Reform

 Talk about missing the mark! 

Granted, some polls are far better than others and many of them you simply cannot trust because they are skewed to make a person appear to be ahead or behind.  Such an example would be one of CBS fame that printed “0% of African Americans disapprove of Obama.”  The flaws are obvious given the very person alone currently writing this.  On the flip side of the coin are polls that just simply show what is on people’s minds and allow you to make what you want of them.  One such poll revealed some startling concerns of the American people in terms of their priorities.   As Obama Bashing becomes as much as a leisurely past time for many as does Bush Blaming for others, it becomes apparently clear that the Obama Bashing opportunities have been handed forth on a silver platter trimmed ornate gold.

The top three priorities for Americans this year are; strengthening the economy, improving the job situation and defending the US against terrorism.  Clearly the administration has done too little and many will even argue that they have failed because so much attention has paid to three other areas; the stimulus, health care reform and cap and trade legislature.  It is here is where they have missed the mark.

A year after the stimulus, the president is passing words on a spending freeze; something many of the best economists argue should have been done a year ago.  Blow after blow suffered by health care reform was met by steadfast Democratic determination to get it passed.  The ever echoing words of the president in regards to whether or not people want it have come to fruition.  In fact, the people “who want it” has dropped steadily since 2005!  (60, 59, 56, 54, 52 to 49% each year respectively ending in the 2010 survey of “providing health ins to the uninsured”).  Not only does the word “mandatory” begin to make sense since fewer each year were actually listing this as a top priority, it makes sense why the arguments and rhetoric behind it have become so intense.  The administration has insisted on an issue that was actually dead in the water before it started.  Because of this, they used everything from race baiting to emotive desires like “broken” and the “American Holocaust” to incite and interest that clearly was not there to begin with!

Picking up the tail end of American issues of priority was “dealing with global warming” at 28%.  As with its issue predecessor of wasted time and effort of providing insurance, it too dropped markedly over the course of the last several of years.  In 2007 38% of Americans identified this as a top issue and it steadily declined to 35, 30 and to 28 percent this year.  Perhaps this is because we suffered a severe winter making it difficult to support such allegations that man is warming the planet by driving too much, or even because Obama said his plan would “cause electricity prices to skyrocket.”  Then again it may be that people have been brought to remember a not so recent attempt of such cap and trade style taxation with the ever thinning ozone layer at the hands of our gluttonous ways only to discover it was mere cow farts.  Who knows and who cares?  The bottom line is that the Obama administration has sorely missed the mark of the concerns of the people despite the fact that the people’s interests in their (the administration’s) agenda has been decreasing over the past years.  Imagine if you would, where would we be today if the administration’s priorities were that of the people they are representatives of?

Of the bashings befallen Obama, the most consistent is that he is too self-centered to put the people’s agenda before that of his own.  An ego maniacal narcissist or not, at least half the accusation is completely true.   You simply cannot hit the mark if you are aiming at the wrong target!

If the stimulus were replaced with fiscal conservatism then instead of now, and the efforts on health care reform and cap and trade legislation would have been focused on the top the American issues of concern, Obama may not have hit the bull’s eye, but he would have at least been within the mark.

As we listen to rhetoric coming out of DC, it is not clear whether or not Obama actually gets it.  The mixed signals are everywhere from Obama stating on his radio address that health care pushes in the future will be harder and more focused, to him saying he has lost touch with his base.  Of concern is the fact that he feels he must get in front of the people more.  441 speeches in 2009 and he thinks getting in front of a teleprompter more frequently will aid this problem is only a testimony to narcissistic tendencies.  T he American people want the rubber to actually meet the road, not be told the rubber is going to.  We have heard that four hundred and forty one times with far too little to show for it.  Speaking about it 500 times in 2010 will literally be more of the same.

The spark is gone, the honeymoon long since over, and the president’s influence has proven to do more damage than good.  It’s not just the polls we are talking about, it is expectations.  The American people expected much because he told them much was to be delivered.  Then he kept telling and telling while the whole time the delivery van was going in a direction the American people felt was on an unneeded route to nowhere.

The Obama Promises Delivery Van is now stopped on the side of the road on a rural route with no American homes on it.  He has the map with the target destination on it; the question is… can he read it not?

