Paul Ryan is a rock star.
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Health Care Reform, Politics | Tagged: health care reform, Paul Ryan | 
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Posted by Blaknsam
I can’t help but be reminded of that scene in the movie The Omen, where the nanny shouts “It’s all for you!” before jumping off the roof with a noose around her neck.
Last night we watched that scene replayed 219 times.
The rubber is officially on the road now. Bart Stupak has proven to be the Profile in Cowardice I fully expected him to be (and has rightfully been stripped of the “Defender Of Life” Award he was to receive on Wednesday), and the “health care reform” bill has passed the House.
There are a few things to learn from this:
What’s done is done, as Shakespeare wrote. I am under no illusions that this bill can be repealed any time before January 2013. But that doesn’t mean that the Republicans should not run in 2010 on a campaign to repeal and replace the bill. C’mon, it’s even a good slogan: Repeal. Replace. Reform.
The Republicans can not continue to bad mouth the bill without providing a clear alternative. As much as I admire and respect Paul Ryan, he has a tendency to get deep into the weeds when he talks about policy. What the Republicans need is a simple 5-point plan that can be printed on a single page of paper.
The fine details of any plan must be worked out, and the five points I wrote above do not necessarily have to be the five points that they agree upon, but the public face of the plan must be something that the public can digest easily and quickly. The Republicans have many plans floating around. They need to get together in the local Capitol Hill watering hole, bash out a final plan with the best elements, and then put it into a language that be easily understood: a one-page summary and a bill itself that is no longer than 50 pages, with a non-lawyer translation available.
Nothing will be repealed until January 2013 because Obama holds the veto pen, but that doesn’t mean that a Republican majority in the House and, maybe, the Senate, can’t send the bill to the President as regularly as clockwork and force him to veto and then defend his action.
Last night Obama said, “This is what change looks like.” This November will give the Naked Emperor another example of what change can look like.
This fight is not over. It is just beginning.
Michelle Malkin has more here. Hot Air has an open thread here and video of Mike Pence’s stinging rebuke of Bart Stupak.
UPDATE: Many thanks to Rich Lowry for The Corner shoutout from the tongue-in-cheek email I sent him yesterday. I am truly honored.
4 Comments | Health Care Reform, Politics | Tagged: Barack Obama, Bart Stupak, health care reform, Nancy Pelosi, Paul Ryan | Permalink
Posted by Blaknsam
It’s looking more and more likely that this travesty of a health care bill will be rammed through Congress one way or another. As I expected, the on-the-fence Democrats are collapsing like a bunch of broccoli under the arm twisting and noogie patrols of Obama and Pelosi.
I haven’t written much about this in the past week or so for two reasons: 1) I’ve been waiting to see how it would all shake out, and 2) I get so depressed when I think of this that I become practically inert. As someone who reveres the Constitution of the United States and desperately loves the ideals that this country has held in terms of liberty and freedom, the all-out assault on the Constitution that is being perpetrated on Capitol Hill is well nigh unbearable. I knew this gang of progressives, socialists, radicals, and idiots would seize any opportunity to turn the United States into a massive welfare state, but I never believed that they would launch such a brazen attack on the principles on which this country was founded. And for me as a New Yorker, there’s not a lot that I can do. My representative and my Senators are among the most liberal members of Congress. I’ve written several emails to Eliot Engel, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Chuck Schumer and all I have ever gotten back are form letters thanking me for my support. They don’t care. There are enough people in my area to make their re-election pretty safe, and New York is hampered by a Republican Party that is spineless at best and brainless at worst.
The question I keep asking myself is why the Democrats are so fired up to pass this bill that they will nakedly throw the Constitution into a shredder in order to achieve their goals. The answer, of course, is that this “reform” bill has almost nothing to do with health care and everything to do with power. Give Barack Obama credit for this much: the guy’s got a long-term vision. So does Nancy Pelosi, but Pelosi will continue to be re-elected, so this is a no-risk vote for San Fran Nan. Obama’s willing to sacrifice himself in 2012 in order to achieve what he really wants. Sure, he wants to be re-elected, but if he succeeds here he will have achieved his dream of pushing the United States closer to a top-down, European-style socialist nation.
Consider this: Obama has long been on record as favoring a European-/Canadian-style single payer system of health care. But there’s still enough sense (barely) in the Senate not to include “the public option.” What is in the bill, however, is a requirement that everyone in the country buy private health insurance, insurance which will be heavily regulated (i.e., price controls) by the Federal government.
