THE FREEDOM MEDIUM
...Transmitting the Individualist Frequency
By Salvaterra
The World Health Organization (WHO), that’s who. A report released in 2000 by the WHO that ranks the United States healthcare system at 37th in the world is responsible for the current misinformation being spread by the President and congressional Democrats.
In the World Health Report 2000 the WHO set out to rank the healthcare systems of 191 countries from best to worst. For many, myself excluded, the first time the results of the WHO report gained their attention was during Michael Moore’s propaganda film SiCKO. Moore used the US’s ranking of 37th on the WHO index to try and convince viewers that Cuba has a far superior healthcare system to the United States. Some people actually believed it.
What Michael Moore, President Obama, and congressional Democrats fail to provide along with the rank number when promoting government-run healthcare is what the WHO used to arrive at these numbers. In 2008 Glen Whitman of the Cato Institute released a paper that explains the WHO’s methodology in terms that average Americans can understand found here: http://www.cato.org/pubs/bp/bp101.pdf.
The explanation of the WHO’s report is not very difficult to understand. Think “redistribution of health”. The index uses five factors to come up with an “Overall Attainment” rank for the countries: Health Level, Responsiveness, Health Distribution, Responsiveness Distribution, and Financial Fairness. The first two factors are legitimate, but the last three make no sense in measuring quality of healthcare.
Notice that I highlighted the word Distribution in two of the above factors. These two factors are included to measure how healthcare is distributed to the population of a given country. That’s right, they don’t measure the quality of the healthcare, they measure if poor people have the same health level and responsiveness as the rich.
The example used in the Cato paper is as follows:
Suppose, for instance, that Country A has health responsiveness that is “excellent” for most citizens but merely “good” for some disadvantaged groups, while Country B has responsiveness that is uniformly “poor” for everyone. Country B would score higher than Country A in terms of responsiveness distribution, despite Country A having better responsiveness than Country B for even its worst-off citizens. The same point applies to the distribution of health level.
So how exactly does measuring a country’s distribution of healthcare help when measuring healthcare quality? And how does this show that the United States has inferior healthcare to Costa Rica? Your guess is as good as anyone’s.
The next factor is Financial Fairness which attempts to determine what a “fair” level of healthcare expenditures is for households based on their income. This factor is also tied to distribution because if there is a wide diversity of income levels and healthcare expense levels distributed throughout a country (as is the case in the United States) then the Financial Fairness grade is worse. The Financial Fairness grade (25% of the overall grade) of the ideal country would be one where the percentage of household income spent on healthcare would be the same for all income levels. This can only happen when “the rich” pay more for healthcare even when they use the same amount or less than the poor. An outcome like this is more easily attained when a country’s government distributes payments for healthcare using tax dollars. Tax dollars which come from the country’s rich citizens, not the poor. The global bureaucrats behind the WHO have essentially tipped the scales of their index to favor countries with a single-payer healthcare system because of their definition of what “fairness” is. Again there is no measurement of the quality of healthcare received, just the equality or inequality of healthcare distribution. So much for shifting “from an ideological discourse on health policy to a more [scientific] one,” as the WHO has claimed to have done with this index.
The final aspect of the WHO ranking that gets the US to 37th is the performance of our healthcare system based on how much money is spent. One more time here, the quality of healthcare is not measured, the performance of the healthcare system based on the amount spent is what is measured. Glen Whitman uses the following example:
When Costa Rica ranks higher than the United States in the OP ranking (36 versus 37), that does not mean Costa Ricans get better health care than Americans. Americans most likely get better health care—just not as much better as could be expected given how much more America spends.
Anyone paying attention has heard President Obama or some other Democrat say that we pay more in this country for healthcare than any other country and yet we are still ranked 37th in the world. However, when looking at how the rankings were determined, it becomes clear that the global bureaucrats at the WHO are telling the United States our ranking did not suffer in spite of the amount spent on healthcare expenses, rather it suffered because we spend so much and they think our system should still be better. This is Obama’s basis for pushing to overhaul our entire healthcare system?
It is pretty bad when the Democrat party and the President of the United States start using the same points as an America-hating propagandist to try and move their agenda forward. The World Health Organization’s rankings are clearly ideologically based and were intended to be embarrassing to the United States, yet the WHO index is cited by leading Democrats and the President all the time. Still Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer have the nerve to call people questioning them unamerican!
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Other Posts On This Topic
* September 1, 2009 -- Breaking News!! NEW Lies From The Obama Administration On Health Care Reform
* August 25, 2009 -- Obama Explains How He Wants To Eliminate Private Insurance
* August 17, 2009 -- The Health Care Video Obama Doesn’t Want You To See
* August 13, 2009 -- MSNBC Host: Word “Socialist” Code For The “N-Word”
Showing posts with label Socialized Health Care. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Socialized Health Care. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
ObamaCare's Contradictions
Review & Outlook - Wall Street Journal
The President does both sides now on his health insurance plan.
Over the past week, President Obama has held three town-halls to make the case for his health-care plan. While he didn't say much that he hasn't said a thousand times before, his remarks did offer another explanation for the public's skepticism of ObamaCare. Namely, the President contradicts himself every other breath. Consider:
He likes to start off explaining our catastrophe of a health system. "What is truly scary—what is truly risky—is if we do nothing," he said in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. We can't "keep the system the way it is right now," he continued, while his critics are "people who want to keep things the way they are."
However, his supporters also want to keep things the way they are. "I keep on saying this but somehow folks aren't listening," Mr. Obama proclaimed in Grand Junction, Colorado. "If you like your health-care plan, you keep your health-care plan. Nobody is going to force you to leave your health-care plan. If you like your doctor, you keep seeing your doctor. I don't want government bureaucrats meddling in your health care."
Mr. Obama couldn't be more opposed to "some government takeover," as he put it in Belgrade, Montana. In New Hampshire, he added that people were wrong to worry "that somehow some government bureaucrat out there will be saying, well, you can't have this test or you can't have this procedure because some bean-counter decides that this is not a good way to use our health-care dollars."
So no bureaucrats, no bean-counters. Mr. Obama merely wants to create "a panel of experts, health experts, doctors, who can provide guidelines to doctors and patients about what procedures work best in what situations, and find ways to reduce, for example, the number of tests that people take" (New Hampshire, again). Oh, and your health-care plan? You can keep it, as long your insurance company or employer can meet all the new regulations Mr. Obama favors. His choice of verbs, in Montana, provides a clue about what that will mean: "will be prohibited," "will no longer be able," "we'll require" . . .
Maybe you're starting to fret about all those bureaucrats and bean-counters again. You shouldn't, according to Mr. Obama. "The only thing I would point is, is that Medicare is a government program that works really well for our seniors," he noted in Colorado. After all, as he said in New Hampshire, "If we're able to get something right like Medicare, then there should be a little more confidence that maybe the government can have a role—not the dominant role, but a role—in making sure the people are treated fairly when it comes to insurance."
The government didn't get Medicare right, though: Just ask the President. The entitlement is "going broke" (Colorado) and "unsustainable" and "running out of money" (New Hampshire). And it's "in deep trouble if we don't do something, because as you said, money doesn't grow on trees" (Montana).
So the health-care status quo needs top-to-bottom reform, except for the parts that "you" happen to like. Government won't interfere with patients and their physicians, considering that the new panel of experts who will make decisions intended to reduce tests and treatments doesn't count as government. But Medicare shows that government involvement isn't so bad, aside from the fact that spending is out of control—and that program needs top-to-bottom reform too.
