Doctor’s Orders

The like it or lump it Healthcare Summit

Barack Obama became America’s 44th president by managing to fool enough of the people for just enough time. Throughout Mr Obama’s first year in office, fewer and fewer of the American people remained fooled as the campaign charade of ideal young moderate fell by the wayside. By January 2010 no one was fooled, but a lot of voters who placed their “hope” in candidate Obama found themselves feeling just plain foolish.

President Barack Obama, however, couldn’t care less. And nowhere is this more evident than in the president’s attempt to resuscitate Obamacare and unleash it’s evils upon America.

Thursday’s Healthcare Summit was nothing more than a half hearted attempt to pull the wool back down over the eyes of an angry electorate, or at least intimidate republicans into putting their fingerprints on legislation designed to give government control over the cost and quality of, and inevitably access to, medical care in America.

Both objectives flopped miserably. Presidential problem number one was that, as stated, there is no more pulling the wool over the eyes of the American people. Mr Obama announced his healthcare bill reincarnation on Monday. By summit time on Thursday, the latest Gallup poll showed the highest disapproval numbers on “healthcare reform” to date.

Problem number 2 was that the republican party managed to pull off their finest day in years.

But when all was said and done, none of that really mattered. Barack Obama made it clear that he’s the doctor and America might as well get used to it.

Recycled malpractice
The plan announced Monday, the first with the Obama name attached to it, was nothing more than last year’s Senate bill, with a few liberal touches from the House bill added to try and appease the House Progressive Caucus. This left the president on the defensive from the get go, with the republican contingent simply exposing all three democratic proposals for exactly what they are. Thousands of pages of ambiguous legislation, drafted in secrecy, designed to lead the country down the road to socialized medicine.

On the democratic side, the game plan was to tie up as much time possible demagoguing the evils of the insurance industry. The republicans could have easily topped each insurance company sob story with 20 from countries living under the yoke of government controlled healthcare. Instead they wisely stuck to detailing, non-stop, the sad news for America if “healthcare reform” is rammed through congress via reconciliation.

For his part, Mr Obama accumulated the most speaking time and repeatedly cut off republicans who were embarrassing him with the details of his plan. “My hope would be we could just focus on the issues and how we could get a bill done.” As if specifics were somehow peripheral to passing major legislation.

Nothing to say “yes” to
As for hoping to corner the republicans into supporting some portion of his fiasco out of fear of being labeled “the party of no”, the republicans didn’t blink an eye. No need to. The American people have been screaming “NO” to Obamacare, in any way, shape or form for almost a year.

And on what aspects of the President’s proposed legislation does he think the American people want to see republicans compromise? On the four years of increased taxation before anything even resembling “benefits” kick in? On the punitive taxes the president wants implemented on existing healthcare plans- except for the unions who supported his candidacy? The insurance mandates? Healthcare rationing for seniors, which Harry Reid has euphemistically labeled “Medicare Advisory Panels”?

The republicans weren’t falling for it and several had shinning moments. Republican Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin may have hit the high note when he directly addressed President Obama on the president’s double talk on the true costs involved in his plan:

“This is a Ponzi scheme that would make Bernie Madoff proud. When you take a look at the Medicare cuts, what this bill essentially does, is it treats Medicare like a piggy bank. It raids a half a trillion dollars out of Medicare not to shore up Medicare solvency but to spend on this new government program. When you strip out the double counting and what I would call these “gimmicks,” the full ten-year cost of this bill has a $460 billion deficit. The second ten-year cost of this bill has a $1.4 trillion deficit. Hiding spending does not reduce spending, and so when you take a look at all this it just doesn’t add up.

We don’t think the government should be in control of all of this; we want people to be in control… The American people are engaged. And if you think they want a government takeover of health care, I would respectfully submit you’re not listening to them.”

What’s a poor president to do when people just won’t go ahead and “get a bill done”?

Learning from the bad medicine of others
Doctor Obama prescribed socialized medicine for the America people on the day he assumed office. And he’ tired of mollycoddling the argumentative patient. Obamacare is going down our throats, like it or lump it. The rewards are too great for those in power.

Unfortunately for America, government controlled healthcare has failed miserably in every country in which it has been implemented.

Poignantly underscoring this point, Danny Williams, the Premier of the Canadian Province Of Newfoundland, recently flew to the US for heart surgery rather than obtain the surgery through Canada’s public healthcare system.

Not surprising and hardly a rare occurrence. America offers the finest medical care in the world. Whenever faced with life threatening illness or injury kings, prime ministers, dictators and celebrities from countrys under any type of national healthcare system head for the good old USA. And kiss the ground before flying home, grateful to still be alive.

Premier Williams had initially claimed that the mitral valve surgery he needed was not available in Canada. That was quickly reputed by Dr Arvind Koshal, director of cardiac surgery at the Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute in Edmonton, who told reporters “… don’t tell us the operation cannot be done here. It can be done”.

The decision, then, was made by Premier Danny Williams for the simplest of reasons. “This is my heart, it’s my health, it’s my choice.”

Exactly