AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

Have you noticed something rather odd about Obama's seizure of America's health care system? This odd little fact has been hiding, as they say, in plain sight. The only people who are really pushing this government takeover of health care are "activists" or politicians. There is absolutely no public pressure to get this done. -- Neal Boortz
http://boortz.com/nealz_nuze/2009/07/continuing-our-countdown-to-fa.html

50% Oppose Government Health Insurance Company

Just 35% of U.S. voters now support the creation of a government health insurance company to compete with private health insurers.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 50% of voters oppose setting up a government health insurance company as President Obama and congressional Democrats are now proposing in their health care reform plan. Fifteen percent (15%) are undecided.

In mid-June, 41% of American adults thought setting up a government health insurance company to compete with private health insurance companies was a good idea, but the identical number (41%) disagreed.

Cost, Not Universal Coverage, is Top Health Care Concern for Voters
Saturday, July 18, 2009 Email to a Friend ShareThisAdvertisement
Sixty-one percent (61%) of voters nationwide say that cost is the biggest health care problem facing the nation today. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 21% believe the lack of universal health insurance coverage is a bigger problem.

Only 10% believe the quality of care is the top concern, and two percent (2%) point to the inconvenience factor of dealing with the current medical system.

Given a choice between health care reform and a tax hike or no health care reform and no tax hike, 47% would prefer to avoid the tax hike and do without reform. Forty-one percent (41%) take the opposite view.

The opposition is stronger when asked about a choice between health care reform that would require changing existing health insurance coverage or no health care reform and no change from current coverage. In that case, voters oppose reform by a 54% to 32% margin.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/healthcare/july_2009/cost_not_universal_coverage_is_top_health_care_concern_for_voters

Thursday, July 16, 2009 Email to a Friend ShareThisAdvertisement
Seventy-eight percent (78%) of U.S. voters say it is at least somewhat likely that taxes will be raised on the middle class to cover the cost of health care reform. Fifty-six percent (56%) say it’s very likely.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 15% of voters think it’s unlikely that the cost of health care reform will require raising taxes on the middle class.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/healthcare/july_2009/78_say_health_care_reform_likely_to_mean_higher_taxes_for_the_middle_class

And yet most of his disciples continue to defend it.

Why?

It is being written by lobbyists and staffers. It will be well over 1000 pages, full of vague rules, regulations, requirements that will be nailed down by bureaucrats and lawyers later, nobody will have a clue of its actual costs or effects on the total economy, nobody knows what the overall effect on health care will be,...

During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama said several times that he intended to negotiate health care reform publicly. In fact, he said, he'd televise the negotiations on C-SPAN, with all the parties sitting at a big table. That way, Americans would be more engaged in the process and insist on real change.

"That's what I will do in bringing all parties together, not negotiating behind closed doors, but bringing all parties together, and broadcasting those negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are, because part of what we have to do is enlist the American people in this process," Obama said at a debate in Los Angeles on Jan. 31, 2008.

The special interests and lobbyists, he said, "will resist anything that we try to do. ... And the antidote to that is making sure that the American people understand what is at stake."

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told the McClatchy reporters that Obama "has demonstrated more transparency than any president," but that "I don't think the president intimated that every decision putting together a health care bill would be on public TV."

Maybe not every decision, but he made it clear that he wanted negotiations, especially with those representing the for-profit health care industry, to take place in the open. We were able to find four additional instances where he made the same promise during public appearances in 2007 and 2008. And in one case, he said he'd do it in his first 100 days.

"People say, 'Well, you have this great health care plan, but how are you going to pass it? You know, it failed in '93,'" Obama said on Aug. 21, 2008, at a town hall in Chester, Va. "And what I've said is, I'm going to have all the negotiations around a big table. We'll have doctors and nurses and hospital administrators. Insurance companies, drug companies " they'll get a seat at the table, they just won't be able to buy every chair. But what we will do is, we'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies. And so, that approach, I think is what is going to allow people to stay involved in this process."

