First, I would like to say I am proud of the way the Republican attendees to the alleged “Health Care Summit” conducted themselves. They were prepared and serious minded about this, unlike the moderator. While it was clear the Republican participants were talking to the president/moderator/emcee, it was equally clear that the president was talking to the cameras.
Even Rush Limbaugh, at the risk of his 98.5% accuracy rating, made the admission that he was wrong in saying the GOP should not have attended the “summit.” Also, here is Rush’s full transcript on Health Care Summit Backfires Big Time on Obama and the Democrats.
Here are a few other comments on the gab fest:
“I think it was a draw, which was a Republican win,” said Democratic political consultant Dan Gerstein. “The Republican tone was just right: a respectful, substantive disagreement, very disciplined and consistent in their message.”
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“He didn’t create the predicate for passing this through reconciliation,” said a senior Senate GOP staffer.
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If you managed to stay awake through yesterday’s health-care summit, you saw a Republican victory.(Jonah Goldberg)
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If the White House hoped to portray the Republicans as a bunch of know-nothings with no ideas, it misfired.(Kirsten Powers)
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A Democratic official said the six-hour summit was expected to “give a face to gridlock, in the form of House and Senate Republicans.”(Mike Allen)
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Boy, that didn’t work.(Peggy Noonan)
While the president wouldn’t make a commitment to scrapping the current plans, and Sen. Reid vehemently(while lying) stated that he would not attempt reconciliation, it was clear with the president’s closing statement that reconciliation was their intention all along. What wasn’t mentioned, and is a troubling reality to the majority party is, they don’t currently have the votes in the House to pass the Senate bill, rendering reconciliation mute.
What follows is an excellent focus group of eleven Obama voters and thirteen McCain voters, with a microcosm of how Americans view what happened at the kabuki.
It is more clear than ever, this administration and its fellow leftist ideologues in Congress, are not listening to Americans. It is also clear it is selective hearing loss, which can be easily remedied in the 2010 midterm elections.
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Not quite as many sub-par intellects as usual, but absolutely no one on any forum seems to grasp the basic issues here. Health care is neither a right nor a privilege any more than food or shelter or clothing (so sorry FDR, but your infamous “four freedoms” are NOT government’s responsibility). It’s a business transaction between the customer/client and the service provider, who has put in the time and money to gain the expertise the patient lacks and wishes to purchase. This transaction has been distorted through intervention of all sorts – artificial limits on space in medical school, Medicare and Medicaid, subsidized insurance, and the continual degradation of any sense of personal responsibility for ANYTHING (particularly one’s own health – but this also accounts for many medical providers’ greed and arrogance) in this country. God guarantees you NOTHING you don’t work for (other than His grace, and that’s a whole different issue!) and everyone in America has his hand out in some way or another. I don’t want “bipartisanship” and I don’t want anyone to “fight” for me. Get out of my pocket and get out of my way, and I’ll stand or fall on my own. That used to be known as the “American way,” just another quaint habit from bygone days. Decline and fall.
I agree with you that health care is an individual responsibility.
As for this focus group, it was a cross section of society, and represented itself well, I thought.
Sure, some people believe that it is a right to health care, but most serious people who are sincere in wanting reform to our health care delivery system view it in an entirely different way.
If you ask a typical person what they mean when they say they want “reform,” what they mean is to halt or slow the dramatically rising cost of health care. Most people understand decisions about delivery should be made by market forces, doctors and patients.
I would also add I, and many others, would like to see the insurance companies be made to honor their policies when a person is confronted with a serious medical condition.
Insurance companies are For-Profit organizations, and not a public service. They are also limited in the way they can compete with other insurance companies. They need to be allowed to compete freely across the country, and not restrained by state boards of insurance.
Since the majority of people acquire their insurance policies through their place of work, one thing that needs to happen is job growth.
Government can help with all of this, by doing the only thing government can do to improve our lives, and that is GET OUT OF OUR WAY AND OUT OF OUR LIVES!
Life isn’t fair and never will be. Some will have serious health conditions in their lives, through no fault of their own. Some will wreck their health with poor life style choices. Our health care system is their for everyone that needs the service, but each individual needs to take responsibility to insure they can have access.
Considering that this administration couldn’t even manage a million transactions in the Cash For Clunker program, should be enough evidence for anyone. Government cannot provide many services well, and to attempt to take over the best health care system in the world, which has tens of millions of transactions each day, is the surest way to destroy our system and our lives.
Personally, I think that is exactly what this administration wants, to destroy America as we know it, and remake it into as dysfunctional a society as Cuba, Russia or Venezuela.
Here is the reading of ten letters to Øbummer,
CAUTION: SPEW ALERT
Use states as health care reform labs.