Erick Erickson over at RedState.com has developed quite a good playbook for Conservatives, RINOs, and GOPers currently in Congress. Here's a portion of it:

The Senate, unlike the House of Representatives, has parliamentary rules and procedures that give the minority the ability to stall legislation. In fact, unlike the House, the minority have the ability to virtually paralyze the Senate. Doing so is not something we would want or expect for every bad bill that comes through Congress, but the proposed healthcare legislation is probably the worst piece of legislation ever considered by the United States Congress. It is the most intrusive, most damaging, most costly, most dangerous bill to the economic and personal freedom and liberty of individual Americans that Congress has ever considered. If there is any bill that deserves being stopped by shutting down the Senate, it is this one.

There are a whole series of parliamentary maneuvers that could be used by Republican senators to stop this bill. There is a hard backstop to the current process (Christmas). The Republicans’ goal should be to prevent Reid from passing the bill before that time. If he goes past Christmas and is forced to adjourn or recess, the momentum will shift in favor of those opposing the bill.

How could this be done?

To start with, they should stop constantly agreeing to “unanimous consent” requests from the Democrats. Senate Republicans, to date, have allowed Democrats, by unanimous consent, to process 10 amendments. The amendments that have been accepted – Democrat amendments – did not make the over 2000-page atrocity any better. The Republican strategy of trying to pass their own “message” amendments carries no message unless you consider “no strategy to kill the bill” a message. There are no amendments that could possibly make this bill a palatable piece of legislation – and any amendments the Republicans get passed that supposedly make the bill “better” may just make it easier for the Democrats to get final passage. If the Republicans want the news media to cover what they are doing to educate the American people even further about the atrociousness of this bill, they have to create drama on the floor of the Senate. And the only way to do that is through an all-out fight with no holds barred. They need to look like Braveheart, fighting to the end to save freedom. Because, in fact, it is our very freedom and liberty that is at stake.

The most powerful words in the Senate are "I object." Senate Republicans should have been shouting those two words on the Senate floor early and often from the moment this bill was considered, instead of the complete silence we have heard – other than to constantly agree to conduct business through unanimous consent. Here are just a few ways those words can (and should) be used in a very effective way:

The rules of the Senate require that a quorum be present to transact business. A quorum is 51 Senators. In most instances, outside of roll call votes, there are no more than 4 Senators on the Senate floor. If a Republican Senator suggested the absence of a quorum, Democrats could not transact business on the bill. It is a common courtesy to allow the quorum call to be dispensed with, without requiring 51 members to show up on the Senate floor (to get 51 Senators to appear without a roll call vote is very time consuming). When the Democrats ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with, the Republican should immediately shout "I object."

This is great advice to be heeded by all in the GOP. Read the rest of Erick's excellent post here.

Senator Coburn (R-Okla) was going to have the entire Senate health care bill be read aloud before it was voted on but backed down because the Senator and other members of his party thought that this tactic would play poorly in the press.

Who cares what the press thinks?

The Democrats talk all the time about how necessary this bill is to fixing health care and how it needs to be passed IMMEDIATELY yet a majority of the bill is not enacted until 2013. The most recent analysis of this bill shows us that passing this bill will be worse than doing nothing, so by stopping it we're preventing further disaster. The GOPers in Congress need to grab a microphone and/or a camera and explain this to the American people.

In other words. Fight. Don't bend. Our kids are depending on you.

(Cross posted @ The Alexandria Patriot)

Dr. Jeffrey S. Flier, Dean of the Harvard Medical School, gives ObamaCare a big fat F for not doing anything the Progressives / Statists (i.e. Obama and Co.) claim it will do.

I encourage you to read the whole article here.  But here's one part that hits the nail on the head:

Worse, currently proposed federal legislation would undermine any potential for real innovation in insurance and the provision of care. It would do so by overregulating the health-care system in the service of special interests such as insurance companies, hospitals, professional organizations and pharmaceutical companies, rather than the patients who should be our primary concern.

In effect, while the legislation would enhance access to insurance, the trade-off would be an accelerated crisis of health-care costs and perpetuation of the current dysfunctional system—now with many more participants. This will make an eventual solution even more difficult. Ultimately, our capacity to innovate and develop new therapies would suffer most of all.

The bottom line is that getting the government more involved in the Health Care industry is going to do what government involvement always does: Lower quality and increase costs.

Of course, Progressives don't care about that.  All they care about is government control.  Health Care is the lynchpin for Statist control of the populace.  There are some liberals who simply don't realize this.  When they do finally realize it, they usually become conservatives / libertarians.

A recent Gallup Poll showed that more people than ever before (since Gallup started tracking the question) are of the mindset that the Government doesn't belong in Health Care, so there's hope.  Let's hope that this enlightenment hasn't come too late to reverse all the damage that Progressives / Statists and the Progressive-lite Republicans have done over the last 100 years.

