Category: Health Care

Senior White House Adviser: Get Stuffed

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by Smitty

Instapundit points to a WSJ article going on about Gloria Borger on Wolf Blitzer, emphasis mine:

Velshi: All right, Gloria, how much of a hint is the president going to make? Or is it not going to be hinted? Is he going to say, “This is the [ObamaCare] compromise. If you can’t find it in yourselves to do it, to support this for Republicans, we’re going to get it through the Senate”?
Borger: Right. This isn’t going to be subtle at all today. I think this is it. I was speaking with one senior White House adviser just before I came on the air, and he said, think of it this way. This is the last helicopter out of Saigon, OK?

To that SWHA: get stuffed, you useless sack.

  • The will of We The People is not a Communist attack.
  • (However, it could be argued that the Administration in the White House is less than representative, like the South Vietnamese government, in its policies.)
  • The current political unrest in the country is not an armed assault, and one prays that all of the feedback to this atrocious Administration and Congress remain peaceful.
  • Continued attempts to demonize the American people further debase the Administrations political capital. Way to be part of the problem, and not part of the solution.

<wishful_thinking>
Is the problem at all fixable before the next round of elections? I’ve vented enough here about the irritation, but we do need to stand ready to detect and respond positively to a substantial, pro-American attitude change from the Administration. For all we despise these kinds of scurrilous comparisons, we need to remember that the Left’s relentless assault on the Bush Administration helped deepen the chasm between Progressives and Americans, and stand willing to fill in that chasm, should Progressivism re-awaken to what this country is actually about.
</wishful_thinking>

Obama Still Trying to ‘Do a Chicago’ in Push for Health-Care Bill (UPDATED)

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Threatening “reconcilliation” to muscle Senate Republicans:

White House officials tell ABC News that in his remarks [today] President Obama will indicate a willingness to work with Republicans on some issue to get a health care reform bill passed but will suggest that if it is necessary, Democrats will use the controversial “reconciliation” rules requiring only 51 Senate votes to pass the “fix” to the Senate bill, as opposed to the 60 votes to stop a filibuster and proceed to a vote on a bill.

It won’t work. ObamaCare is, shall we say, “pining for the fjords.”

UPDATE 3:37 p.m. ET: Perhaps you saw Obama’s big speech on TV, repeating the doctors-in-lab-coats motif of last summer. Notice how he emphasized that this is urgent and must be done now:

So now is the time to make a decision about how to finally reform health care so that it works, not just for the insurance companies, but for America’s families and America’s businesses. . . .
Democrats and Republicans agree that this is a serious problem for America. And we agree that if we do nothing — if we throw up our hands and walk away — it’s a problem that will only grow worse . . .
I don’t see how another year of negotiations would help. . . .
I, therefore, ask leaders in both houses of Congress to finish their work and schedule a vote in the next few weeks. . . .
The American people . . . are waiting for us to act. They are waiting for us to lead. . . .
Let’s get it done.

Why the haste? It’s the old high-pressure sales pitch — “Act Now! Don’t Delay!” — and as any experienced consumer knows, that’s usually a sign that somebody’s offering a bad deal.

The reasons for Obama’s hurry-up trick is simply because he knows that every time lawmakers go back to their districts, they hear more from their constituents — who, as polls clearly show, are opposed to ObamaCare. And the closer we get to Election Day, the more members of Congress are likely to listen to their own voters instead of listening to Obama (and the army of lobbyists pushing for his plan).

All Republicans have to do is hold the fort a few more weeks, and ObamaCare will collapse of its own weight — another “Epic Fail.”

Michelle Malkin has more. Also see commentary from Ruby Slippers, So It Goes in Shreveport and Dan Riehl.

Charlie Crist Opens Mouth, Inserts Foot

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Again. The headline says it all:

Crist says he would not scrap
Dem health care reform,
can’t identify part worth keeping

Trying to turn “bipartisan” and “moderate” into a matter of political principle is a losing game, because it means that voters are never really sure where you stand. Crist’s GOP primary opponent Marco Rubio pounces quickly with a press statement:

“Once again, Charlie Crist has shown why Floridians can’t trust him to go to Washington and stand up to the misguided agenda of President Obama and Congressional Democrats. At a time when Americans are pushing back against the government takeover of health care and calling for a complete reset to this flawed bill, Charlie Crist says he would not scrap it.”

