RSS Feed MenuAs others have already noted, yesterday was a good one for Republicans. They came off as eminently reasonable and serious about addressing a genuine crisis in healthcare delivery. The President, meanwhile, appeared small and unpresidential.
Let me add to the pile-on.
The sheer length and repetitiveness of the proceedings shined a spotlight on the calculated, and silly, strategery and messaging of the President and his party.
The President’s Harvard Law School mediation class routine of repeating back a Republican point, announcing that it is in fact a “legitimate” opinion, and then suggesting a compromise that superficially incorporates that position gets real old, real quick.
Average people suffering through presidential imprimaturs for positions held by 50% of the American people no doubt were shouting at their TVs, No crap they’re legitimate. And not because they have your seal of approval.
Furthermore, this mediation posture ultimately fails because unlike a true mediator, the President is not an impartial arbiter. He is the leader of one of the parties to the dispute, and he will ultimately present as a solution the liberalmost option on the table, in spite of the supposed legitimacy of the Republican alternatives.
As for his Democratic colleagues, anyone who has had the misfortune of attending a congressional hearing knows that Democrats love the victim witness. Rather than bother with any discussion of policy or the law, the favored Democratic witness comes armed with a story of misfortune at the hand of [insert profit-making industry here]. As rifle-shot strategy, and in the relative obscurity of committee hearings, the calculated nature of this use and misuse of injured persons makes sense. It certainly makes for good copy. Today, however, when nearly every single Democrat who spoke opened with the story of a poor person harmed by the insurance industry, it came across as callous rather than compassionate. Apparently, retail exploitation of injured citizens for political gain plays much better than wholesale.
For months, Republicans ripped Democrats for the closed-door nature of their healthcare reform negotiations. Concluding after Massachusetts, that the only real opposition to healthcare reform was due to the lack of procedural transparency and backroom deals, Democrats threw the doors open yesterday for 6 hours.
They would have been better off keeping them closed.
GOProud // Feb 28, 2010 at 11:05 am
spikeytx86 offers: “Just wave the magic tort reform and interstate purchase wand and *poof* insurance will be cheaper then a loaf of bread!”
I’m not sure anyone on the GOP side has said –ever– that tort reform and breaking the mostly Democrat-controlled BlueCross monopolies is all that’s needed.
There’s medical mal reform. There’s holding Obama accountable for his claim of $500b in fraud and waste in MediCare. Et cetera; how is it that you can actively NOT listen to even the soundbites from the Summit and still fail to know the GOP litany on real reform is long? We just don’t have all the tax hikes, smoke, mirrors and massive new govt bureaucracies in our plan that the Obami Cult worship.
But hey, when you guys finally do find that “magic wand”? You might want to wave it over our metrosexual prez for some Hawaiian mo jo ’cause it’s clear from the polling, his reputation took a BIG negative hit from his Summit performance.
Rasmussen has his Prez Rating now at a NEGATIVE 21 yesterday! That’s the spread of American voters who strongly disapprove of him over those who strongly approve of him.
Obama needs that magic wand far more than health care.
GOProud // Feb 28, 2010 at 11:09 am
SFTor1: “Let’s pay for our wars the same way. It only makes sense, and will give many people much pride.”
So, there’s a moral equivalence to protecting our natl interests in the WOT versus giving the democrats a massive extension of the Welfare State into medicine?
Wow, you sound like Bill Moyers now. He’s been saying that American core values and principles are diversity, tolerance and taking care of the poor… more nonsense being beamed in from the farLeft spaceship heading into deep space.
SFTor1 // Feb 28, 2010 at 5:18 pm
GOProud,
A healthy nation is a strategic asset, far more important than the War On Terror. It is one of the cornerstones of a well-functioning economy. Our ability, or lack of it, to fix health care will determine how well the United States fares as a nation in the future. That you can take to the bank.
The acid test is simple: access to health care for all Americans, better statistical outcomes, and lower cost. Other health care systems in the civilized world deliver just that, without any socialist takeovers in sight.
Our insufficient health care delivery system kills a far greater number of Americans, on an ongoing basis, than Al-Qaeda ever has or will. At least seven 9-11s per year to put a number to it. You may argue that these losers who die for lack of health care have it coming, that’s fine. But that’s why they die. Some of these losers have wives and children. They become losers too. Too bad.
I understand you have a different set of values than Bill Moyers. Fair enough.
Diversity is not a value, it is a reality. We are a diverse nation. Embracing diversity is a value I suppose. Do you believe there is too much diversity in the United States? Do you think people should be more like you, or that you should become more like somebody else?