Obama promised " repeatedly " an end to closed-door negotiations and complete openness for the health care talks. But he hasn't delivered. Instead of open talks of C-SPAN, we've gotten more of the same " talks behind closed doors at the White House and Congress. We might revisit this promise if there's a dramatic change, but we see nothing to indicate anything has changed. We rate this Promise Broken.

http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/unabridged?va=impost&x=26&y=6
Main Entry: 1im·post
...
Function: noun
...
1 : something imposed or levied : TAX, TRIBUTE, DUTY
...


http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/unabridged?va=income+tax&x=25&y=10
Main Entry: income tax
...
Function: noun
1 : a tax on the net income of an individual or business concern (as a corporation)
2 a : a tax on gross income often levied as a payroll tax by a city b : a tax on gross operating revenue (as of a public utility)


http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/unabridged?va=uniform&x=24&y=10
Main Entry: 1uni·form
...
Function: adjective
...
1 : marked by lack of variation, diversity, change in form, manner, worth, or degree : showing a single form, degree, or character in all occurrences or manifestations
...

"The data presented in this report indicate that many young persons in the United States engage in sexual risk behaviour and experience negative reproductive health outcomes." That is the very clinical and polite way a new Centre for Disease Control and Prevention report introduces its finding that rates of teen pregnancy and STDs are, after more than a decade of decline, once again on the rise.

This news is, of course, not really news at all. When former president George Bush was still pushing for more funding for abstinence-only sex education programmes in November 2007, it was immediately after a study by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy found that comprehensive sex ed programmes " which included contraception information as an integral feature " were most effective at preventing teen pregnancy.

Until it is too late.

What makes it true is that it is true. I'm pretty sure that if we went back a few years, you could find plenty of evidence on A2K. What you can't find on A2K is ANY case of me defending that prescription bill.

Obama to lobby Energy and Commerce Dems
By Molly K. Hooper
Posted: 07/21/09 11:23 AM [ET]
Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce panel are headed to the White House, not their committee room, on Tuesday.

Instead of continuing their markup, Energy and Commerce Democrats will be lobbied by President Obama at the White House. Tuesday’s continuing markup was canceled, but the panel is scheduled to meet again on Wednesday.

The delays and intense effort by the White House cast more doubt on whether the House will meet its deadline of voting on the landmark bill before the August recess.

Conservative Democrats on the panel have criticized the healthcare reform bill’s costs, and complained it does not do enough to reduce long-term healthcare spending. Freshman Democrats have also been worried about growing fiscal deficits and the risk the healthcare bill could add to them, while members from wealthy districts are upset about a surcharge on the wealthy that would be used to pay for some of the bill’s costs.

The White House meeting is scheduled at 12:45 on Tuesday.

Obama is continuing his press on healthcare reform with comments in the Rose Garden scheduled for the noon hour. Obama is also scheduled to meet at the White House with several Democratic chairmen in the House and Senate.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) said he would attend the meeting, and Democratic sources also said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.) would attend. Dodd has been shepherding legislation through the Senate Health panel in the absence of ailing Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.).

The Ways and Means and Education and Labor committees approved portions of the healthcare reform bill last week.

In the Senate, Dodd’s committee has approved legislation, but Baucus’s committee has been unable to produce a bill.

Republicans have gone on the attack, sensing the bill is in trouble. They’ve pressed Obama to abandon his August deadline for House action.

Rangel said Obama had called the chairman’s meeting “to show that he’s in charge.” House and Senate Democratic leaders and relevant committee heads met with the president last week as well.
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/obama-to-lobby-energy-and-commerce-dems-2009-07-21.html

Foxfyre wrote:

What makes it true is that it is true. I'm pretty sure that if we went back a few years, you could find plenty of evidence on A2K. What you can't find on A2K is ANY case of me defending that prescription bill.

You've had plenty of opportunities to find those posts where you actually criticized any Bush program or position during Bush's term in office. You couldn't, largely because those posts don't exist. And when you respond to this, you still won't include a link to any post where you criticized Bush's Medicare prescription drug benefit plan during Bush's administration.

How about this...
Lets hold the debates and hearings about health care on national television, like Obama promised.

That way, we would all know what is in the bill and would be able to comment without speculating.

Anybody, on either side, that even attempts to say that they know what is in the bill or what is being discussed is speculating without facts.
So, lets get all the facts and have a televised discussion about it.