Voters aren't stupid. The true reason ObamaCare is in trouble isn't because "folks aren't listening," but because they are.
The President does both sides now on his health insurance plan.
Over the past week, President Obama has held three town-halls to make the case for his health-care plan. While he didn't say much that he hasn't said a thousand times before, his remarks did offer another explanation for the public's skepticism of ObamaCare. Namely, the President contradicts himself every other breath. Consider:
He likes to start off explaining our catastrophe of a health system. "What is truly scary—what is truly risky—is if we do nothing," he said in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. We can't "keep the system the way it is right now," he continued, while his critics are "people who want to keep things the way they are."
However, his supporters also want to keep things the way they are. "I keep on saying this but somehow folks aren't listening," Mr. Obama proclaimed in Grand Junction, Colorado. "If you like your health-care plan, you keep your health-care plan. Nobody is going to force you to leave your health-care plan. If you like your doctor, you keep seeing your doctor. I don't want government bureaucrats meddling in your health care."
Mr. Obama couldn't be more opposed to "some government takeover," as he put it in Belgrade, Montana. In New Hampshire, he added that people were wrong to worry "that somehow some government bureaucrat out there will be saying, well, you can't have this test or you can't have this procedure because some bean-counter decides that this is not a good way to use our health-care dollars."
So no bureaucrats, no bean-counters. Mr. Obama merely wants to create "a panel of experts, health experts, doctors, who can provide guidelines to doctors and patients about what procedures work best in what situations, and find ways to reduce, for example, the number of tests that people take" (New Hampshire, again). Oh, and your health-care plan? You can keep it, as long your insurance company or employer can meet all the new regulations Mr. Obama favors. His choice of verbs, in Montana, provides a clue about what that will mean: "will be prohibited," "will no longer be able," "we'll require" . . .
Maybe you're starting to fret about all those bureaucrats and bean-counters again. You shouldn't, according to Mr. Obama. "The only thing I would point is, is that Medicare is a government program that works really well for our seniors," he noted in Colorado. After all, as he said in New Hampshire, "If we're able to get something right like Medicare, then there should be a little more confidence that maybe the government can have a role—not the dominant role, but a role—in making sure the people are treated fairly when it comes to insurance."
The government didn't get Medicare right, though: Just ask the President. The entitlement is "going broke" (Colorado) and "unsustainable" and "running out of money" (New Hampshire). And it's "in deep trouble if we don't do something, because as you said, money doesn't grow on trees" (Montana).
So the health-care status quo needs top-to-bottom reform, except for the parts that "you" happen to like. Government won't interfere with patients and their physicians, considering that the new panel of experts who will make decisions intended to reduce tests and treatments doesn't count as government. But Medicare shows that government involvement isn't so bad, aside from the fact that spending is out of control—and that program needs top-to-bottom reform too.
Voters aren't stupid. The true reason ObamaCare is in trouble isn't because "folks aren't listening," but because they are.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
What's Really in Obama's Health Care Reform Bill - Plain English Translation
by: Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
What's really in Obama's health care reform bill? Almost no one knows, and here's why: It's 1,017 pages long and written in an alien form of bureaucratic English that can barely be decoded by earthlings.
And yet, astonishingly, a U.S. Army translator has been found who speaks "Washington Doublespeak" and he was kind enough to decode the bill and post his plain-language findings over at FreeRepublic.com (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f...).
Below, we reprint what he found in the health care reform bill. As you read this, keep in mind that some of these translations are a bit loose with the interpretations, but I've personally spot-checked these points, and they are indeed all contained in the bill in one form or another (shrouded in Doublespeak language, of course).
Editor's note: I don't personally agree with every interpretation listed here, and some of the bill's provisions are actually good ideas (like banning doctors from owning stock in health care companies). But overall, this interpretation points out many alarming provisions in the proposed health care reform bill...
From CMS at FreeRepublic.com:
• Page 16: States that if you have insurance at the time of the bill becoming law and change, you will be required to take a similar plan. If that is not available, you will be required to take the government option!
• Page 22: Mandates audits of all employers that self-insure!
• Page 29: Admission: your health care will be rationed!
• Page 30: A government committee will decide what treatments and benefits you get (and, unlike an insurer, there will be no appeals process)
• Page 42: The "Health Choices Commissioner" will decide health benefits for you. You will have no choice. None.
• Page 50: All non-US citizens, illegal or not, will be provided with free healthcare services.
• Page 58: Every person will be issued a National ID Healthcard.
• Page 59: The federal government will have direct, real-time access to all individual bank accounts for electronic funds transfer.
• Page 65: Taxpayers will subsidize all union retiree and community organizer health plans (example: SEIU, UAW and ACORN)
• Page 72: All private healthcare plans must conform to government rules to participate in a Healthcare Exchange.
• Page 84: All private healthcare plans must participate in the Healthcare Exchange (i.e., total government control of private plans)
• Page 91: Government mandates linguistic infrastructure for services; translation: illegal aliens
• Page 95: The Government will pay ACORN and Americorps to sign up individuals for Government-run Health Care plan.
• Page 102: Those eligible for Medicaid will be automatically enrolled: you have no choice in the matter.
• Page 124: No company can sue the government for price-fixing. No "judicial review" is permitted against the government monopoly. Put simply, private insurers will be crushed.
• Page 127: The AMA sold doctors out: the government will set wages.
• Page 145: An employer MUST auto-enroll employees into the government-run public plan. No alternatives.
• Page 126: Employers MUST pay healthcare bills for part-time employees AND their families.
• Page 149: Any employer with a payroll of $400K or more, who does not offer the public option, pays an 8% tax on payroll
• Page 150: Any employer with a payroll of $250K-400K or more, who does not offer the public option, pays a 2 to 6% tax on payroll
• Page 167: Any individual who doesn't have acceptable healthcare (according to the government) will be taxed 2.5% of income.
• Page 170: Any NON-RESIDENT alien is exempt from individual taxes (Americans will pay for them).
• Page 195: Officers and employees of Government Healthcare Bureaucracy will have access to ALL American financial and personal records.
• Page 203: "The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax." Yes, it really says that.
• Page 239: Bill will reduce physician services for Medicaid. Seniors and the poor most affected."
• Page 241: Doctors: no matter what specialty you have, you'll all be paid the same (thanks, AMA!)
• Page 253: Government sets value of doctors' time, their professional judgment, etc.
• Page 265: Government mandates and controls productivity for private healthcare industries.
• Page 268: Government regulates rental and purchase of power-driven wheelchairs.
• Page 272: Cancer patients: welcome to the wonderful world of rationing!
• Page 280: Hospitals will be penalized for what the government deems preventable re-admissions.
• Page 298: Doctors: if you treat a patient during an initial admission that results in a readmission, you will be penalized by the government.
• Page 317: Doctors: you are now prohibited for owning and investing in healthcare companies!
• Page 318: Prohibition on hospital expansion. Hospitals cannot expand without government approval.
• Page 321: Hospital expansion hinges on "community" input: in other words, yet another payoff for ACORN.
• Page 335: Government mandates establishment of outcome-based measures: i.e., rationing.
• Page 341: Government has authority to disqualify Medicare Advantage Plans, HMOs, etc.
• Page 354: Government will restrict enrollment of SPECIAL NEEDS individuals.
• Page 379: More bureaucracy: Telehealth Advisory Committee (healthcare by phone).