Pelosi did it. Health reform passed the house 220-215 late saturday. Whatever my personal disagreements with her I have to grudgingly admit she's a decent speaker, her arm twisting in this situation is exceptional. Thank god for Harry Reid. 

Nice round up of why it's the worst bill ever here.

Mark McKinnon says it's unsurprising that Obama has dropped the "change" charade.

[T]he presidency is all about politics. Obama did an artful job of creating an image of someone divorced from the nitty-gritty of hardball, brass-knuckled politics. But it’s far from reality. Obama got elected, in part, because he put a team around him of combat-proven veterans who know how to, as Bill Clinton once famously said, put his opponents’ teeth on the sidewalk. [...]

It was pretty clear to me early on that President Obama understood the importance of maintaining and fueling a political machine. He was presented with the option to kill the budget for the political operations that work out of the White House. It would have sent a powerful signal about ending politics as usual. But then he would have handicapped his ability to enact the kind of change he’d promised his supporters.

This is exactly right. Obama has been more artful at this "iron fist in a velvet glove" game than most, but he's always been a ruthless machine politician.  The appointment of Rahm Emanuel was a very clear signal that Obama had no intention of changing the game.

Obama knows his strength, his brand, is his ability to appear conciliatory, thoughtful and sympathetic.  He can't be the Bad Guy in his administration.  So Obama has hired a Chief of Staff who can handle the Enemies List.   Rahm Emanuel will be the ruthless guy who knocks heads, threatens opponents and generally does the dirty work, leaving Barack Obama to sweep in as the nice guy who wins friends and charms enemies.  Good cop, bad cop.  We won't necessarily see it happening, but it will happen over and over again.

I measure the seriousness of a politician by how willing they are to work against their own interests to enact good policy.  It is a rarity.  As McKinnon points out, Obama's unwillingness to close the political shop - to elevate governance above politics - is a sign that he'll probably be an effective advocate of his policies....but he certainly wasn't serious when he wrote "it's not enough to just change the players. We have to change the game."

Democrats have not changed the game.  They aren't even changing the players.

With a reported bump in public support for some variation on Obamacare after the President’s speech last week, there is no time to rest. Rather, it’s time to drive stakes into the heart of the “public option” vampire. And stakes we shall provide. The following are solid reasons why no version of the public option must be resurrected:

1. A government “competitor” can’t go out of business when it fails. Failing government entities only drains resources from more productive places—not to mention from taxpayers. (Witness the Postal Service.) The left has been particularly disingenuous with this constant doublespeak about the public options offering “competition and choice.” This is another example of the left trying cleverly to co-opt the language of the right. Call the b.s.  
2. Sooner or later any public option will be subsidized by the government. This will put private companies at a competitive disadvantage, which is not only unfair, but threatens the private market so many Americans currently enjoy (despite all the cost-drivers created by government).
3. A public option will create a new set of special interests and dependents. These supplicants will be beholden to the Democrats and Barack Obama. This is why government programs never go away. People who don’t think this is really about buying their power with our tax dollars are kidding themselves.
4. Co-ops are a ruse. We already have non-profit health insurance companies with their own special place in the tax code. They’re called Blue Cross Blue Shield. Talk of co-ops is but a ruse to reawaken the vampire. Co-ops too must be killed.
5. A public option will have different rules to play by.That’s not fair.  Believe it or not, the regulations and mandates that make premiums unaffordable in places like MA, NJ and NY are not as bad at the federal level. So the regulatory framework for the public option would be more favorable than for insurance companies in most states. Another reason private insurers would die off—preparing the way for a complete government takeover of healthcare.

There are fundamental asymmetries between government and private companies. Those asymmetries make government provision of most goods and services unfair and illiberal. Let’s take these stakes and kill the public option. (Lest cries of “you have no proposal” go up from the Left, this should keep you busy. And this.)

(Note: Baucuscare – i.e. Obamacare Plan B – has most of the elements of the failed Massachusetts plan. The MA plan jockeys for most expensive in the country with NJ and NY. All are more expensive due to regs Baucus is proposing for the whole country.) 

Ever heard the term useful idiots? Thousands of them gathered in the streets of D.C. at the height of the Iraq War. Pink-bedizened. Face paint. Bush/Hitler signs… strutting and fretting their 15 minutes on the stage. They were incapable of engaging in rational discussion. Arguments began with an effigy and ended with a ‘No Blood for Oil’ sign. America eventually turned against the War. Perhaps the idiots were useful. But when it came to “rational discourse,” there was no outcry from the establishment left.