Tolerance and care for the poor you could call values. Do you disagree with them? Are you intolerant, and cold to the plight of the poor?
GOProud // Mar 2, 2010 at 10:03 am
SFTor1, a healthy nation has never been described as a strategic asset by anyone except those committed to labeling the health care reform effort in any term, any way in order to advance their side of the debate… Obama tried first to say the effort was all about health care costs… then it was about evil insurance companies… then it was famously about “special interests” greedily carving up the wallets of Americans while Obama met secretly with some of those special interests and granted waivers and exemptions faster than Congressional Dems could do it to curry favor with their own members… then it was about the sob stories of incredibly heart-rending situations that people face from time to time… now it’s about jobs and saving small businesses. While it seems they can’t stay on message, your attempt to spin it as being about a “strategic asset” is equal to some of the spin already tried without success.
I’m calling that line pure BS like some of the lines Obama has used over the last 16 months to advance health care reform. Strategic asset?
A strategic asset is an informed work force. A strategic asset is the highly efficient health care system MOST Americans now enjoy and many foreign, wealthy patients travel to access. But that’s a vision that requires us to think of ourselves as battling someone for competitive, strategic advantage. I thought, under the Big Hugs Heal program of Obama, we aren’t competing with other world powers anymore… that kind of lone-cowboy ‘tude was supposedly wrong and immoral. It’s why Obama did the Apology Tour… even to France.
Health care reform, as advocated by Dems, is a massive extension of the failed 1960s policies that brought us the hopelessly expensive and inefficent Welfare State. It took a generation to reverse the Welfare State culture –we don’t need to waste another generation trying to reverse the excesses of another Dem Adminstration.
Fighting the WOT isn’t a strategic asset. It’s one of the few duties of the US Govt defined in the Constitution. Our churches, neighbors, friends and families are responsible for caring for the poor… for our society, it’s a task best left to the private sector and those motivated by social justice… employing the powers and assets of govt to press for social justice is to miss the purpose and separation of those duties.
It’s a problem that all Dems seem to struggle with… the notion that, because they’re mostly a Godless, anti-religion party, they want to transpose the impulse to advance social justice onto govt institutions instead of leaving them properly to church groups, neighbors, friends, families, etc.
Get the Post Office to run effectively, ok? Spend some time getting all those high-speed trains to run on time and in-budget that the Dems want to build to offset carbon emissions. Get global warming wind farms functioning efficiently.
Health care reform is about those who don’t, can’t and won’t have health care. It’s about extending the Welfare State. We’ve been there; done it. It wasn’t pretty and poverty, homelessness, failing schools and other plights are still with us despite the best of social justice intentions by the Dems. You want to work for social justice? Get thee to a church.
SFTor1 // Mar 2, 2010 at 7:14 pm
GOProud:
health care reform is about all of the above. To call the health status of a nation “pure BS” is pretty rich. We are doing things in the most expensive way possible. We recognize that all people must be treated. We just choose to do it in our emergency rooms.
How many church groups does it take to pay for brain surgery for an uninsured kid? You got me, but a few, all depending. What happens when the next kid on the block comes down with cancer? Another bake sale?
If you want to go back to the government’s duties under the Constitution there’s a whole lot of functions that are going to go away. Good luck on that flight without the FAA around. And without the FDA I’d be sure to cook that hamburger nice and crisp. Take any medications? Go right ahead, without the FDA to make sure it’s going to be safe and effective.
Personally I’m grateful that the Democratic Party is godless. If you think of it I am sure you don’t want the guvmint messing with your religion, no?
Public health care works pretty well in every other industrialized nation. They pay less and get more. Heaven forbid we should learn from what others do.
GOProud // Mar 2, 2010 at 7:33 pm
Nice try at spin, there SFTor1. I didn’t call the “health status of a nation” pure BS.
I called your line of trying to make it a “strategic asset” pure BS… because it is.
I also didn’t suggest you go to a church to get a brain transplant, even tho’ you’re in need of one. I said that if you want to use Obama’s extension of the Welfare State into medicine to help ease the suffering of the poor, maybe you should think about not using govt for social justice goals and spend some time with a church, your neighbors, friends, families, etc to get them to engage in aadvancing social justice.
It isn’t a question of the Democrats being Godless –they’ve made secular humanism a cause or nearly a religion. That’s why they and you are so easily inclined to think that one of govt’s roles is to work for social justice.
It isn’t. It might be Obama’s preference for govt since he’s messed up the conventional roles like protecting Americans from terrorists, winning wars, keeping our natl interests safe from foreign aggressors.