• Page 425: More bureaucracy: Advance Care Planning Consult: Senior Citizens, assisted suicide, euthanasia?
• Page 425: Government will instruct and consult regarding living wills, durable powers of attorney, etc. Mandatory. Appears to lock in estate taxes ahead of time.
• Page 425: Government provides approved list of end-of-life resources, guiding you in death.
• Page 427: Government mandates program that orders end-of-life treatment; government dictates how your life ends.
• Page 429: Advance Care Planning Consult will be used to dictate treatment as patient's health deteriorates. This can include an ORDER for end-of-life plans. An ORDER from the GOVERNMENT.
• Page 430: Government will decide what level of treatments you may have at end-of-life.
• Page 469: Community-based Home Medical Services: more payoffs for ACORN.
• Page 472: Payments to Community-based organizations: more payoffs for ACORN.
• Page 489: Government will cover marriage and family therapy. Government intervenes in your marriage.
• Page 494: Government will cover mental health services: defining, creating and rationing those services.
Buzz up!58 votes
About the author: Mike Adams is a natural health author and technology pioneer with a strong interest in personal health, the environment and the power of nature to help us all heal He has authored more than 1,500 articles and dozens of reports, guides and interviews on natural health topics, impacting the lives of millions of readers around the world who are experiencing phenomenal health benefits from reading his articles. Adams is an honest, independent journalist and accepts no money or commissions on the third-party products he writes about or the companies he promotes. In 2007, Adams launched EcoLEDs, a manufacturer of mercury-free, energy-efficient LED lighting products that save electricity and help prevent global warming.
He also launched an online retailer of environmentally-friendly products (BetterLifeGoods.com) and uses a portion of its profits to help fund non-profit endeavors. He's also a noted technology pioneer and founded a software company in 1993 that developed the HTML email newsletter software currently powering the NaturalNews subscriptions. Adams also serves as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a non-profit consumer protection group, and regularly pursues cycling, nature photography, Capoeira and Pilates.
What's really in Obama's health care reform bill? Almost no one knows, and here's why: It's 1,017 pages long and written in an alien form of bureaucratic English that can barely be decoded by earthlings.
And yet, astonishingly, a U.S. Army translator has been found who speaks "Washington Doublespeak" and he was kind enough to decode the bill and post his plain-language findings over at FreeRepublic.com (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f...).
Below, we reprint what he found in the health care reform bill. As you read this, keep in mind that some of these translations are a bit loose with the interpretations, but I've personally spot-checked these points, and they are indeed all contained in the bill in one form or another (shrouded in Doublespeak language, of course).
Editor's note: I don't personally agree with every interpretation listed here, and some of the bill's provisions are actually good ideas (like banning doctors from owning stock in health care companies). But overall, this interpretation points out many alarming provisions in the proposed health care reform bill...
From CMS at FreeRepublic.com:
• Page 16: States that if you have insurance at the time of the bill becoming law and change, you will be required to take a similar plan. If that is not available, you will be required to take the government option!
• Page 22: Mandates audits of all employers that self-insure!
• Page 29: Admission: your health care will be rationed!
• Page 30: A government committee will decide what treatments and benefits you get (and, unlike an insurer, there will be no appeals process)
• Page 42: The "Health Choices Commissioner" will decide health benefits for you. You will have no choice. None.
• Page 50: All non-US citizens, illegal or not, will be provided with free healthcare services.
• Page 58: Every person will be issued a National ID Healthcard.
• Page 59: The federal government will have direct, real-time access to all individual bank accounts for electronic funds transfer.
• Page 65: Taxpayers will subsidize all union retiree and community organizer health plans (example: SEIU, UAW and ACORN)
• Page 72: All private healthcare plans must conform to government rules to participate in a Healthcare Exchange.
• Page 84: All private healthcare plans must participate in the Healthcare Exchange (i.e., total government control of private plans)
• Page 91: Government mandates linguistic infrastructure for services; translation: illegal aliens
• Page 95: The Government will pay ACORN and Americorps to sign up individuals for Government-run Health Care plan.
• Page 102: Those eligible for Medicaid will be automatically enrolled: you have no choice in the matter.
• Page 124: No company can sue the government for price-fixing. No "judicial review" is permitted against the government monopoly. Put simply, private insurers will be crushed.
• Page 127: The AMA sold doctors out: the government will set wages.
• Page 145: An employer MUST auto-enroll employees into the government-run public plan. No alternatives.
• Page 126: Employers MUST pay healthcare bills for part-time employees AND their families.
• Page 149: Any employer with a payroll of $400K or more, who does not offer the public option, pays an 8% tax on payroll
• Page 150: Any employer with a payroll of $250K-400K or more, who does not offer the public option, pays a 2 to 6% tax on payroll
• Page 167: Any individual who doesn't have acceptable healthcare (according to the government) will be taxed 2.5% of income.
• Page 170: Any NON-RESIDENT alien is exempt from individual taxes (Americans will pay for them).
• Page 195: Officers and employees of Government Healthcare Bureaucracy will have access to ALL American financial and personal records.
• Page 203: "The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax." Yes, it really says that.
• Page 239: Bill will reduce physician services for Medicaid. Seniors and the poor most affected."
• Page 241: Doctors: no matter what specialty you have, you'll all be paid the same (thanks, AMA!)
• Page 253: Government sets value of doctors' time, their professional judgment, etc.
• Page 265: Government mandates and controls productivity for private healthcare industries.
• Page 268: Government regulates rental and purchase of power-driven wheelchairs.
• Page 272: Cancer patients: welcome to the wonderful world of rationing!
• Page 280: Hospitals will be penalized for what the government deems preventable re-admissions.
• Page 298: Doctors: if you treat a patient during an initial admission that results in a readmission, you will be penalized by the government.
• Page 317: Doctors: you are now prohibited for owning and investing in healthcare companies!
• Page 318: Prohibition on hospital expansion. Hospitals cannot expand without government approval.
• Page 321: Hospital expansion hinges on "community" input: in other words, yet another payoff for ACORN.
• Page 335: Government mandates establishment of outcome-based measures: i.e., rationing.
• Page 341: Government has authority to disqualify Medicare Advantage Plans, HMOs, etc.
• Page 354: Government will restrict enrollment of SPECIAL NEEDS individuals.
• Page 379: More bureaucracy: Telehealth Advisory Committee (healthcare by phone).
• Page 425: More bureaucracy: Advance Care Planning Consult: Senior Citizens, assisted suicide, euthanasia?
• Page 425: Government will instruct and consult regarding living wills, durable powers of attorney, etc. Mandatory. Appears to lock in estate taxes ahead of time.
• Page 425: Government provides approved list of end-of-life resources, guiding you in death.
• Page 427: Government mandates program that orders end-of-life treatment; government dictates how your life ends.
• Page 429: Advance Care Planning Consult will be used to dictate treatment as patient's health deteriorates. This can include an ORDER for end-of-life plans. An ORDER from the GOVERNMENT.
• Page 430: Government will decide what level of treatments you may have at end-of-life.
• Page 469: Community-based Home Medical Services: more payoffs for ACORN.
• Page 472: Payments to Community-based organizations: more payoffs for ACORN.
• Page 489: Government will cover marriage and family therapy. Government intervenes in your marriage.
• Page 494: Government will cover mental health services: defining, creating and rationing those services.
