A few months ago, a Republican U.S. Senator told me
that he pleaded with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to
pressure the HELP Committee Democrats to let the Republicans
negotiate and help shape the bill, since the Democrats were not
listening or including the Republicans in any discussions. Senator
Kennedy's staff told the Republican Senator to take a hike. No
one told Senator Kennedy's staff otherwise. (Senator Dodd was
torn between helping his dying friend and letting Kennedy's
legendary staff be his legendary staff.)
On the House side, Chairman Waxman gave the Blue
Dogs on his own Committee, and Blue Dogs outside the Committee the
closed mouth, no information treatment. Forget about influencing
the bill, he did not tell them what was in it until it was too
late. The Blue Dogs told Chairman Waxman what they wanted, he just
ignored them.
All the while President Obama was publicly
'reaching out' to Republicans - while his Leadership
colleagues in Congress ignored Republicans, and ignored Democrats
in their own party.
Thus was born ObamaCare, of a strategy to allow the
far left (Speaker Pelosi and Chairman Waxman) to design the plan
and ignore those who disagreed, while publicly and repeatedly the
President said he wanted to work with Republicans.
In doing so, President Obama has managed to inflame
the passions of every elected official - the Republicans who were
left out, the center which was left out, and the liberals whose
hopes were raised about having a public option, and now can't
understand why they have to compromise when the Dems control the
White House, the House and the Senate.
The only Democratic Senator attempting to include
the Republicans was Senator Baucus, who was pillared within his
caucus and by the White House for taking the time to negotiate. All
the while the liberals' bill advanced into ever intensifying
and withering fire.
Meanwhile, the public detecting the left wrote the
bill lost faith and began to look at the bill, and the more they
looked the less they liked. The net result is that the American
public are polling at 52% for Congress to do nothing on health
care. 55% want Congress to work on the economy. (Can you
imagine?)
Lost faith is probably putting a happy face on what
the public is feeling.
Plain and simple: the public has been repeatedly
told the most outrageous and unbelievable things (as in they do
not believe them when they hear them):
1. Cutting $500 billion from Medicare will not hurt
care or cut benefits for seniors.
2. Spending $1 Trillion will save money.
3. Spending $1 Trillion will not increase the deficit.
4. If you like your plan you can keep it, except in five years
every insurance plan design for everyone will be dictated by the
federal government design requirements.
5. You can buy any insurance plan from any insurer you want. But
you can only buy the government designed, government approved plans
- its like saying you can buy the same house from any builder, but
the builders all have the same set of plans and can only sell that
house.
6. This is not a government take-over of the health care
sector.
7. There will not be any rationing.
8. Campaign promises made explicitly by the President that he would
not cut any deals with 'the drug companies' only to do
exactly that in return for Phrma spending million in ads to prop up
the sagging ObamaCare this summer.
9. Abortion is not a covered benefit (despite the fact that the
Democratic House pro-life leaders say it covers abortion, and more
than 20 Democrats have told their leadership in writing that they
will not vote for any bill that covers
abortion.)
10. Seniors will not be steered in the direction of dying to save
money - but most of the public knows that the most expense in
health care is in the last six months of life - making seniors
think Obama's promises sound hollow. Seniors, it turns out, do
not want the government to make the decision about when that last
six months starts.
11. The President is against a single payer system and ending
employer provided health care. All those videos of the President
saying that he is for a single payer system and for ending employer
provided health care, well, they are 'misleading.'
12. Except that your employer may decide to put you in a government
designed plan, so your employers will be taxed less than it costs
to give you your insurance. Your employer will save money by
putting you in the government-run Health Information Exchange - and
you can never leave!
13. This bill's purpose is insure the uninsured and do
'insurance reform.'
14. President Obama promised no mandate in his health plan, but it
has an individual mandate and an employer mandate.
15. If you don't buy health insurance and you earn more than
$19,000, you will be taxed 2.5 percent of your total income. The no
tax increase pledge for families earning $250,000 or less does not
apply, of course, to ObamaCare.
When President Obama keeps making promises and
statements that cannot be true, you wonder, what does the President
think of the public, that they will believe anything he says? Or
(even more dangerous) does he really believe what he is saying?