I once thought that something like this could be a part of health care reform, but I was as wrong as I have ever been about anything. The very idea that the Federal Government can tell a private citizen that they must buy a service provided by a corporation is blatantly unconstitutional. The Fed has no more power to tell me to buy insurance than they have to tell me to buy 300-thread count sheets for my bed. In fact, the unconstitutional nature of this provision is clear to anyone who thinks about it for more than a second or two…and Obama, Reid, and Pelosi have thought about it for more than a few seconds.
Also in the bill is the regulation that insurance companies can not deny you coverage if you have a pre-existing condition, which means that insurance companies will be forced to accept extremely high-risk individuals. And because the government will be setting price controls, there will be no way that insurance companies will not lose money on this. Obama and Co. know this, which is why they make the unconstitutional case that in order for the plan to succeed, the young and healthy must be forced to buy insurance in order to subsidize the sick and elderly who will now being costing the insurance companies money.
So follow me here:
So what could Obama/Pelosi/Reid possibly gain by the failure of the insurance system? Is there a reason that these people would want the insurance companies to fail?
Of course. The failure of the insurance companies, even the failure of only some of the insurance companies, would give the government the opening to step forward and become the “insurance provider” for all those people who find themselves without insurance. What we are seeing on Capitol Hill this weekend is the ugly conception of a rough beast known as single-payer, and all that it entails: poor care, rationing, wait lists, doctor shortages, endless levels of bureaucracy.
I will not give up hope that this bill will fail until Obama puts his signature on it. When that happens, I will do everything in my power to have the bill repealed in toto.
The Democrats believe that a vote tomorrow and a signature on Monday with lots of cameras and the smiling mug of Barry Obama will end this debate and that the American people will fall in step and bleat contentedly like the good sheep they are. The Democrats are wrong.
In my entire life I have never seen so many people so engaged on so many levels, and that will only increase when the new taxes, higher premiums, and Medicare cuts actually happen. This bill is the legislative equivalent of Pearl Harbor, and the Democrats may pat themselves on the back for launching such a successful attack, but they will only awaken a sleeping giant.
As expected, the Blogosphere is burning today. More reading from some of my faves: Hot Air has updates and even references the same Yeats poem I did. Also more here, here, and here. In a related item, Hot Air is also highlighting a great video of an exchange on Medicare reform between my newest hero Paul Ryan and the repellent Louise Slaughter (of “Slaughter Solution” fame).
Michelle Malkin’s got pics of today’s Tea Party at Captiol Hill, a brief comment on the defenstration of the Slaughter Solution,.a list of propsed House amendments to Obamacare, and reports of an attempt to buy off the pro-life Democrat contingent through Executive Order.
On the lighter side, Iowahawk channels David Mamet for Glengarry Glen (Cong)Ress.
There’s always lots of great stuff in The Corner.
Finally, over at I Am, Therefore I Think, Larry Downes believes that this bill is a violation of the civil rights of all Americans.
2 Comments | Health Care Reform, Politics | Tagged: Barack Obama, Deem and pass, Harry Reid, health care reform, Louise Slaughter, Nancy Pelosi, Paul Ryan | Permalink
Posted by Blaknsam
President Obama is going to push for reconciliation (what Senate Democrats used to call “the nuclear option” when it was used by Republicans) to pass health care reform, urging the Democrats to go blindly off the cliff and onto the sharp rocks below. This follows Nancy Pelosi’s grandstanding admonishment to representatives that they need to be worried about the good of the country, and should willingly walk the plank for reform (this coming from a woman safely elected in the People’s Republic of San Francisco).
This is political suicide for the Dems. If they really think opposition to the plan is strong now, just wait until they shove it down our throats and tell us to shut up and like it. I’m thinking we should start a pool…how many seats will the Democrats lose in the House this November? Forty? Sixty? Eighty? A hundred? A hundred would be nice. It’s a good round number. And by doing this, they may well lose the Senate also. Every Democrat (or Republican) who votes for this bill has painted a huge target on his or her back. As for the President, Obama may get this through (still not certain), but he will be completely wiped out. He is using all of the political capital he has, and some he doesn’t have. Obama will not be strengthened by the passage of this bill, he will be crippled by it.