Buzz up!58 votes
About the author: Mike Adams is a natural health author and technology pioneer with a strong interest in personal health, the environment and the power of nature to help us all heal He has authored more than 1,500 articles and dozens of reports, guides and interviews on natural health topics, impacting the lives of millions of readers around the world who are experiencing phenomenal health benefits from reading his articles. Adams is an honest, independent journalist and accepts no money or commissions on the third-party products he writes about or the companies he promotes. In 2007, Adams launched EcoLEDs, a manufacturer of mercury-free, energy-efficient LED lighting products that save electricity and help prevent global warming.
He also launched an online retailer of environmentally-friendly products (BetterLifeGoods.com) and uses a portion of its profits to help fund non-profit endeavors. He's also a noted technology pioneer and founded a software company in 1993 that developed the HTML email newsletter software currently powering the NaturalNews subscriptions. Adams also serves as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a non-profit consumer protection group, and regularly pursues cycling, nature photography, Capoeira and Pilates.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Obama's Forfeited Credibility Sabotaging Obamacare
by David Limbaugh
President Barack Obama apparently came to believe the myth of his messiahship and has accordingly abused and squandered his good will and political capital and possibly self-sabotaged his socialized medicine scheme.
Of all the newsworthy aspects of this desperate "reform" effort, none is more so than the robust democratic processes it has reinvigorated in this nation. While Democrats insist the nationwide grass-roots movement against his Draconian measure is contrived and illusory, it is just the opposite.
Nothing could be so real as the American people, emboldened by their passion for liberty, standing up against a callous, dishonest government trolling for its freedoms in exchange for false promises.
All the proof we need that Obama and Democrats recognize the authenticity of this grass-roots protest is their hysterical reaction to it. They wouldn't be hyperventilating about it if they believed it to be fake, but would use their super-majorities to ram through this bill.
Indeed, that congressmen have not been able or courageous enough (against the threat of being removed from office in 2010) to pass this bill is the story of the year. Integral to that story is the unraveling of the Obama mystique, occasioned by Obama's ongoing arrogance and duplicity, most recently on the Obamacare issue.
Let's just look at some of the myriad ways Obama has betrayed the enormous trust bestowed upon him -- on the health care issue alone.
Obama has said he just wants a dialogue with the American people on health care. Sorry, but there are just so many times a person can say the exact opposite of what he means and retain a shred of credibility. While saying he wants this dialogue, he's also telling his opponents to shut up -- literally. Even more revealing, he was adamant that this bill be passed before the August recess -- a bill whose provisions he admitted or pretended he was not familiar with. How could there have been a dialogue if he had already made up his mind and if the deadline he had artificially imposed could not possibly have allowed a dialogue?
Obama has said his opponents were trying to "scare and mislead the American people," when in fact his opponents are the American people whom he is trying to scare and mislead.
Obama misleads us concerning the public option, saying people can keep their private plans if they prefer. Yet the House bill, which he was urging be passed before the August recess, effectively would coerce employers, through punitive and positive incentives, to dump their private plans in favor of the public option. Most Americans have employer-provided health insurance, so a wholesale exodus to the public option would be inevitable -- and intended. In fact, the bill would prevent those who lose private coverage from reacquiring it, except plans conforming to a slew of new mandated regulations, which eventually would drive such plans out of existence. Obama's propagandette, Linda Douglass, falsely denied that Obama said he supports the public option, but he's on tape.
Obama misleads us in his inartful attempt to analogize the postal industry with his health plan, saying privately run FedEx and UPS have fared well against the government-run Postal Service. He fails to tell us how different the public/private competitive environment would be under his health care plan with the deck stacked -- by law -- against the survival of private insurers and private care.
Obama misleads us by denying that bureaucrats would "meddle" in our health care decisions or with the doctor-patient relationship. Yet in almost the same breath, he boasts that he would bundle payments to doctors based on the quality, not the quantity, of the services they provide -- such quality to be determined by his bureaucratic boards. The House bill is replete with provisions conferring such decisions on government bureaucrats.
Obama misleads us when he and his minions cavalierly dismiss the public's genuine concern about the government, under his plan, insinuating itself into end-of-life decisions. Instead of responding to provisions of the bill legitimately generating such concerns, he puts words into our mouths, saying we claim that the bill would require "euthanasia." Even some of Obama's state-run media fact checkers suggested that Reps. Thaddeus McCotter and John Boehner made that claim. In fact, they said provisions of the bill "could create ... a more permissive environment for euthanasia ... and physician-assisted suicide." Someone needs to check the fact checkers.
Of course there are legitimate concerns here, and it insults our intelligence to suggest otherwise. The bill would immediately impose a monumental conflict of interest on government bureaucrats by tasking them to cut costs drastically while simultaneously empowering them to "counsel" people about their end-of-life (and other) medical care. Such a conflict of interest -- over life and death itself -- is unconscionable and unthinkable in the United States of America.
The "messiah" has lost his mojo -- by betraying his unearned trust with the people.
President Barack Obama apparently came to believe the myth of his messiahship and has accordingly abused and squandered his good will and political capital and possibly self-sabotaged his socialized medicine scheme.
Of all the newsworthy aspects of this desperate "reform" effort, none is more so than the robust democratic processes it has reinvigorated in this nation. While Democrats insist the nationwide grass-roots movement against his Draconian measure is contrived and illusory, it is just the opposite.
Nothing could be so real as the American people, emboldened by their passion for liberty, standing up against a callous, dishonest government trolling for its freedoms in exchange for false promises.
All the proof we need that Obama and Democrats recognize the authenticity of this grass-roots protest is their hysterical reaction to it. They wouldn't be hyperventilating about it if they believed it to be fake, but would use their super-majorities to ram through this bill.
Indeed, that congressmen have not been able or courageous enough (against the threat of being removed from office in 2010) to pass this bill is the story of the year. Integral to that story is the unraveling of the Obama mystique, occasioned by Obama's ongoing arrogance and duplicity, most recently on the Obamacare issue.
Let's just look at some of the myriad ways Obama has betrayed the enormous trust bestowed upon him -- on the health care issue alone.
Obama has said he just wants a dialogue with the American people on health care. Sorry, but there are just so many times a person can say the exact opposite of what he means and retain a shred of credibility. While saying he wants this dialogue, he's also telling his opponents to shut up -- literally. Even more revealing, he was adamant that this bill be passed before the August recess -- a bill whose provisions he admitted or pretended he was not familiar with. How could there have been a dialogue if he had already made up his mind and if the deadline he had artificially imposed could not possibly have allowed a dialogue?
Obama has said his opponents were trying to "scare and mislead the American people," when in fact his opponents are the American people whom he is trying to scare and mislead.
Obama misleads us concerning the public option, saying people can keep their private plans if they prefer. Yet the House bill, which he was urging be passed before the August recess, effectively would coerce employers, through punitive and positive incentives, to dump their private plans in favor of the public option. Most Americans have employer-provided health insurance, so a wholesale exodus to the public option would be inevitable -- and intended. In fact, the bill would prevent those who lose private coverage from reacquiring it, except plans conforming to a slew of new mandated regulations, which eventually would drive such plans out of existence. Obama's propagandette, Linda Douglass, falsely denied that Obama said he supports the public option, but he's on tape.
Obama misleads us in his inartful attempt to analogize the postal industry with his health plan, saying privately run FedEx and UPS have fared well against the government-run Postal Service. He fails to tell us how different the public/private competitive environment would be under his health care plan with the deck stacked -- by law -- against the survival of private insurers and private care.
