Health care reform: what’s the rush?
Health care reform has had so many missed legislative deadlines that it’s difficult to count them.
The first one I can remember was last summer. The goal was to pass this thing before the American people had time to study it and hate it. Since that failed, and the people wised up, the second goal was to pass it before members of Congress did—that is, before they took a break, went home, and got an earful from their angry constituents and realized their jobs might be on the line.
Now it’s almost spring of the next year, and still the push is on. “Pass it before Obama goes to Indonesia.” “Pass if before Congress goes home for a break—again.”
But what’s the rush now? Is it possible that any member of Congress isn’t aware of the views of voters and the fact that, if he or she comes from a state or district that is anything but extremely left-leaning, his/her job may be lost? After the Scott Brown victory in January, that ought to have been crystal clear. And I think it is.
But perhaps the rush is still on because Washington is a pressure cooker, a total environment in which members of Congress bathe, and going home might break the Obama/Pelosi/Reid spell and remind Senators and Representatives of the views of the people they actually represent. But the biggest reason for the push is probably a strategic calculation that the sooner this happens, the more time the public will have to forget about it before the next election.
I don’t think this is going away in the public mind, however. The more the Democrats push it, the more angry those opposed to it become; it’s not for nothing that the phrases “ram” or “cram” have become so popular in connection with the process. Rasumussen reports that in the last four months views on the health care reform legislation have solidified:
In 15 consecutive Rasmussen Reports polls conducted over the past four months, the percentage of Americans that oppose the plan has stayed between 52% and 58%. The number in favor has held steady between 38% and 44%.
The dynamics of the numbers have remained constant as well. Democratic voters strongly support the plan while Republicans and unaffiliated voters oppose it. Senior citizens””the people who use the health-care system more than anybody else and who vote more than anybody else in midterm elections””are more opposed to the plan than younger voters. For every person who strongly favors it, two are strongly opposed.
Has there ever—ever—in American history been a bill that was (a) pushed so hard by a single party with not one vote of support from the other party; (b) so unpopular with the American public; and (c) that would affect people’s daily lives so enormously? This is a rogue party and a rogue government, and I don’t think we’ve ever had such a situation before.
[ADDENDUM: Hey, it’s an objective, not a deadline. And meanwhile, everybody’s focusing like a laser on jobs and the…oh well, never mind.]
Meanwhile Obama’s Ras numbers have hit their cumulative worst in his presidency.
I track the Ras numbers daily and the sure-fire killer for Obama is when he is preaching Obamacare.
“This is a rogue party and a rogue government”
Good phrase. Exactly.
They do not care because they believe that history is on their side. So what if they lose for the moment? Once the deed is done there will be no going back. The only way might be if we elected a veto proof congress and that is very very very unlikely.
Once a government bureaucracy is set up it is nigh impossible to get rid of it.
The progressives have a once in a lifetime chance and they will leave no stone unturned to take it because they know it will be a long long time before they have a change again.
One of the scariest things I ever read was last night when it was pointed out that in Europe the occasional Conservative government takes power for a few years and the the Left Bureaucracy just carries on. And that is what the Democrats are shooting for.
This is a rogue party and a rogue government, and I don’t think we’ve ever had such a situation before.
I agree. Rogue is a good way to put it. Renegade. Without the consent of. Un-American. Anti-American.
Anti-American might be best because it is the truest (for Me). Obama is the “God damn America” President, and the Dems in Congress are the 60’s generation in their twilight years with one last chance to destroy the country they have so fervently, if often secretly, hated since their youth. How many people have I known in my life who never had a good word to say about America; who always if you mentioned something good very quickly responded with a put down or an example about del monte fruit company or something of that sort. Scads. How many have reflexively and pejoratively damned Capitalism, scowled at it, sneered at Capitalism and Capitalists – and at the same time gave every benefit of every doubt, and every possible excuse and justification for Marxism. Scads again.
Now these people are in charge, and they voted this group in, and they hated George Bush…and so on….and they are going to do what they know is good for us, whether we like it or not. Not liking it, in fact, proves we are bad and scarcely even worthy of the good they are going to to for us, to us, despite us. How brave they are.
What did Obama say yesterday? ‘I don’t care about the politics. I know it’s right.’
Translation: I don’t care what people think or want. They are wrong. I am right. I’m going to do what I think and want.
Have we ever faced this before? No. This is unprecedented when the ‘rulers’ of our country hate our country; when our leaders hate all the bourgeoisie, and we are all basically bourgeoisie. America has never been closer to collapse and defeat than it is right now. The worst enemy is always the enemy within. They run the place now, and it is a race to see if they can kill it before we vote them out. I hate to say it, but I think they are winning.
I called every leaning congressperson in PA yesterday. But what else can we do. So far, they don’t care what we think.
