct economic relationship between health care provider and consumer by eliminating any and all incentives for comprehensive group health insurance, and the market can then function again.
#5
Oh, Matty, do you really want to bring up the subject of appointments to office while you are trying to promote Obama’s side? Obama has got to have the worst record of any POTUS when it comes to making appointments. Puuullease.
Wow, the moonbats are really fun today. Vivo seems to think doctors don’t spend enough time as it is in school. He wants to send doctors to business school and business executives to medical school. But I thought Congesspersons, who of course know everything, were going to make all the decisions for both professions. Isn’t that what the left is all about?
9. goy:
The ONLY problems with health care in the U.S. are the overreaching government regulations and the lack of tort limits.
Really? Thank goodness. I guess we’re fine then. I mean those seem like small problems. I wonder why Republicans didn’t do anything about peeling back regulation or tort reform when they were in power. I mean, if it’s a clear and simple fix, and it’s good for the American people, why didn’t they act?
True, they were awfully busy calling special sessions to insert themselves into the Terry Schiavo matter. Senator Frist even diagnosed her via video and pronounced her fit as a fiddle. Yes, the autopsy revealed that her brain had liquified, but that’s not the point really.
Then again, Shiavo wasn’t really a medical matter. If it were then clearly government had no right being involved. It was a moral issue, and so Republicans were right to claim authority through what now reveals itself to be the very first death panel, but in a good way, you know.
It seems like insurance companies are the ones making the calls these days on who gets what treatment, who gets paid how much, who qualifies for what when. And if you ask me they’ve been doing a bang up job. I can’t think of a single case of somebody being wrongly denied. Not once has shareholder value superseded quality of care for the individual.
As for tort reform, this seems to come up every year, and all the lawyers in Congress in the minority party always yell at the majority party lawyers demanding reform. And nothing happens. Then when power switches to the other party, those minority lawyers yell for tort reform and nothing happens. Kind of like the fillibuster.
I wonder why.
In any case, thank you, goy, for breaking it down for us. If we can just get government out of our healthcare system, everything will be fine. Of course we won’t have Medicaid or Medicare, but I’m fine with that. Tort reform will surely make everything fair and affordable for all, even elderly folks on a fixed income. Insurance companies would have no motive to maximize profits if there were fewer obstacles to maximizing profits.
It’s all so simple. Let’s roll.
5. That’s where you’re wrong. There’s an election in two weeks that the Democrats need to win in order to maintain their supermajority. If Sam Brown is elected Senator, the Republicans will have the 41 votes needed to sustain a filibuster.
“If Sam Brown is elected Senator, the Republicans will have the 41 votes needed to sustain a filibuster.”
Sam Brown could lose by a single digit margin—and that alone would scare the crap out of the Democratic Party establishment. No Massachusetts Democrat candidate for U.S. senator should lose by less than a fifteen point margin. This is indeed blue state territory! It is increasingly looking like the Democrats are royally screwed in the purple and red state areas of the country. They are now even threatened in normally perceived blue state districts.
Matthew,
You make a most excellent parrot! TNR says, Matthew says, Obama says, Matthew says… Marx says, Matthew says. Look for your Useful Idiot Honor Badge in the mail. Gosh, to be as smug and elitist as you – life must be grand in grad school! What Federal Department will have the honor of welcoming its newest closet Aristocrat in the future, eh Matthew?
That’s right keep on spreading the blame for GOP failures. When Taft failed, the progressive Theodore Roosevelt got into the 1912 race and the country elected the reform minded- Woodrow Wilson., but were the irreconcilables led by Henry Cabot Lodge happy with Wilson over the Fourteen Points, the World Court, The League of Nations, the Clayton Anti-Trust Act, the Brandeis appointment, the Federal Reserve, and other progressive legislation? No way! So what were we left with the know-nothings; Harding and Coolidge and Hoover who was over his head. Now in the wake of the New Deal, the conservative revisionists accuse FDR of not signing on to Hoover’s last minute, 11th hour actions in the lame-duck period! If only Hoover had another 6 months his market cycle ideas would have cured the whole mess, In fact, according to Newsmax and the Tea Party geniuses it was FDR who turned the 1929 recession into the Depression. But are we finished? It must have been those few Democrats in Congress in the 1920’s that steered Hoover into the crash!
But what of Eisenhower and his three recessions, the farm collapse, U-2, the collapse and embarrassment at Geneva, the sell-out to Joe McCarthy of Marshall, Nixon’s great triumph in South America where he was pelted by fruit, the over thrown of Batista, the civil rights inactivity, (he stated that his worse mistake was the appointment of Earl Warren), the CIA bungling over the Bay of Pigs, our non-support of Hungary’s freedom fighter, and the abandonment of Britain, France and the Israelis over the Suez Crisis? It must have been LBJ and the Democratic Congress that caused the GOP meltdown in 1958! But what about Nixon and his activities that led to Watergate, enemies’ lists, domestic spying, the extension of the Vietnam War with more casualties than LBJ, the oil embargo and a slew of other mistakes? It must have been the Democrats? But how about that clown Gerald Ford, and his WIN button? He couldn’t walk or chew gum at the same time. Blame it on Congress for that incompetent! In fact, because he was so weak, we got a rank outsider and unknown Jimmy Carter, who barely beat him with 50.06 of the vote.