Obama misleads us by denying that bureaucrats would "meddle" in our health care decisions or with the doctor-patient relationship. Yet in almost the same breath, he boasts that he would bundle payments to doctors based on the quality, not the quantity, of the services they provide -- such quality to be determined by his bureaucratic boards. The House bill is replete with provisions conferring such decisions on government bureaucrats.
Obama misleads us when he and his minions cavalierly dismiss the public's genuine concern about the government, under his plan, insinuating itself into end-of-life decisions. Instead of responding to provisions of the bill legitimately generating such concerns, he puts words into our mouths, saying we claim that the bill would require "euthanasia." Even some of Obama's state-run media fact checkers suggested that Reps. Thaddeus McCotter and John Boehner made that claim. In fact, they said provisions of the bill "could create ... a more permissive environment for euthanasia ... and physician-assisted suicide." Someone needs to check the fact checkers.
Of course there are legitimate concerns here, and it insults our intelligence to suggest otherwise. The bill would immediately impose a monumental conflict of interest on government bureaucrats by tasking them to cut costs drastically while simultaneously empowering them to "counsel" people about their end-of-life (and other) medical care. Such a conflict of interest -- over life and death itself -- is unconscionable and unthinkable in the United States of America.
The "messiah" has lost his mojo -- by betraying his unearned trust with the people.
The Etiquette Czar's Rules for Patriotic Protest
by Michelle Malkin
The White House press office is now Miss Manners' office. President Obama's press secretary, Robert Gibbs, took to the television airwaves this week to criticize congressional town hall protesters for "yelling." Gibbs' underling, Bill Burton, chastised voters not to "disrupt" and "scream." Instead, he advised America to engage in a "spirited debate about health care, a real vigorous conversation about it."
What constitutes "spirited"? How do they define "vigorous"? When does forceful dissent become intolerable disruption? Herewith, the Obama Etiquette Czar's Official Rules for Patriotic Protest. Keep this guide with you at all times to avoid being flagged by the Democratic politeness monitors.
-- No shouting. Congressional representatives cannot sell Obamacare with mobs of unruly senior citizens and small-business owners interrupting to press them on specific sections of the bill. Limit your objections to a library whisper and only challenge your lawmakers with hushed, dulcet tones. Otherwise, you will scare them, and they will be forced to hide behind teleconference calls, sick children at hospitals or union bosses.
If, on the other hand, you are attending a presidential town hall to show your affection and approbation, "spirited" chanting is acceptable.
Don't: "HANDS OFF HEALTH CARE!" and "READ THE BILL!"
Do: "I LOVE YOU, BARACK!" "AMEN!" and "YES, WE CAN!"
Also permitted: Shouting at historic inaugurations to protest war (as legions of Code Pink activists did in 2005 during the president's address) and shouting, "We didn't cross the borders, the borders crossed us!" to protest immigration enforcement (as thousands of illegal alien supporters did during raucous rallies in 2006).
Do refrain from boisterous shrieking against those who accuse you of lacking patriotism -- unless you are Hillary Clinton, who bellowed at the top of her lungs in 2003:
"I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration, somehow you're not patriotic. We should stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration."
-- No laughing. Snickering at proponents of nationalized health care is rude, bordering on political terrorism. Stifle all derisive chuckling at bogus statistics and denials that Obamacare will lead to long lines and rationed care. That would be "evil-mongering," as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid put it on Thursday.
If, however, you are a member of Congress confronted with silly questions about whether you have read the bill, feel free to giggle. For tips on executing acceptable levels of cackling, take a cue from House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. "If every member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn't read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes," Hoyer told CNSNews.com while choking back laughter after a recent news conference. "I'm laughing because a) I don't know how long this bill is going to be, but it's going to be a very long bill." Tee-hee-hee.
-- No Nazi comparisons. References to fascism are ugly and un-American. Swastikas have no place in debates about nationalizing 20 percent of the economy. Swastikas may, however, still be used as substitutes for the "S" in "BusHitler" and tattoos on the forehead of Darth Cheney.
-- No boorish questions. "Real vigorous conversation" requires town hall attendees to formulate queries that will encourage true debate. This is not the time to ask why Congress won't subject itself to the health mandates it wants to foist on every other American. This is not the time to ask how the White House will pay for the massive Obamacare bureaucracy without raising taxes on the middle class. The White House endorsed model citizen questioning at its East Room health care town halls in March and July, including this:
"Hi, Mr. President. I'm a member of SEIU, and I'm down here in Fairfax County working on Change That Works. What can I do, as a member of the union, to help you with your reform bill?"
-- No mean signs. That 11-year-old daughter of a Massachusetts Obama donor and campaigner who was randomly chosen to criticize the scary posters held up by town hall protesters in New Hampshire was right. "Mean" signs are, well, mean. Never mind the placards that blared "Bush is the only dope worth shooting" in Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco and the assassination art depicting former President Bush with a gun to his head in Chicago. "Obama is a socialist" is a sign too far and cannot be tolerated in a civil society. Period.
Instead, print out the "STAND UP FOR HEALTH REFORM" signs helpfully produced by Obama's Organizing for America, and burn your "Don't Tread on Me" flags. Such rebellious sentiments are dangerous incitements to violence.
To those of you who can't abide by The Rules: Shhhhhhhhh.
The White House press office is now Miss Manners' office. President Obama's press secretary, Robert Gibbs, took to the television airwaves this week to criticize congressional town hall protesters for "yelling." Gibbs' underling, Bill Burton, chastised voters not to "disrupt" and "scream." Instead, he advised America to engage in a "spirited debate about health care, a real vigorous conversation about it."
What constitutes "spirited"? How do they define "vigorous"? When does forceful dissent become intolerable disruption? Herewith, the Obama Etiquette Czar's Official Rules for Patriotic Protest. Keep this guide with you at all times to avoid being flagged by the Democratic politeness monitors.
-- No shouting. Congressional representatives cannot sell Obamacare with mobs of unruly senior citizens and small-business owners interrupting to press them on specific sections of the bill. Limit your objections to a library whisper and only challenge your lawmakers with hushed, dulcet tones. Otherwise, you will scare them, and they will be forced to hide behind teleconference calls, sick children at hospitals or union bosses.
If, on the other hand, you are attending a presidential town hall to show your affection and approbation, "spirited" chanting is acceptable.
Don't: "HANDS OFF HEALTH CARE!" and "READ THE BILL!"
Do: "I LOVE YOU, BARACK!" "AMEN!" and "YES, WE CAN!"
Also permitted: Shouting at historic inaugurations to protest war (as legions of Code Pink activists did in 2005 during the president's address) and shouting, "We didn't cross the borders, the borders crossed us!" to protest immigration enforcement (as thousands of illegal alien supporters did during raucous rallies in 2006).
Do refrain from boisterous shrieking against those who accuse you of lacking patriotism -- unless you are Hillary Clinton, who bellowed at the top of her lungs in 2003:
"I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration, somehow you're not patriotic. We should stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration."
-- No laughing. Snickering at proponents of nationalized health care is rude, bordering on political terrorism. Stifle all derisive chuckling at bogus statistics and denials that Obamacare will lead to long lines and rationed care. That would be "evil-mongering," as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid put it on Thursday.
