Posted on 08/12/2009 10:51:30 AM PDT by smoothsailing
Obama's Hoof-In-Mouth Disease
Larry Kudlow
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
It’s hard to know why President Obama said what he said at Tuesday’s health-care town hall in New Hampshire. He actually stated, “If you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.”
Oops. Freudian slip? Subliminally speaking, was the president inferring that private health insurers are doing just fine?
Government insurance is what’s in trouble today. Medicare is in the hole by about $40 trillion on a discounted present-value basis over the next 40 or 50 years. And if we’re going to equate government care to government mail, according to Steve Hayes of the Weekly Standard, the U.S. Postal Service is going bankrupt with a $7 billion net loss this year. With 633,000 career employees, the Post Office won’t be able to make $5.4 billion in retiree health-benefit payments. How many of these federal employees will populate the new government-backed insurance plan if it passes?
So it’s something of a mystery why the president went down the FedEx/UPS/Post Office turnpike. Perhaps the inner Obama is a free-enterprise guy. Maybe in the heat of battle his private-sector FedEx/UPS endorsement kind of, well, slipped out unconsciously.
Some will be skeptical of this reasoning. But having once had dinner with the man, along with other conservative pundits, and knowing how carefully he parses his words, it’s hard to understand how he let this free-market blessing slip out. Perhaps he’s secretly competing with Joe Biden to win the hoof-in-mouth-disease contest.
Obama’s health-care gaffes are mounting. At a press conference a few weeks back, the president let fly with an attack on doctors who remove tonsils instead of handing out allergy pills. Since doctors are very popular in America, and with many Obamacare protesters opposed to putting government central planners between doctors and patients, this was a big mistake. Worth noting, at that same presser, Obama also put his foot in it by attacking the Cambridge police officer at the center of the Henry Louis Gates affair. More hoof-in-mouth.
Obama’s response in New Hampshire to the so-called death-board issue also was revealing. Some say these boards are tantamount to euthanasia for the elderly. Placards outside the meeting read: “Obamacare, Down the Chute Granny.” (Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin is spearheading this protest.)
Obama’s response? He says reform “would not basically pull the plug on grandma because we decided that it’s too expensive to let her live anymore.” But the House bill comes dangerously close to giving unelected health boards the power to pull that plug. And as policy students know, it’s not always the precise wording of legislation that counts, but the regulatory interpretations of laws that are made by federal and state officials.
So, in a sense, Obama’s denial was a non-denial denial. He should have unequivocally demanded that the death-board language be removed from any bill. But he didn’t -- perhaps because he agrees with it. In interviews earlier this year, the president said that while he would have fought for his own grandmother’s hip replacement, clinically he can see how these expensive decisions should not be made.
Grandma may indeed represent Obama’s biggest political problem right now. As Team Obama attempts to placate concerns at the CBO that health reform is a budget-buster, seniors are rightly worried that the Medicare program on which they depend will be ravaged by cost cuts.
Rasmussen now reports that elderly folks over 65 are against Obamacare by 56 to 39. That’s a bad number for Democrats who rely on seniors to maintain their governing coalition. Incidentally, polls also show that about 75 percent of Americans are satisfied with their health-care services, while 80 to 90 percent are happy with the whole U.S. health-care system.
It’s still tough to know whether this behemoth government takeover of heath care will actually pass. But two key markets are betting against it. First, over at the Intrade pay-to play online-betting parlor, the bid for the U.S. government health-plan contract is only 38 cents. That’s down from 50 cents in late July. Second, the share prices of big private health insurers have rallied in recent weeks. UnitedHealthcare is up 13 percent; Humana is up 12.4 percent; and Aetna is up almost 10 percent. These firms will be decimated if the government insurance plan passes. But investors are now predicting it won’t.
For the sake of economic freedom, liberty, and fiscal sanity, let’s hope the markets are right.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
It was a very disjointed, inarticulate and ignorant performance.
And people say Sarah Palin is the dummy?
post office is great example of what will happen with gove healthcare.....they cant manage money just like our government.....
Here’s the actual video clip of the Post Office comment:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2009/08/11/obama_the_post_office_is_always_having_problems.html
This freudian slip makes me believe that alleviating health care problems is not “the Messiah’s” goal, but bringing down America is.
Remember the last time you went to the post office?
Imagine what it would be like if that person was taking care of you in the hospital.
It’s part of the end of life plan. It will be so miserable you’ll be looking forward to end of life.
I think this townhall was a bigger disaster than his last not-ready-for-prime-time prime time show.
NOT TRUE. That protest was well underway before Sarah spoke up. Does she share the sentiment? you betcha. Is she perhaps the best-recognized person speaking out? ditto. Is the outrage being expressed against the death option organized? not so much. Sure, there are groups that picked up the rallying cry but there is NO TOP DOWN in this protest. God Bless her for speaking out but we know the left will use every opportunity to smear her and it does no good to pick up and use their language.
How will MSNBC cover it...hmmm... How bout..Ha Ha hey it was a joke...Good thing we have a President who is so human and like us..Ha Ha, giggle giggle. yuk yuk.
That would be this morning, when I almost got into an argument with a sloth-like clerk who tried to blame me for not having earlier picked up a certified letter that they (allegedly) tried to deliver repeatedly to my house between the hours of 9 am and 3:30 pm several weekdays. When will the PO learn that it's not 1955 anymore, and most people are not home during the day?
WHAT is she doing???
Hoof-in-mouth disease states it beautifully. If it’s not written down for him to read he has a very hard time getting the words out and when he does he makes himself the fool in many instances.
The president let it out that he ultimately wants to destroy America. He certainly does not want what is best for America, nor does he want to support the strengths of our country. After the Gaffe Master take. What I initially posted was my second take.
That NH town hall meeting wasn’t packed? That hall was so “packed”, they got every black person living in NH to stand in the crowd behind Obama for the cameras. All seven of them. If that was supposed to be a true representation of the state’s population based on race, it was definitely rigged. Less than 2 out of 100 in NH are black. LOL, so if that wasn’t representative, which it clearly was not, why should we believe them when they say nothing was rigged?
Thanks for the link. I heard it played on Roger Hedgecock’s show last night. Not much of a lawyer, if this is the best he can do making his case!
Obama Sells Health Care “Public Option” with Bankrupt Post Office Analogy
PORTSMOUTH, New Hampshire, August 11, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - President Barack Obama reassured Americans gathered at a town-hall style gathering in New Hampshire on Tuesday that a public-option in health care would not lead to the death of private insurance and rationing by telling them that private mail carriers, like UPS and Fed-Ex, have done just fine against the US Post Office. But comparing the government plan to a bankrupt postal service may not help a President who just slipped today under 50 percent approval in one poll.
“If you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems,” Obama told a questioner, who expressed concern that the public option would run private insurers out of business. Obama said that the public option would have to pay for itself and not through tax-increases leveled on the middle-class.
However, the US Post Office is having serious problems lately and that analogy could raise alarms about the future of government run health-care. The Post Office, which does not raise revenue through taxes, faces a $7 billion loss for this fiscal year, and is slated to close approximately 700 or more offices across the country.
[snip]
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/aug/09081108.html
http://www.classicalideals.com/HR3200.htm...As heard on Rush Limbaugh an hour ago.
Obama beats all I’ve ever read or seen with a President since the founding of this nation. He is one incredible person.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.