The gall of President Obama: He has played hide the ball on health care rationing, the funding of abortion under the public plan, and pretended that cutting fat and efficiencies can pay for the more than $1 trillion price tag for the the bill. He has claimed to support conscience clauses as he guts the Bush conscience clause. He assures blithely that Medicare will not be hurt—as he cuts $500 billion from it. He has arrogantly called legitimate democratic debate, “bickering.” He has blatantly misled the public by promising that people can keep their “current” plan, when the government will induce plans to change, and once any change happens, the government dictated policies would have to kick in. He ludicrously fantasizes that he can add 30 million people to insurance coverage, not cut benefits, not raise taxes on 95% of the American people, and keep health insurance affordable—laughable drivel. And then, when the Democratic Left says “Pass a public option or no plan,” he accuses Obamacare opponents of being stubborn! What folly. And there’s more. From the story about his speech today:
“I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it’s better politics to kill this plan than improve it,” Obama told 13,000 people gathered to rally around his health-care proposals at Minneapolis’s Target Center. “If you misrepresent what’s in the plan, we will call you out.”
Mr. President, look in the mirror about misrepresentation! You’re that tactic’s commander in chief.
The one thing the opponents have been desperately trying to do is improve this 1000-page mess—that will lead to 100,000 pages of health care regulations, strangle competition, stifle innovative approaches to expanding access and reducing prices, and cast a bureaucratic pall over medicine. There are plenty of things that could and should be done, and those ideas have been presented. But the president won’t listen because those approaches wouldn’t increase the government’s control over our lives.