If, however, you are a member of Congress confronted with silly questions about whether you have read the bill, feel free to giggle. For tips on executing acceptable levels of cackling, take a cue from House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. "If every member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn't read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes," Hoyer told CNSNews.com while choking back laughter after a recent news conference. "I'm laughing because a) I don't know how long this bill is going to be, but it's going to be a very long bill." Tee-hee-hee.
-- No Nazi comparisons. References to fascism are ugly and un-American. Swastikas have no place in debates about nationalizing 20 percent of the economy. Swastikas may, however, still be used as substitutes for the "S" in "BusHitler" and tattoos on the forehead of Darth Cheney.
-- No boorish questions. "Real vigorous conversation" requires town hall attendees to formulate queries that will encourage true debate. This is not the time to ask why Congress won't subject itself to the health mandates it wants to foist on every other American. This is not the time to ask how the White House will pay for the massive Obamacare bureaucracy without raising taxes on the middle class. The White House endorsed model citizen questioning at its East Room health care town halls in March and July, including this:
"Hi, Mr. President. I'm a member of SEIU, and I'm down here in Fairfax County working on Change That Works. What can I do, as a member of the union, to help you with your reform bill?"
-- No mean signs. That 11-year-old daughter of a Massachusetts Obama donor and campaigner who was randomly chosen to criticize the scary posters held up by town hall protesters in New Hampshire was right. "Mean" signs are, well, mean. Never mind the placards that blared "Bush is the only dope worth shooting" in Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco and the assassination art depicting former President Bush with a gun to his head in Chicago. "Obama is a socialist" is a sign too far and cannot be tolerated in a civil society. Period.
Instead, print out the "STAND UP FOR HEALTH REFORM" signs helpfully produced by Obama's Organizing for America, and burn your "Don't Tread on Me" flags. Such rebellious sentiments are dangerous incitements to violence.
To those of you who can't abide by The Rules: Shhhhhhhhh.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Obama’s Tone-Deaf Health Campaign
The president shouldn’t worry about the protestors disrupting town hall meetings. He should worry about the Americans who have been sitting at home listening to him.
By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ
It didn’t take chaotic town-hall meetings, raging demonstrators and consequent brooding in various sectors of the media to bring home the truth that the campaign for a health-care bill is, to put it mildly, not going awfully well. It’s not hard now to envision the state of this crusade with just a month or two more of diligent management by the Obama team—think train wreck. It may one day be otherwise in the more perfect world of universal coverage, but for now disabilities like the tone deafness that afflicts this administration from the top down are uninsurable.
Consider former ABC reporter Linda Douglass—now the president’s communications director for health reform—who set about unmasking all the forces out there “always trying to scare people when you try to bring them health insurance reform.” People, she charged, are taking sentences out of context and otherwise working to present a misleading picture of the president’s proposals. One of her key solutions to this problem—her justly famed message encouraging citizens to contact the office at flag@whitehouse.gov if they got an email or other information about health reform “that seems fishy”—set off a riotous flow of online responses. (The word “fishy,” with its police detective tone, would have done the trick all by itself.)
These commentaries, packed with allusions to the secret police, the East German Stasi and Orwell, were mostly furious. Others quite simply hilarious. Ms. Douglass, who now has, in her public appearances, the air of a person consigned to service in a holy order, was not amused.
Neither has she seemed to entertain any second thoughts about the tenor of a message enlisting the public in a program reeking of a White House effort to set Americans against one another—the good Americans protecting the president’s health-care program from the bad Americans fighting it and undermining truth and goodness.
She intended no such outcome, doubtless. That this former journalist, now a communications director, failed to notice anything amiss in the details of that communiqué is a bit odd but not altogether surprising.
Crusades are busy endeavors, the enlistees in this one, like those in every undertaking of this White House, concerned with just one message. Which is that the Obama administration is in possession of vital answers to ills and inequities that have long afflicted American society (whether Americans know it or not), and that those opposed to those answers and that vision are cynics, or operatives of the powerful vested interests responsible for the plight Americans find themselves in (whether they know it or not), or political enemies bent on destroying the Obama administration.
It shouldn’t have been surprising, either, that the tone of much of the commentary on the town-hall protests was what it was. There was Mark Halperin for one, senior political editor for Time, bouncing off his chair, Sunday, in agitation over all the media coverage of this rowdiness—“a horrible breakdown of our political culture, our media culture” and so “bad for America,” as he told CNN’s Howard Kurtz. “I’m embarrassed about what’s going on, as an American.” The disruptions and coverage thereof distorted serious discussion, he explained. Mark Shields said much the same on Friday’s PBS NewsHour, if with less excitation, pointing out that these events were “not good for the democratic process,” and were a breakdown of civil debate.
There was no such hand-wringing over the decline of civil debate, during, say, election 2004, when cadres of organized demonstrators carrying swastika-adorned pictures of George W. Bush routinely swarmed about, and packed rallies. There was also that other “breakdown of our media culture,” that will dwarf all else as a cause for embarrassment, the town-hall coverage included, for the foreseeable future. That would be, of course, the undisguised worshipful reporting of the candidacy of Barack Obama.
That treatment, or rather its memory—like the adulation of his great mass of voters—has had its effect on this president, and not all to the good. The election over, the warming glow of those armies of supporters gone, his capacity to tolerate criticism and dissent from his policies grows thinner apace. His lectures, explaining his health-care proposals, and why they’ll be good for everybody, are clearly not going down well with his national audience.
This would have to do with the fact that the real Barack Obama—product of the academic left, social reformer with a program, is now before that audience, and what they hear in this lecture about one of the central concerns in their lives—his message freighted with generalities—they are not prepared to buy. They are not prepared to believe that our first most important concern now is health-care reform or all will go under.
The president has a problem. For, despite a great election victory, Mr. Obama, it becomes ever clearer, knows little about Americans. He knows the crowds—he is at home with those. He is a stranger to the country’s heart and character.
He seems unable to grasp what runs counter to its nature. That Americans don’t take well, for instance, to bullying, especially of the moralizing kind, implicit in those speeches on health care for everybody. Neither do they wish to be taken where they don’t know they want to go and being told it’s good for them.
Who would have believed that this politician celebrated, above all, for his eloquence and capacity to connect with voters would end up as president proving so profoundly tone deaf? A great many people is the answer—the same who listened to those speeches of his during the campaign, searching for their meaning.
It took this battle over health care to reveal the bloom coming off this rose, but that was coming. It began with the spectacle of the president, impelled to go abroad to apologize for his nation—repeatedly. It is not, in the end, the demonstrators in those town-hall meetings or the agitations of his political enemies that Mr. Obama should fear. It is the judgment of those Americans who have been sitting quietly in their homes, listening to him.
Ms. Rabinowitz is a member of the Journal’s editorial board.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Kathleen Sebelius: Don't Sweat the Details
by Cal Thomas
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wrote an op-ed column for The Washington Post on Tuesday in defense of the Obama administration's efforts to "reform" health care. She wrote: "President Obama and I are working closely with Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate and health care experts to make sure we get the details of health reform right. But we can't let the details distract us from the huge benefits that reform will bring."
So, the objective is all that matters, not the process by which we get there? The most important words on a contract may be in the small print. Secretary Sebelius tells us not to worry about such things, but trust your government leaders and anonymous "experts" and leave the rest to us. A growing number of Americans are saying "no thanks."
The details matter because they are about government deciding who gets treatment when they are sick and who does not, who lives and who dies. Are there any details more important than that? Why would anyone trust government with their health and life when there are so many things government already does poorly and inefficiently?