These days, useful idiots comprise a small percentage of the town hall meetings and tea-parties of the center-right. This subset is loud, angry and not particularly conversant on the subject of health care. But they may be useful. Early on, the MSM tried to magnify this minority as a means of discrediting all opposition to healthcare nationalization. Turns out, they were more useful to the right for whipping up the base and expanding opposition to healthcare nationalization despite the MSM. For better or worse, people did a double-take.

Now that these idiots are being somewhat effective, the left (and even some libertarians) are whining about “rational discourse.” Part of me longs for an intelligent conversation. But as one who has witnessed way too much useful idiocy on the left – from Code Pink to the Hope and Change sheeple – I am no longer terribly eager to explain the nuances of end-of-life consultation now that the tables have turned. Democracy is warty. And tit was made for tat.

When it comes down to it, the right has been offering good ideas for healthcare reform for years—one of which was completely sandbagged in 2006. Saner rightwing voices are being marginalized by the MSM. The MSM's favorite narrative is that the right is being “obstructionist,” offering no reform ideas of their own. Nothing could be further from the truth. Now that a merry band of useful idiots is helping shut down the left’s aspirations for a “public option,” I’m okay with some of these folks being right for the wrong reasons. Until the left and the MSM are willing to a) acknowledge our reform ideas exist, b) discuss them intelligently before the public, and c) stop framing genuine opposition as nothing but a bunch of birthers, racists and troglodytes, I for one will sit back and smile whenever I hear a useful idiot say something like “death panel.” 

(Note: none of this is meant as my weighing on on the World Net Daily controversy. Some forms of idiocy are not useful.)

You’ve heard some chatter about scrapping the “public option” in favor of a co-op model. Remember: government healthcare by any other name smells just as bad. We can’t let them sneak in any variant on the original evil using doublespeak and legerdemain. As Harry Reid said: “We’re going to have some type of public option, call it ‘co-op’, call it what you want.”

Congress is also considering a federal mandate that would force insurers to cover people after they get sick or injured, called “guaranteed issue”. In states like New York and Massachusetts where this mandate is already the law, premiums are about four times the national average. This is simply unacceptable if Congress wants to make insurance affordable for people. (It’s not insurance if you can call and buy a policy after your house burns down. Likewise, it’s not insurance if you can call and buy a policy after you break your leg.) But they’re not interested in making insurance affordable. That’s never been the goal.

It’s always been about getting us to a socialized system. If you can drive up costs with government mandates, then turn around and blame insurance companies—that’s the quickest way to get what you want: single payer.

With this bill, Congressional Democrats are going to do anything they can to create dependant constituents and special interests. In other words, people, companies and providers will depend on them for resources. Creating dependents helps keep them in power, so they're happy to hop into bed with the very companies they publicly malign. This reform bill is, and has always been, a resources for votes-n-contributions deal. So they’re going to pull out all of the tricks. But it’s now clear: we won’t be duped. Let us go forward with Zen-like patience and continue to oppose anything these shifty politicians propose.

I received a copy of this request -- from UHCAN Ohio to promote government healthcare reform -- we must communicate our opposition!!!!

