Thoughts on the Health Care Summit
For 3Cons readers that follow my Twitter or keep up with my thoughts on Facebook, little of this content is new. Nevertheless, I wanted to take just a few paragraphs and give you some reaction to this week’s “Bipartisan Health Care Summit.”
REACTION 1: Democrats have anecdotitis
Yeah, we get it: you know people with bad medical situations. But the fact that a lady used her dead sister’s dentures doesn’t mean you should be able to control one-sixth of our economy. The libs fell into the logical pit of argument-by-false-compassion. In essence it’s: Hey, bad stuff happens to people. If you object to my plan to fix it, you hate all those people.
Yes, I know. It’s juvenile and bankrupt of reason. But hey, they’re liberals.
Some of the GOP delegates fell into the same trap, but it was almost to a one, the Democrat speakers wanted to illustrate how thoughtful they were about people with problems. What’s disturbing is that the Dems and Reps that used these stories more for their own benefit than for the benefit of those with the problems.
REACTION 2: Barack Obama is sort of arrogant
As if any conservative has forgotten for a single second since his Inauguration, Barack Obama reminded us that the campaign is over. And by “us”, I mean he demeaned an honorable man, old enough to be his father.
And oh yeah, he doesn’t count his speaking time as part of the bipartisan. Why? Because he’s the president.
REACTION 3: I could end up being wrong on this.
I predicted way back in August that ultimately, a bill would pass and that now long-forgotten concept of a public option would not be included. I said that it basically end up being a scaled back “Insurance Reform” bill.
In the end, I may be correct on that one. However, I also predicted on the local radio show where I often guest-host, the Democrats would never use reconciliation to pass this thing. They weren’t bold enough, I thought. They wouldn’t risk it.
I’m not so sure anymore. In fact, I’m changing that prediction. Within 8 weeks from today, the Democrats will have passed some sort of health care reform bill with way less than 60 votes in the Senate. I pray to God I’m wrong, but that’s what I’m seeing Progressive et al setting up for.
First, the Democrats are defending reconciliation as a concept — erroneously — everywhere they can. Robert Gibbs said Friday that “the notion that somehow health care hasn’t been done this way has been offered up by people but is not accurate.” At the health care summit itself, Democrats continued to quote the fact that Republicans have more often used reconciliation and that it was used for the Bush tax cuts (I have well-prepared argument to refute their equivalency logic, but I’ll leave it out for now).
On CBS’s Sunday show today, Representative Stenny Hoyer actually openly using reconciliation. David Axelrod told CNN last week that Americans want “majority rule” on this Bill. And then Speaker Pelosi used the same language to push the same idea.
CONCLUSION
So, those are my reactions. I hope I’m wrong about reconciliation. However, if I’m right about that, I believe I’ll also be correct the Dems will lose the House in November and at least 7 Senate seats.
Please Share This Story!Cory Truax @ February 28, 2010
