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Political Hay
Bill of Health?
Behind the Democrats' push for unassisted political suicide.
To understand the Democrats in Washington right now you only need to know one old joke, the one about the Polish immigrant to America. After he had been here for a while, a friend asked, "So, are you polishing up your English?"
"No," he replied. "I'm englishing up my Polish."
It has become a rite of right writers to question the sanity of the headlong drive of Democrats to pass a health-care bill unlikely to help them or the citizenry. The legislation is deeply unpopular and will alienate independent voters. It will almost certainly cost trillions more than projected with disastrous ramifications for budgets. It will almost certainly lower the standard of medical practice in this country. It will almost certainly devastate successful swaths of American industry, in the fields of medicine, pharmaceuticals and insurance.
Nor will it advance Democrat fortunes. This thing will kick off a new series of taxes: outgoes on incomes, requisites on perquisites, iniquities on equities, even premiums on health insurance itself. The supposedly beneficent provisions will not kick in until 2013, giving folks three years of abrasion without persuasion. Throw in a half-trillion in Medicare cuts to undermine the elderly -- a constituency Democrats have mainly courted by promising to protect Medicare -- and you have a superfecta of stupefaction. Why, oh, why?
Theories are being bruited. Some think the Dems believe at heart that people will embrace them for their munificence, like the girlfriend who says, "Oh, honey, you shouldn't have." This approach holds the delay in implementation will help, leaving the lure of the promise to tantalize voters in 2010 and 2012.
Others argue that Obama pushed it and Congressional Democrats got pulled in (a pushmi-pullyu leading to Doctor Do-Little?), both now trapped with no path for retreat. The most positive posit that the Dems are true believers, if misguided, with a selfless vision of delivering deliverance to the suffering masses.
The actual diagnosis, I fear, is more prosaic, picayune, pedestrian, plebeian, petty and a host of similar words all requiring a sample of p. The Democrats are fighting for health-care reform because it is a shibboleth. To be a Democrat these last seventy years has meant to champion socialized medicine. It probably began from someone's sense of morality or of utility, but it has long since devolved into a piece of standardized jargon in the leftist lexicon.
If you have ever attended a Democrat social event, whether in 1949 or 1979 or 2009, you have heard countless murmured conversations over cocktails about how to "get health care." You will hear what passes as wisdom, mostly conventional, to explain why Roosevelt didn't succeed much, why Truman tried harder, why Johnson accomplished more, why Clinton fell short. The substance of this blather is much less instructive than the fact of its existence. It shows the premise has become settled in the Democrat mind, or at least in its conversation, that "health care" is good, that it is a good Democrats live to advance, and that it is an inevitable good which will crown some Democrat President with eternal glory.
Once an idea is the object of such iconolatry, reality is far too flimsy a cudgel for its battery. The various actuaries from CBO and other alphabet agencies may project ever higher costs, think tanks may outline in detail how medicine will be hindered not helped, statisticians may even stipulate an increase in untimely death from enacting such a law; none of this will sway. The die has been cast, no matter how many will be cast away or die. Health care must be "gotten."
This is why Obama and friends are englishing up their Polish. They are figuring out ways to tell us, ordinary people, non-members of the club, the uninitiated, that their holy grail must be good even in our terms. They promise better care at lower cost; they promise so much benefit that the rest of the economy will be cured; whatever they think might motivate us to climb aboard. The clear echo of every statement they make is that no new thought has been invested beyond putting enough lipstick on the pig to sell it in the poke.
The chances of avoiding this locomotive with the loco motive seem slender indeed. The purveyors of this nostrum have both the rostrum and the roster. Our only hope is if something gets lost in the translation.
About the Author
Jay D. Homnick, commentator and humorist, is a frequent contributor to The American Spectator. He also writes for Human Events. Here he performs his original composition, "Buy You (Bayou) a Drink".
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Bill| 11.30.09 @ 8:08AM
I have one question for all the proponents of this government-imposed health care. Will Jay Rockefeller, Barbara Boxer, Diane Fienstien, Schumer, Clinton and all the rest of the lefties in the government have to live under the same system as the general public? I think not. When Senator Reid contracts a long-term decease, will he get the best doctors and the finest technology to cure him? Or will the Health Care in Chief say, “sorry Senator, you are too old and the care for this procedure is too costly.” Again, I think not. The new system is only for the idiots who voted them into office.