The CBO has just released their score of Obama’s Health Care Reform Proposal.
Obama said that it would reduce the health insurance premiums of an average family of four by $2,500 per year, the CBO says, rather, that Obama’s plan will force such a typical family to pay an additional $2,300 per year in health care premiums (http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Obama-promised-2500-health-care-savings-CBO-says-plan-is-2300-increase-87250202.html).
I always wonder how much the CBO numbers are gamed. Costing out the future government expenditures is pretty speculative to begin with, then throw in whatever pressure Obama, Pelosi and Reid can add and what does one get?
But however those numbers are crunched the official CBO numbers are running about $400/month higher than Obama said.
In a moderately fair world that ought to kill this bill dead and sink Obama too for foisting such a scam on us.
Of course we’re not living in a moderately fair world, so we shall have to see.
Still it’s terrible bad news for Obama and Pelosi.
RE:Mike Mc comments: Perhaps Lenin said it best when questioned about the lack of liberty in his new dictatorship, “liberty, what for?”
With our current government it seems to be “public opinion, fiscal sanity, what for?”
Bob from Virginia,
That’s a good example. In their minds, they are doing what we need…in their minds. The whole idea of “liberty” is quaint to them. It belongs in an historical document like the Declaration, but not in daily life. License maybe, but not liberty.
Not even license actually. They want total control; they think that a command and control economy and society is the way to go. That makes reasoned sense to them. They’ve been taught it for 40 years, and how the unfettered laissez faire capitalism of America is the biggest threat to everything good.
That sort of thinking is the water they swim in and the air they breathe. It’s really conventional wisdom in many more places than merely the unviersity, although that is its source and sustaining energy field.
I am think that we need to post and publish over and over again the relevant sections of the Declaration of Independence. I swear it sounds seditious not to ‘some’ ears today, but to ‘most’ ears (if they knew what sedition was).
It does! Go and read it and tell me if it doesn’t sound positively threatening. I think you might be arrested if you recited it in the halls of Congress. They would, at best, smile and pat you on the head as being some sort of whacko if you did; and at worse they would cart you away.
Michael @ March 10th, 2010 2:42 pm:
“One of the scariest things I ever read was last night when it was pointed out that in Europe the occasional Conservative government takes power for a few years and the the Left Bureaucracy just carries on. And that is what the Democrats are shooting for.”
=====================
Would that have been this Mark Steyn article in the OC Register?
http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/health-237719-care-government.html
Steyn also said in the article “Once the state swells to a certain size, the people available to fill the ever-expanding number of government jobs will be statists — sometimes hard-core Marxist statists, sometimes social-engineering multiculti statists, sometimes fluffily “compassionate” statists, but always statists.” He concludes “… Because government health care is not about health care, it’s about government. Once you look at it that way, what the Dems are doing makes perfect sense. For them.”
Yes, it was chilling. And it’s why the Dem leadership will bribe, cajole, pressure, and threaten until their wayward members line up to vote “Yes” (knowing Madame Speaker Pelosi has arranged board memberships or lobbying positions or some other well-remunerated/ low-effort jobs for those Democratic stalwarts who are voted out of office in November for standing with the rabid Progressives of the party).
Well, I’m not sure I understand this entirely, but it doesn’t look good for the notion of the Americans being a self-governing people:
http://tinyurl.com/yd5s6th
(cross-posted at Neo’s Pelosi: Does she. . .
In the Senate bill, some of the things that happen “immediately” – like letting kids stay on their parents’ insurance until age 26 – seem to go into effect six months after the bill passes. Perhaps the Democratic leadership thinks that if they can get the bill passed by early April, people will begin seeing benefits by early October and the election in early November will go better for them. This will be particularly important if, as I believe, the “immediate” provisions will drive up premiums, since a lot of people get premium increase notices from their employers and/or insurance companies in October.
The question I have is if I decide not not carry my children until they are 26 will I go to jail or be fined if this is passed?
Why is keeping one’s kids on insurance till they are 26 a reform? What’s magical about age 26? Maybe parents should keep their kids on insurance till they’re 36.
One reform that I would like is to have government-paid snow shoveling for my sidewalk.
The biggest tragedy is that Obama & Co have squandered a chance to remedy problems with health care delivery by insisting that it’s their way or the highway. I predict he will fail to get his miserable plan passed and things will go on as before. By the way, has anyone noticed that medicare cut physician payments by 20%? Think that doesn’t matter? It will when doctors stop participating in medicare and grandma has to wait six weeks to see anyone.
what if I didn’t want to stay on my parents’ insurance until I was 26??? will people stop offering insurance to people under 26 because they are “supposed” to be on their parents’ insurance?
true story – when I got my first job that came with health insurance i told my parents to take me off theirs. they got mad at me for growing up and promptly screwed up the paperwork out of revenge. death by paperwork, its not pretty.