Sebelius and members of Congress are fanning out across the country, trying to defend a health care reform plan that is only partially written, unexplainable and still unread by many representatives and senators. In a joint appearance with Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, Sebelius responded to shouts and catcalls from a skeptical audience at the Constitution Center in heavily Democratic Philadelphia. She said Specter shouldn't be criticized because the Senate's version of the bill has not yet been written. This takes hubris to a new level. It is one thing for a member of Congress to vote on legislation he hasn't read; it is quite another for government officials to ask for support of a bill that has not been written, at least in the Senate.
The attitude of the administration and supporters of its health care plan seems to be: "Take your medicine, and if you don't like it, or question its effectiveness, you will be sent to your room as punishment because we know better than you, even though 86 percent of you are perfectly happy with the health care you have now. Who are you to question us and our 'experts'?"
The more the public learns what is in the House bill, the less they like it. That's why the administration wants to rush this through Congress. The public mostly understands the need to reform the increasingly expensive current system. It just doesn't like the administration's plan.
There are other proposals that would achieve the end of reform while preserving the high-quality treatment that is the envy of the world and simultaneously affirming deeply held American values. It is no mystery what needs to be done to reduce costs and improve health delivery services.
As Rick Scott, chairman of Conservatives for Patients' Rights, has noted, "Americans want lower health care costs, not a government-run system. And there are several reforms we can do immediately to lower costs that won't cost a dime, (such as) allowing insurers to compete across state lines, requiring doctors and hospitals to post their rates and results to allow consumers to shop around, and creating one standardized reimbursement form for all insurers." Allowing employees to choose among several insurance policies (a choice available to federal workers, including Congress) would let individuals tailor policies to their needs, instead of forcing them to accept a one-size-fits-all policy. That, too, would reduce costs.
A grassroots uprising defeated the Bush administration's ill-conceived attempts at "comprehensive immigration reform." The groundswell against nationalized health care may have a similar end. If the liberal Democratic congressional leadership forces a bill through anyway, Republicans may have the issue they have been looking for to help them take back at least the House of Representatives in the 2010 election and to stop this "risky scheme" and other "out of the mainstream" programs.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wrote an op-ed column for The Washington Post on Tuesday in defense of the Obama administration's efforts to "reform" health care. She wrote: "President Obama and I are working closely with Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate and health care experts to make sure we get the details of health reform right. But we can't let the details distract us from the huge benefits that reform will bring."
So, the objective is all that matters, not the process by which we get there? The most important words on a contract may be in the small print. Secretary Sebelius tells us not to worry about such things, but trust your government leaders and anonymous "experts" and leave the rest to us. A growing number of Americans are saying "no thanks."
The details matter because they are about government deciding who gets treatment when they are sick and who does not, who lives and who dies. Are there any details more important than that? Why would anyone trust government with their health and life when there are so many things government already does poorly and inefficiently?
Sebelius and members of Congress are fanning out across the country, trying to defend a health care reform plan that is only partially written, unexplainable and still unread by many representatives and senators. In a joint appearance with Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, Sebelius responded to shouts and catcalls from a skeptical audience at the Constitution Center in heavily Democratic Philadelphia. She said Specter shouldn't be criticized because the Senate's version of the bill has not yet been written. This takes hubris to a new level. It is one thing for a member of Congress to vote on legislation he hasn't read; it is quite another for government officials to ask for support of a bill that has not been written, at least in the Senate.
The attitude of the administration and supporters of its health care plan seems to be: "Take your medicine, and if you don't like it, or question its effectiveness, you will be sent to your room as punishment because we know better than you, even though 86 percent of you are perfectly happy with the health care you have now. Who are you to question us and our 'experts'?"
The more the public learns what is in the House bill, the less they like it. That's why the administration wants to rush this through Congress. The public mostly understands the need to reform the increasingly expensive current system. It just doesn't like the administration's plan.
There are other proposals that would achieve the end of reform while preserving the high-quality treatment that is the envy of the world and simultaneously affirming deeply held American values. It is no mystery what needs to be done to reduce costs and improve health delivery services.
As Rick Scott, chairman of Conservatives for Patients' Rights, has noted, "Americans want lower health care costs, not a government-run system. And there are several reforms we can do immediately to lower costs that won't cost a dime, (such as) allowing insurers to compete across state lines, requiring doctors and hospitals to post their rates and results to allow consumers to shop around, and creating one standardized reimbursement form for all insurers." Allowing employees to choose among several insurance policies (a choice available to federal workers, including Congress) would let individuals tailor policies to their needs, instead of forcing them to accept a one-size-fits-all policy. That, too, would reduce costs.
A grassroots uprising defeated the Bush administration's ill-conceived attempts at "comprehensive immigration reform." The groundswell against nationalized health care may have a similar end. If the liberal Democratic congressional leadership forces a bill through anyway, Republicans may have the issue they have been looking for to help them take back at least the House of Representatives in the 2010 election and to stop this "risky scheme" and other "out of the mainstream" programs.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Democrats Show Strain of Heated Battles
By NAFTALI BENDAVID and JONATHAN WEISMAN
WASHINGTON -- A bruising session marked by politically volatile legislation strained relations between congressional Democrats and the White House and spawned cracks in the party's coalition.
Since Mr. Obama's inauguration, Congress has enacted a stream of significant legislation. The gamut runs from an economic-stimulus package, children's health care, pay parity for women, tobacco regulation, consumer credit-card protections, public service and land conservation, in addition to key budget bills.
But on some marquee issues, White House officials and Democratic congressional leaders concede the schedule has slipped -- while noting that nothing major has failed. In addition, some Democrats say their colleagues misunderstand the White House role, which is to shape public discourse and resolve party disputes, not dictate policy specifics.
Many of the Democrats' internal disputes stem from growing friction between the party's conservative and liberal wings. Several years ago, then-Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D., Ill.), in an all-out push to retake Congress, aggressively recruited conservative Democratic candidates.
Now Mr. Emanuel, as White House chief of staff, finds the very lawmakers he courted slowing the more-progressive president's agenda. Some liberals complain Mr. Obama is overly protective of those newly elected Democrats and too willing to cut deals.
"The chickens are coming home to roost," said Rep. Maxine Waters, an outspoken liberal Democrat from California.
Conservatives Democrats have their own complaints. Mr. Obama and his top aides have worked diligently to show they are heeding conservatives' concerns about a health-care overhaul's costs. But the president's political operatives -- at the Democratic National Committee and the grassroots group Organizing for America -- haven't been so solicitous.
Television ads running in some moderates' districts urging support for Mr. Obama's health initiative left them feeling bullied and betrayed. "Those ads really created problems," one House leadership aide said.
Other Democrats complain that by not providing enough clarity on where the health-care overhaul is headed, the White House has left them exposed politically as they face constituents' scrutiny -- and rivals' attacks -- during the August recess.
"Specificity is what is needed," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein. "What's most helpful now is: 'This will reduce costs, and here is precisely how.' " Asked if the White House had provided this specificity, the California Democrat said, "No."
Republicans are seizing on the tensions to bolster their criticism of the Democratic agenda. "Many within the president's own party are now standing up and telling the administration to slow down and reassess," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said this week.
Similar unhappiness surrounds the president's energy initiative, which was meant to reduce carbon emissions in the hope of slowing global warming. Mr. Obama chose not to spend political capital stumping for the House measure, while Republicans have been savaging moderate Democrats for supporting what they call a "cap-and-tax" bill.