But all is not lost we then inherited the biggest fraud of them all, Ronald Reagan, who gave us 70% tax cuts for the rich, unemployment of 8% for eight years, record deficits, Iran-Contra, 250 dead marines in Lebanon, Bittburg, the $1 trillion savings & loan boondoggle, the 600 ship navy, star wars and the wave of spending without cutting expenses that led to the Bush II disaster. Do we have star wars or the 600 ship navy? Funny thing is that we do have Daniel Ortega! But it was big government in Washington!
Let’s not forget Bush I, who squandered his post Gulf War popularity of 95%, stated “no new taxes,” and almost caused the country to go bankrupt. That is why in 1992 his vote as an incumbent was lower than Hoover’s and maybe Martin Van Buren’s.
Now we are again in another mess. It is all because Dodd and Frank wanted easier mortgages. They must have created the derivatives, debt-swapping, Country Wide Financial, Enron, and all of the de-regulation fathered by Reagan-Bush! They must have sponsored the Dubai Ports, Katrina, two unfunded wars, the 8 year failure in Afghanistan, the blurring of the “establishment clause,” the faith based initiatives, the porous borders, the migration of jobs, the petro dollar outflow, the disappearance of our manufacturing base, the drug and energy giveaway legislation and the collapse of our banking system, the auto industry and the stock market. They must have forced Bush to not veto a
GOP sponsored bill for six years. They must have sent GW Bush to Crawford to cut brush during those eight months before 9/11. In fact it was on their watch, not his! He was only guilty of reading a book upside down on 9/11!
So you are right, it isn’t all Bush II’s faults, its the Democrats!
Richard J. Garfunkel
Host of the Advocates
wvox-1460 am radio
NY
How about asking Democrat leaders specific questions about what’s in the bill? Has every TV personality lost his guts?
In the early Clinton days, George Stephanopoulos explained the lack of accomplishment of the new administration by declaring “It turns out the devil is in the details”. How many details can you have in a 2000+ pages bill and a 300+ pages last minute “manager’s” document?
Are these devils impossible to track? All of them? Who is ever going to trust journalists after this? Anyone has practical ideas about what we can do, at the citizen level, to pop the devils out of the shade, of put the fear of God into the congressmen and senators who are so methodically hiding the horns?
“8. vivo:
One of the problems in health care is that doctors don’t know much about business models and administrators don’t know much about medicine. That’s the gap to fill.
‘
That almost makes sense. One thing is missing from that equation.
Government knows little about either medicine or business models and that, most of all, is the precipice to avoid.
#16 Fantom: Exactly. The government does everything very badly, inefficiently at best. On the occasion that it delivers reasonable service, it does so only by grossly over spending.
It is not hard to understand – absent competition, accountability and with virtually unlimited money on demand, it is just the nature of things. All of those pushing this on us ought to stop and think how it would be if everything you buy and everything you rely upon in your life was the responsibility of government. Think Cuba or communist Russia.
This is not hyperbole or politics – it is a reality waiting to punch us all in the face. There are much better solutions to our health system issues that don’t require surrender of our freedoms and adoption of this horrible and inequitable monstrosity. But those with the left/liberal change agenda will never even consider what the rest of us see clearly.
It is clear that the Democrats do not care one iota what you, I, or the polsters say the American people want. They will do their dirty work behind closed doors in spite of Obama promising openness on C-Span. Typical of Obama -The Great Black Con Artist.
They do care about achieving a one-party government through the acquisition of votes by making more government dependents. They are willing to go to any leangth including sacrificing some of there own in the process.
Where are the Republican leaders shouting THIS WILL NOT STAND ! And “we have a plan to win the election and undo the damage” ?
Even more tragic is the ineffectual unorganized Republican party who are unable or unwilling to establish a leader and a coherent plan to attract the many disgusted voters looking for a place to go.
The Dems may loose a few but they have no place to go. Third/Tea Party looks like the only option but the Republicans will try to undermine and kill them off.
How about a union of non-unions ? Stop your jobs, stop sending money to the monster- I think a hundred million participants mmight have an effect. The Democrat sickness must be stopped before it’s cancer spreads and kills the rest of our freedoms.
Doctors’ gap, administrators’ gap, government’s gap, legislators’ gap: we are doomed!
The scare-mongers have always been with us….
“It is socialism. It moves the country in a direction which is not good for anyone, whether they be young or old. It charts a course from which there will be no turning back.”
—Senator Carl Curtis (R-NE), in 1965, opposing Medicare
“The doctor begins to lose freedoms; it’s like telling a lie, and one leads to another. First you decide that the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government. But then the doctors aren’t equally divided geographically, so a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him you can’t live in that town, they already have enough doctors. You have to go someplace else. And from here it is only a short step to dictating where he will go.”
—Ronald Reagan, in 1961, arguing against the creation of Medicare
Richard J. Garfunkel raises some legitimate points. The Republicans definitely contributed to the Great Depression. Herbert Hoover perceived himself as the great engineer and essentially managed to turn a recession into a depression. It was the Republicans who had him sign the disastrous Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act. The GOP during that era was hostile to free trade. Ronald Reagan also damaged the American economy by embracing the “too big to fail” philosophy in 1984. It was his administration that foolishly rescued Chicago’s Continental Illinois bank. And don’t even let me start on George W. Bush big spending habits. The Republicans have much to apologize for over the years. However, the Democrats have behaved in an even more reckless manner. Obama is merely Bush on steroids! The American voters must get rid of both the Democrats and the “compassionate conservative” Republicans.