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Matt morehouse| 11.30.09 @ 10:22AM
...and, unfortunately, for the rest of us.
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Dixie Pixie| 11.30.09 @ 12:16PM
DEATH TO PINGBACK
and his repetitive excerpts too.
Lazy Jack| 11.30.09 @ 1:00PM
An excerpt from a recent blog:
Abraham Lincoln called it a lullaby during his campaign against Douglas. What he meant was the political promises contrived to make people feel comfortable enough that they would sleep through the important debates (then it was slavery) and allow the back room deals to be made. In this case the democrats are allowing the lullaby to lure them into voting for healthcare legislation that will indenture every man, woman and child in this country with little or no demonstrable return to the people.
The democrats have allowed themselves to be convinced that they must pass this legislation now or be caught on the wrong side of history. What they really fear is depth-charging a President and a white house chief of staff who painted them all into a corner on healthcare legislation. What they really are doing is CYA for Pennsylvania Avenue and pretending they are doing great things. Yes, pretending, as in fiction.
Jay is also very correct. The healthcare reform offered today is more empty of meaning that at any time since Roosevelt. It is empty of meaning because the vast majority of those arguing for it do not understand how it operates today, nor do they understand the distortion already created by the $1 trillion per year the government already spends on it in this country.
But, we will get it regardless of the facts, so why lose any more sleep over it.
For More:
http://thanksforthelaughs.word.....9/lullaby/
http://thanksforthelaughs.word.....dchildren/
Lazy jack
Retired Veteran| 11.30.09 @ 1:54PM
While I don't much care for the author's style, I can't argue with the point of the article...
Here's another take on the reason for the lemming hearted dash of the Democrats into the sea of ObamaCare; it's the inevitable slide down the slippery slope into socialism once the Gov't controls 52% of our economy:
http://www.americanthinker.com.....are_1.html
Retired Veteran| 11.30.09 @ 2:00PM
And here's another article which lends credence to the premise that once ObamaCare is passed, we have become a socialist nation:
http://www.americanthinker.com.....calls.html
Marc Jeric| 11.30.09 @ 2:54PM
I read the section 2006 of that health care reform bill monstrosity; it gives $300 million to Louisiana Senator Landrieu fot her vote. The section has some 45 references to other sections of existing laws and is part of the Social Security Act. It is full of obscure legalese terms that will require hundreds of additional bureaucrats and government lawyers - all unionized of course with lifetime guarantees of employment and benefits. It is an abomination that, if found in a horror novel, would be beyond belief. If you think I am exagerating - please read it! And what has that hurricane relief bribe got to do with the bankrupt Social Security?
Nyfarmer| 11.30.09 @ 2:59PM
The coruptocrats are listening to the orchestra on the Titanic without realizing that the ship is mortally wounded! ANY discussion about 'national' health payouts is no longer relevant. Default or inflation will deem the national government irrelevant!
Oldefarte| 11.30.09 @ 3:24PM
The ANSWER as to WHY Democrats have done/are doing/will do WELFARE oriented legislation such as this healthcare bill is relatively simple to understand. It is QUID-PRO-QUO politics; and Democrats want to provide any/all forms of WELFARE to the indigent public in return for their VOTES. This is NOT about IMPROVING medical services to the American public-----it's about providing same to those who CANNOT/WILL NOT purchase same for themselves. Instead of Democrats [ie bellding-heart liberals] using THEIR OWN wallets/funds/assets,etc to provide WELFARE to these indigents, they want to use the American taxpayers' hard earned income [government receipts/money] for same instead. It's the historical ROBIN HOOD SYNDROME of taking from the [so-called, but not] RICH to give to the [true] POOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Richard Baker| 11.30.09 @ 7:42PM
The spectre of Death is the Liberal mask. These folks seem enamored of increasing the number of deaths of their fellow man. Strange Death-style/mentality.
Margie| 11.30.09 @ 9:10PM
...and they called Dick Cheney Darth Vader!
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The Democrats are fighting for health-care reform because it is a shibboleth. To be a Democrat these last seventy years has meant to champion socialized medicine.