Crist Is Toast.

Health Care Summit Review: ‘I Laughed,
I Cried, It Was Better Than Cats!’

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Rave reviews for Republicans all around, but Allahpundit highlights David Gergen’s review on CNN:

“The folks in the White House just must be kicking themselves right now. They thought that coming out of Baltimore when the President went in and was mesmerizing and commanding in front of the House Republicans that he could do that again here today. That would revive health care and would change the public opinion about their health care bill and they can go on to victory. Just the opposite has happened.”

Clifton at Another Black Conservative says Republicans “brought their A-Game” and Rep. Paul Ryan “stole the show.” Even Gloria Borger (!) admitted: “The Republicans have been very effective today. They really did come to play. They were very smart.” John Dickerson at Slate:

[I]t wasn’t a good day for congressional Democrats. According to strategists involved in 2010 races, fence-sitting Democrats needed to see Obama change the political dynamic. He needed to show how health care reform could be defended and how Republicans could be brought low. He did neither. White House aides and the president himself said he was going to press Republicans for how their plans would work, but he did that only twice—and mildly. There was no put-up-or-shut-up moment.

At the end of a long “fact check” column, the Associated Press admits:

Several times in the 2008 campaign Obama vowed to hold open negotiations in reworking health care. But once in office, Democrats in the White House and Congress conducted negotiations as usual, making multibillion-dollar deals with hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, other special interests – and each other – in private. And beyond Thursday’s televised session, there is no indication Obama or the congressional Democrats plan further open talks.

The big take-away is that Democrats can’t depend on Obama’s magic to solve all their political problems. Republicans are no longer afraid to stand up to The One, and polls indicate that the GOP’s status as the “Party of No” is actually a winner.

“No” is good. People like “no.” Go with “no.”

Weekend At Bernie’s Wasn’t The First Allusion To Come To Mind For Today’s Circus

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by Smitty

Glenn McCoy has fun with it:

Weekend at Barry's
The Obama / Reid / Pelosi try-dumb-virate rides again

And then there was a related Tim Burton take-off, via Digg.

The most shocking bit came from visiting my magic URL, http://www.AllYourNewsAreOnCrack.com for a fortnight into the future, I see an odd article:

Unprecedented Move: President Obama Accepts Own Healthcare Bill In Signing Statement
by Sissypuss, the Bailout Kitty
In an historic move, President Obama today said “I won,” as he signed his own suggested bill into law. “Well, we could have gone to the mat with reconciliation,” mused Mr. Obama, “but I figured it would help the party out if I just sort of dove on the grenade. Those obstructionist Republicans are out to ruin everything. Once we just get all of this in place, I think that the people will come around to my way of thinking and re-elect Democrats in 2010, and me in 2012. And if it looks like the people are having trouble getting on board, well, we’ll be doing everything we can to make sure nothing unfortunate happens to their car, their health, their taxes, their internet, their housing , their food, you get the idea. Running this country is a tough, complex job, and it would really be much smoother if everyone was on the same team, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. Did I mention the vanilla pudding subsidy for favored bloggers?”

Eeeewwww! President Obama Picked His Nose During Health Care Summit

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Let’s face it: Today’s health-care summit was an unmitigated disaster for Obama even before cameras captured this unfortunate moment with the Booger-Eater-in-Chief. Yuval Levin at National Review:

The Democrats may have thought that simply putting the spotlight on Republicans when the subject is health care would make the GOP look bad. But Republicans so far seem prepared enough and focused enough to avoid that, and to make the Democrats look rather aimless by comparison.

Meanwhile, Charmaine Yoest of Americans United for Life points out a major political drawback of the plan:

“The President’s proposal was a pro-abortion health care plan before today’s meeting and after six hours of political posturing, it’s still a pro-abortion health care plan.
Federal funding for abortion has become the deciding issue in this debate, and yet the issue was raised only briefly today.
Remarkably when Minority Leader Boehner highlighted the abortion funding in the bill, the President did not respond.
This has been his approach to the abortion issue throughout this debate: to evade the question or misrepresent the facts to the American people. Among other anti-life provisions, the President’s plan creates a first-ever ‘abortion tax’ to be paid by individuals participating in the health Exchange. The plan also includes $11 billion dollars of new funding for community health centers, some of which are abortion providers. And yet Speaker Nancy Pelosi today claimed falsely that ‘there is no public funding of abortions in this bill.’
Convening this summit, and broadcasting it on television, does not create truth in advertising. Six hours of contrived dialogue did not change the fact that this elaborate production of political theater was designed to hide the President’s true position on abortion in health care.
There is a very simple reason for this: Abortion is the bill killer.
72% of voters oppose federal funding of abortion. As they work to try to pass the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade, President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid will discover that their alliance with the abortion lobby alienates them from the mainstream of American opinion on this issue.”