Request for Proposals for Targeted Media in Southwest Ohio UHCAN Ohio and the Ohio Consumers for Health Coverage is engaged in a campaign to inform the public about the importance of federal health care reform and reduce the fear that is being created by opponents of health care reform who are spreading misinformation. We are looking for a media/communications consultant who can secure for us earned media opportunities to spread a positive message on health care reform and inform the public on the many areas that are rife with confusion. Our target market is the eight counties of Adams, Brown, Butler, Clermont, Clinton, Hamilton, Highland and Warren. We desire to mount a media campaign over the next three months that will cross print, broadcast, cable, and internet media. We are looking for opportunities to reach a broad swath of the public and of interest groups, such as business or religious constituencies. The pace of federal health care reform efforts has dramatically accelerated since early June 2009. If meaningful health care reform is to happen two needs must be met:(1)   Voters need to remain positive about reform, even as contentious debate arises over details of reform (such as the public health insurance option and the financing of reform) and as opponents of reform undermine public support with fear mongering.(2)   Federal legislators need to hear from voters that they want to see federal action on health care this year and that they care about affordability, quality, and health care security for all Americans. For voters to remain positive about health care reform, they need to receive positive messages and reliable information that reinforces the benefits they will derive from health care reform.  Meeting the Need for Clear Messages that Reduce the Fear Being Engendered by the Opponents of Health Care Reform.  People get most of their information from broadcast, cable and internet media, as well as people (family, friends, co-workers and others) who repeat to them what they heard in the mass media. The opponents of health care reform are spending millions of dollars on persuading the public that health care reform will result in a “government takeover” and “get in between them and their doctor.” The proponents of health care reform need to find ways to gain earned media to let people know that health care reform will protect and improve their choices.  We are looking for a PR consultant local to Southwest Ohio who will secure opportunities in Southwest Ohio across media types for UHCAN Ohio and Ohio Consumers for Health Coverage staff and partners to discuss health care reform.  We need a PR consultant to secure for us these opportunities:1.      Appearances on radio talk shows2.      Appearances on “drive time” radio programs3.      Appearances on broadcast and cable TV4.      Articles in daily and weekly newspapers targeted at the general public5.      Articles in specialty newspapers, such as those targeted at religious communities or the business community6.      Connections made through social networking sites including the blogosphere Time Frame:·         This will be a three month contract taking place between August and October.  Contractor Responsibilities:·         Contractor will pitch stories and potential interviewees to the media. Contractor will identify blogs that discuss health care (among other topics) that have a readership in Southwest Ohio and refer Client to those blogs.  Client will be responsible for furnishing the person(s) to be interviewed, and for developing messaging around health care reform. Client works with a communications organization in Columbus, and has some outside technical assistance from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on messaging. Client primarily needs a consultant who has local connections and can secure media exposure.  Please submit a brief proposal to UHCAN Ohio stating(1)   Your history of securing media for small groups and not-for-profit groups(2)   Your history of handling communications that are part of a campaign(3)   Your history of working with health care professional or advocacy groups(4)   The plan you would undertake to secure significant earned media coverage in the next three months in Southwest Ohio on health care reform (including how you track media hits)(5)   Your fee. Ohio Consumers for Health Coverage is a consumer-based coalition seeking fundamental health care reform benefitting consumers. It is staffed by UHCAN Ohio. Information about UHCAN Ohio and OCHC can be found at their web sites:www.uhcanohio.orgwww.ohioconsumersforhealth.org Proposals should be submitted no later than 5 PM

Let’s put aside our right-leaning suggestion box for a moment and put the challenge straight to the left as follows… (Warning: intellectual honesty check.) Will your bill:

1. Control Costs? If you have any third-party payer system, you’ll have a situation in which people overconsume. Because they have no incentive to be bargain shoppers, they won’t shop for bargains. Costs will continue to go up. Subsidized healthcare ensures people will continue consume more of what they don’t have to pay for directly. That’s the major driver of costs in healthcare. How will you deal with this problem—which is the main problem (not “administrative costs”?)

2. Avoid Using Price Controls? Bureaucrats determining prices will, as it always has, mean gross distortions (that whole supply and demandt thing). In the absence of real prices, resources don’t get allocated properly, because prices are a way to deal with dispersed, complex information. This is the problem we saw in the Soviet Union and it’s a major problem for the Canadian system. Will your system use price controls?

3. Avoid a Special Interest Bonanza? Any subsidized, government-provided reform will mean healthcare becomes a Freddie and Fannie phenomenon. Private companies that serve the government insurer will become special interests. They will game the system and rape it, as they have in so many other spheres of our life when colluding with government. Their prices will go up (unless controlled) and their profits will remain private. Losses will get covered up by continued subsidies and cost-shifting through higher taxes. This may also mask the cost-spiral (for a while). Eventually, heavy rationing will ensue or taxes will go through the roof. Is this bill healthcare corporatism?

4. Avoid Rationing Healthcare (Limiting “Access”)? If the government really wants to control costs, it will have to ration care. The problem is, we need a system in which individuals ration their own care, not bureaucrats with little or no connection to the individual. I ration my own healthcare (by shopping with my HSA dollars) and I prefer to keep it that way, despite the protestations of leftish types who believe they can make better decisions about my healthcare than I. Rationing means quality goes down and access gets limited.

5. Avoid More Deficit Spending? President Obama seems to be betting on energy taxes (cap and trade) to pay for what would amount to massive increases in government spending on healthcare. If the cap and trade bill doesn’t pass, will the government be able to pay for healthcare reform by simply cost-shifting to the wealthy? Or will taxes go up for everyone and big time rationing happen? The American people are at their end with the record deficits. Are you willing to push the envelope?

If your healthcare bill can’t pass this simple 5 question test, it’s not a good bill.