“If the bill loses … it will, I think, by and large be the president’s Waterloo, and I think a lot of Democrats understand that,” James Carville
Americans do not want this massive government takeover of our health care. Fearing that Cajun extraterrestrial James Carville is correct, Obama is intent on ramming it down our throats. This is not about what’s right; it’s about politicians perpetuating their power.
I thought the health care bill had died on the Senate floor of a pre-existing condition: being expensive and not well thought-out. Last I heard, the bill contained a 10 percent tanning salon tax, which I thought would doom the bill since it outraged orange-man Rep. John Boehner and the entire cast and audience of “Jersey Shore.”
Idealists produce God-awful legislation. Obama, like all liberals, is an idealist. By being in favor of everything free for everybody, they bear perpetual witness to their own awesomeness. Their self-proclaimed concern for the underclass and for saving the earth was cute when they were not in power. When they are in power and try to legislate on it, things get scary.
We should be delighted there is no bipartisanship in Washington. Bipartisanship brings about bad decisions, like the Iraq War. The Democrats had 60 votes for ObamaCare which they had to bribe some of their Senators to secure—the bill is that bad. With no Republican votes and daily defections of Democrats, the health care bill will not be bipartisan, but maybe bi-curious at best. They want to pass this bill through “reconciliation,” which could be the most expensive phrase to come out of the White House since “Mission Accomplished.”
Obama called in the GOP again last week for his “made for TV” lecture on health care. Obama really, really, REALLY wants us to have universal health care, just like North Korea, Cuba and Russia have. Obama promised equal time to Republicans, but once the cameras were rolling he said the rules did not apply to him. Why do politicians come to D.C. like Jimmy Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” and morph into Hitler in “Inglourious Basterds”?
He called on the GOP to provide alternatives to his plan, besides the ones that made sense like tort reform and competitive interstate insurance offerings.
If you currently don’t have health insurance, under the GOP alternative you can keep your plan. Their health care plan, which I think they call “Walk it Off,” is less expensive than that proposed by Democrats. For example, instead of Viagra they only pay for a tongue depressor and duct tape.
If Republicans are against health care insurance change, they need not come up with massive legislation that is equally as misguided as Obama’s. They don’t have to do anything. Obama asking them to come up with a bill is like someone robbing you and then, when you resist, asking you how you prefer he goes about it.
A quickly and clandestinely assembled, 2,500-page bill that is nothing more than a tip of the hat to unions, and that further complicates the monstrosity that is our already heavily regulated health care insurance industry, is not progress. The only thing we know for sure about complicated business matters is that the free market sorts them out best over time. Risking his or her own money makes a businessperson pay keen attention to providing service. Having someone else’s borrowed government money at risk, combined with a lust for power and control, makes a government solution a bad one.
Clinton had sensible Tip O’Neill as his Speaker of the House. Obama has Nanny Pelosi. She wants this monument to herself and is pushing it like she does her husband to buy her the next pearl necklace. She is good at twisting arms to get her way, and brinksmanship like this often comes down to who blinks first. Given Madam Speaker’s Botox levels (ironically provided in ample supply by our current system), she should have the upper hand.
Obama needs to put aside his massive ego and scrap this self-aggrandizing mess of a health care bill that even he does not understand. Then he needs to take a deep, cleansing breath. When Clinton lost his bid for HillaryCare and then the 1994 mid-term elections by a landslide, he learned from the debacle and became the most successful Democratic president in modern times.
Ron Hart is a libertarian op-ed humorist whose new book, “No Such Thing as a Pretty Good Alligator Wrestler,” is available on Amazon or at RonaldHart.com.