Some argue that Mr. Obama's relations with his party are good, by historical standards. Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton alienated fellow Democrats almost immediately with their perceived disdain for Congress.
Mr. Obama, a former U.S. senator, has been solicitous of lawmakers and put Capitol Hill veterans in key positions, from Mr. Emanuel to Budget Director Peter Orszag, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office.
When Mr. Obama took office in January, Democratic leaders set high expectations that they would accomplish almost as much as the New Deal Democrats of the 1930s.
Then, in May, Mr. Obama demanded that Congress provide money to close the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but declined to specify what would happen to its inmates. Afraid of being accused of releasing terrorists into their districts, Democrats rebelled and refused to allocate the funds.
One unexpected problem was a breakdown in the White House's legislative game plan. The Senate was supposed to move before the House on health care, officials say, giving skittish House members assurance before they moved forward on the difficult issue.
Instead, the House kept its end of the bargain, pushing through a climate bill only to find the Senate stuck on health care and doing nothing on energy.
On health care, "I just think that they are giving out a very poor message," said Sen. Bernie Sanders, a liberal Vermont independent who caucuses with the Democrats. "At the end of the day, if they think everyone will be so excited because they passed something, I think that is wrong both from a public-policy and a political perspective."
Minnesota Rep. James Oberstar and other Democrats, meanwhile, have sharply criticized an administration move to postpone a roughly $500 billion transportation bill.
Looking ahead to the fall session, dissatisfaction is growing as campaign promises give way to the nitty-gritty of legislating. "Our fear, or concern, is that the legislative branch not become a cheerleader for the executive branch," said Democratic Rep. John Tanner of Tennessee.
Write to Naftali Bendavid at naftali.bendavid@wsj.com and Jonathan Weisman at jonathan.weisman@wsj.com
WASHINGTON -- A bruising session marked by politically volatile legislation strained relations between congressional Democrats and the White House and spawned cracks in the party's coalition.
Since Mr. Obama's inauguration, Congress has enacted a stream of significant legislation. The gamut runs from an economic-stimulus package, children's health care, pay parity for women, tobacco regulation, consumer credit-card protections, public service and land conservation, in addition to key budget bills.
But on some marquee issues, White House officials and Democratic congressional leaders concede the schedule has slipped -- while noting that nothing major has failed. In addition, some Democrats say their colleagues misunderstand the White House role, which is to shape public discourse and resolve party disputes, not dictate policy specifics.
Many of the Democrats' internal disputes stem from growing friction between the party's conservative and liberal wings. Several years ago, then-Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D., Ill.), in an all-out push to retake Congress, aggressively recruited conservative Democratic candidates.
Now Mr. Emanuel, as White House chief of staff, finds the very lawmakers he courted slowing the more-progressive president's agenda. Some liberals complain Mr. Obama is overly protective of those newly elected Democrats and too willing to cut deals.
"The chickens are coming home to roost," said Rep. Maxine Waters, an outspoken liberal Democrat from California.
Conservatives Democrats have their own complaints. Mr. Obama and his top aides have worked diligently to show they are heeding conservatives' concerns about a health-care overhaul's costs. But the president's political operatives -- at the Democratic National Committee and the grassroots group Organizing for America -- haven't been so solicitous.
Television ads running in some moderates' districts urging support for Mr. Obama's health initiative left them feeling bullied and betrayed. "Those ads really created problems," one House leadership aide said.
Other Democrats complain that by not providing enough clarity on where the health-care overhaul is headed, the White House has left them exposed politically as they face constituents' scrutiny -- and rivals' attacks -- during the August recess.
"Specificity is what is needed," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein. "What's most helpful now is: 'This will reduce costs, and here is precisely how.' " Asked if the White House had provided this specificity, the California Democrat said, "No."
Republicans are seizing on the tensions to bolster their criticism of the Democratic agenda. "Many within the president's own party are now standing up and telling the administration to slow down and reassess," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said this week.
Similar unhappiness surrounds the president's energy initiative, which was meant to reduce carbon emissions in the hope of slowing global warming. Mr. Obama chose not to spend political capital stumping for the House measure, while Republicans have been savaging moderate Democrats for supporting what they call a "cap-and-tax" bill.
Some argue that Mr. Obama's relations with his party are good, by historical standards. Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton alienated fellow Democrats almost immediately with their perceived disdain for Congress.
Mr. Obama, a former U.S. senator, has been solicitous of lawmakers and put Capitol Hill veterans in key positions, from Mr. Emanuel to Budget Director Peter Orszag, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office.
When Mr. Obama took office in January, Democratic leaders set high expectations that they would accomplish almost as much as the New Deal Democrats of the 1930s.
Then, in May, Mr. Obama demanded that Congress provide money to close the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but declined to specify what would happen to its inmates. Afraid of being accused of releasing terrorists into their districts, Democrats rebelled and refused to allocate the funds.
One unexpected problem was a breakdown in the White House's legislative game plan. The Senate was supposed to move before the House on health care, officials say, giving skittish House members assurance before they moved forward on the difficult issue.
Instead, the House kept its end of the bargain, pushing through a climate bill only to find the Senate stuck on health care and doing nothing on energy.
On health care, "I just think that they are giving out a very poor message," said Sen. Bernie Sanders, a liberal Vermont independent who caucuses with the Democrats. "At the end of the day, if they think everyone will be so excited because they passed something, I think that is wrong both from a public-policy and a political perspective."
Minnesota Rep. James Oberstar and other Democrats, meanwhile, have sharply criticized an administration move to postpone a roughly $500 billion transportation bill.
Looking ahead to the fall session, dissatisfaction is growing as campaign promises give way to the nitty-gritty of legislating. "Our fear, or concern, is that the legislative branch not become a cheerleader for the executive branch," said Democratic Rep. John Tanner of Tennessee.
Write to Naftali Bendavid at naftali.bendavid@wsj.com and Jonathan Weisman at jonathan.weisman@wsj.com
Friday, July 31, 2009
Citizens in St. Louis show strong opposition to health care bill
VIDEONETDAILY
'Tea Party breaks out' at town hall meeting
--YouTube.com
'Tea Party breaks out' at town hall meeting
--YouTube.com
'Health care bill splitting up even liberal Dems'
AUDIONETDAILY
WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Texan congressman: Lawmakers in chaos
WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Texan congressman: Lawmakers in chaos
Obamacare called 'euthanasia bill'
DOCTOR'S ORDERS
Critic: 'Reflects regime worse than China's one-child policy'
By Bob Unruh © 2009 WorldNetDaily
 President Obama |
The Democrats' proposed national health insurance plan would dictate medications, treatments and mental health services; determine coverages individuals are allowed to have; and operate with real-time access to personal bank accounts, according to a new analysis.
And it's worse, a critic said, than China's mandatory one-child policy.
"In the same way that the bill pushes elderly or the sick toward euthanasia, it is a pill that would cause economic suicide," said Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel. "It's a euthanasia bill for America."
Congress members have admitted they have not read the more-than-1,000-page bill, and Staver's organization is one of the first to go through it and offer an analysis.
In the Liberty Counsel analysis, Staver notes that under Section 163, the government would be allowed to have real-time access to individuals' finances, including direct access to bank accounts for electronic funds transfers.
Under Section 1308, the analysis finds, the government will dictate marriage and family therapy as well as mental health services, including the definitions of those treatments.
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