“Public” health care is an utter, flat-out failure in America. It’s run by people more intent on social justice goals than in taking care of the needy. That’s why, after a generation of Democrats screwing up society with the original Welfare State, it took another generation to ween America off the high fat, high carb buffet that the Democrats laid out for their voting constituencies.
Can I survive without the Depts of Education, Energy, HHS, Interior, Transportation and the like? Sure. Most of those “duties” can be eliminated entirely and remaining vital functions can be housed elsewhere in extant depts.
Try debating here honestly, SFTor1. You’re looking more like BlankHead’s team with each passing day… and, trust us all, that’s not a good thing.
SFTor1 // Mar 2, 2010 at 9:18 pm
GOProud,
You say social medicine is an utter, flat-out failure in America. I assume that means that you are not in favor of programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA. Have you suggested to your representatives in Congress that they get off their government-paid health care? It also seems that Medicare is able to take care of people at lower cost than private insurance. Please explain exactly how this is a failure.
I imagine George W. Bush must have been a great disappointment to you. He signed off on a massive expansion of Medicare if my memory serves.
Initiatives by church groups and the like were popular ways to take care of the sick and needy in the second and third centuries CE (or AD to you, I guess), because there were no one else to do it. Since then most civilized societies have made these functions of the public sector. It’s a more successful approach. It’s expensive to have a lot of poor people in a country, and even more expensive to have a lot of sick people. It hurts families and communities.
Regarding secular humanism: the United States Government does not get involved in religious matters. This is clearly laid out in the Constitution, which wants you to have the freedom to believe whatever you want without government interference. The government is therefore not unreligious, it is areligious. And it is not secular humanist. It is prohibited by law to hold a view on the matter. Instead it protects the freedom of all to hold whatever point of view they choose, religious, atheist, or secular humanist.
I see you mention wars, beating terrorists, and keeping the country safe as the conventional roles for government. Anything else, or is it all about intelligence and the armed forces? I am not sure how Barack Obama has “messed up” any of them. Aren’t we doing enough killing for you? Do you feel unsafe somehow?
I think I am debating honestly. What I see from you is that you live in a world that went out of date somewhere around the end of WWII, if not sooner. I regret to inform you that no one, except for a few people on the far right, want to go back there once they understand what it means. It may be a nice world to live in, but it’s a dream.
GOProud // Mar 3, 2010 at 12:46 pm
SFTor1: “You say social medicine is an utter, flat-out failure in America.”
Sigh. No I didn’t and please start reading for comprehension. I said public medicine is an utter, flat-out failure. I have no idea what you mean by social medicine –but it isn’t the govt programs… that’s more Welfare than it is insurance.
You’ve made a huge, dishonest leap in proposing that church groups just took care of sick people in the 2d-3d C and “most civilized societies have made (sic) these functions of the public sector”… because, in America, nearly 69% of the non-profit medical care facilities are religious based… mostly Catholic and Lutheran. Over 87% of all non-profit hospitals have a religious-based antecedent (that means, the current hospital entity was once religious-based but may now be simply non-profit).
69% SFTor1. America, to my limited knowledge, didn’t have any hospitals in the 2d or 3d centuries… so how’d that happen?
Aside from dismissing the sheer stupidity of that claim, let’s return to the point I raised about “get thee to a Church” if you want to work for social justice, feed the poor, house the homeless, clothe the naked, comfort the imprisoned… provide free medicine to the poor… not the sick, the poor.
Because Obama sCare is mostly about providing the benefit of unlimited health care to the poor. Oh sure, there’s the claim it’s about jobs, it’s about costs, it’s about evil insurance companies, it’s about fraud. And now your claim: it’s about social justice.
That’s why I suggested you Get Thee to a Church –don’t use the govt to institutue your sense of what is socially just. It isn’t govt’s role.
I don’t think for a moment you’re debating “honestly”. You play far too many debate games and tricks of speech spinning that suggests Honesty, if she would, couldn’t pick you out of crowd of Obama, Emanuel and Gibbs.
By the way, you were the guy who suggested that we pay for our wars by some kind of individual free choice –silly as that sounds, now stripped of other words. The only dream, SFTor1, is the one you’re stuck in that thinks America will submit to massive health care govt spending, death panels, new federal agencies, gross inefficiencies and mandates from Washington.
It’s why your side will lose the House this year and likely the Senate by 2012… and the White House… if Hillary Clinton and Evan Bayh don’t knock off Obama in the primaries.