And it will serve his Imperial Majesty right.
Meanwhile, Breitbart is showing a video detailing many of Obama’s statements about how healthcare should not be done on a simple majority vote. There’s a word for Obama that’s not usually used in politics because it’s considered rude or somehow tacky. The word is “Liar.” And it fits.
Write and call your representative. Write and call your senator. Let them know that passage of this bill via reconciliation will not be tolerated.
1 Comment | Health Care Reform, Politics | Tagged: Barack Obama, health care reform, nuclear option, reconciliation | Permalink
Posted by Blaknsam
Allegedly, Barack Obama will be unveiling a new, stripped down health care proposal tomorrow. It may incorporate some of the Republican ideas that were discussed at the “summit” last week, possibly some version of tort reform and possibly allowing people to buy insurance across state lines.
The trap has been sprung.
Many commentators, including myself, feared that the whole purpose behind the health care summit was to trap the Republicans, to paint them as obstructionist, as tools of the insurance industry, as motivated by hateful feelings and a disregard for all things Obama.
I have a feeling, based on no knowledge of what will actually be in Obama’s proposal, that phase two of the trap is tomorrow. The proposal, Healthcare 2.0, may contain a couple of the ideas the Republicans want, but my guess is that it will also contain several poison pills that will make it impossible for Republicans to support. This sort of legislative chicanery goes on all the time, though usually in reverse. A really bad, partisan bill will contain an element that is extremely popular and bipartisan. Vote against the bad bill, and you are accused of hating children, hating immigrants, hating the elderly, pick your poison.
What I believe we will find here is the opposite. Obama doesn’t care about Republican votes. He just needs to collect enough blue dog Democrats in the House and maybe swing some liberal Republicans like Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins in the Senate. If he can convince them, health care will pass and he gets to point his fingers at the Republicans and say that he reached out to them at the summit, that he included their ideas, and that they voted against him because they want him to fail. Meanwhile, the Republicans will be left standing there trying to explain that the revised bill may have had some good parts, but that it was a very bad bill overall.
This was why during the summit the Democrats kept insisting that most of the bill had bipartisan support, that Republicans and Democrats could agree on all but a few fringe issues, such as tort reform and buying insurance across state lines. If those elements are added, and the price brought down a smidge, then Republican “no” votes must be based on partisan politicking.
The truth is that there is almost nothing in the Democrats’ bill that is worthwhile. It is a travesty of a bill, thousands of pages of new rules, regulations, and laws designed for the sole purpose of putting the Federal government in charge of 1/6 of the economy and creating a new entitlement program that will ensure Democrat votes from now until doomsday.
But doomsday will come a lot sooner if this bill passes. The United States simply can not afford to do this anymore. We as a nation need to rise up and destroy the entire concept of “entitlements.”
A presidential candidate who says we need to abolish Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and welfare would be hanged by the media in this country, but the fact is that these are the programs that are bankrupting us. We have a choice: we can continue these programs and tax the people into oblivion, restricting their freedom and opportunity to pursue happiness, or we can begin to look at ways to phase these programs out of existence. Properly done, a true reform of the health care system in this country would eliminate all health care insurance with the exception of catastrophic coverage. That would include Medicare and Medicaid. Properly done, free market choices and incentives to save would completely usurp the need for Social Security, which could and should be made voluntary immediately. At that point, we could then say “Starting in 20 years, or 30 years, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will not be accepting new users.” The programs would continue as long as the current users were in the system, getting smaller and spending less with each passing year.
Heartless? I don’t think so. What I truly think is heartless is the notion of the government mortgaging our futures and the futures of our children in order to continue these programs when there are free market alternatives.
The free market can be a wild ride, and people will need to educate themselves about how to invest and prepare for rainy days, how to diversify so that a sudden stock market crash doesn’t wipe out a lifetime of savings just before retirement. People will need to learn from an early age that purchasing catastrophic, individually-tailored health care plans and putting money into Health Savings Accounts is a very wise decision, and by putting in place a system of incentives it will soon become something that everyone recognizes is the smart and right thing to do. But a government that takes these decisions out of the hands of the citizenry is a government that infantilizes the citizenry and makes a mockery of liberty and freedom.
4 Comments | Health Care Reform, Politics | Tagged: Barack Obama, health care reform, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security | Permalink
Posted by Blaknsam
The Clampdown 