Some people don’t realize how badly this issue of public funding for abortion hurt Martha Coakley during the Massachusetts Senate campaign. I knew Coakley was doomed after I talked to an elected Democratic official — a Catholic — who told me he was voting for Brown (and his wife did, too).

In order to get liberal support for this plan, Democrats have killed the Stupak amendment (which the Senate never included in its version) and if you think this is merely a minor point, just ask Democrats in Massachusetts. Whatever the number of pro-life Catholic Democratic voters may be, they are a swing constiuency in many states up North, and this issue of public funding for abortion is enough to drive a stake through the heart of President Nose-Picker’s plan.

UPDATE: Here’s video where John Boehner says, “This bill that we have before us, and there was no reference to the issue in your outline, Mr. President, begins for the first time in 30 years allows the taxpayer funding of abortion”:

Nancy Pelosi claims Boehner is giving “the wrong impression” of the bill:

More about how the Obama plan changes policy on abortion.

UPDATE: Linked by Ann Coulter — thanks! And, for anyone who can stand it, No Sheeples has slow-motion video of the executive nose-pick.

UPDATE II: Welcome to the “low road,” Instapundit readers. Please click that video link to No Sheeples Here. It’s hilarious.

Randy Altschuler: ‘Scrap the Current Legislation . . . and Start Listening’

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Press release from a New York GOP congressional candidate:

“It’s obvious, the dysfunction in Washington continues. In the end, the healthcare issue will only be solved by common sense, free market solutions, like Tort Reform and the dropping of state barriers on the purchase of Health Insurance. Speaker Pelosi, Senator Reid and President Obama need to understand that the current legislation is Dead On Arrival. Congressman Tim Bishop should call on Speaker Pelosi to scrap the current legislation, stop playing partisan politics and start listening to the American people. The voters of New York’s 1st Congressional District deserve no less.”

Randy Altschuler is the candidate in NY1 (eastern Long Island) whom I interviewed during CPAC. Altschuler is a successful entrepreneur running against Rep. Tim Bishop, a Pelosi clone in the NY1 district that was reliably Republican for years until, in 2002, Bishop won with barely 50% in what was basically a fluke (the GOP incumbent ran a negative ad that backfired). Anti-war and anti-Bush backlash started early in NY1, and Bishop won re-election against weak opponents in 2004, ’06 and ’08.

However, since Obama’s election the pendulum has swung back in the other direction and conservatives in the district are fired up. Check out this huge Tea Party protest when Bishop held a town-hall meeting in June:

NY1 is clearly a winnable seat, and Altschuler is the kind of guy — a self-made businessman, not a politician — who can win in a year when “outsider” candidates are challenging the system. Check him out.

RANDY ALTSCHULER for U.S. CONGRESS

Despite GOP Opposition, Obama Health Care Summit Finds Cure for Insomnia

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The Presidential Boredom Task Force is meeting today at the Blair House in D.C., with Democrats telling boring stories about sick people without insurance:

In their opening statements, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid focused largely on the why of health care reform instead of the how. They told the stories of people struggling with their health insurance and didn’t do much to tie it back to how their proposals would make life better for those folks.

Which is a fair synopsis of the basic problem here: Democrats want to scream that the “system is broken,” and regale us with sob stories — “A killer whale with a pre-existing condition ate that poor girl’s deductible!” — in order to push through a plan that, (a) won’t necessarily fix these issues, (b) could harm the overall system, (c) is overwhelmingly opposed by voters, and (d) would cost umpteen kazillion dollars.

Allow me to suggest an innovative health-care solution that won’t require endless blathering on national TV:

KILL THE DAMN BILL!

Continuing coverage at Michelle Malkin, Hot Air and Memeorandum, for those with an insatiable appetite for pointless tedium.

Did I say “pointless”? Yeah, this is just a show, a prextext to give Democrats an excuse to ram through their plan under “reconcilliation” rules without any GOP input whatsoever.