Posted on 02/21/2010 9:58:45 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Something has gone very wrong.
Was it just a year ago that Democrats assumed more control in Washington than the party has had in my lifetime? It was.
Was it just a year ago that President Obama promised a new era of change, bipartisanship and transparency? It was.
Just weeks into office, the president pushed through a major stimulus package to save the American economy, restore credit, build infrastructure and create jobs. Now, unable to get Republicans to support what was their idea — a bipartisan commission on the deficit — the president has appointed one of his own, complete with warnings about how the deficit will sink us in the future if we fail to act.
Republicans shouldn't be able to get away with opposing a bipartisan effort to reduce the deficit, but they can and they have, for one simple reason: The country has turned.
The president and the Democrats may have only lost one Senate seat (so far), but in terms of actual control, they have lost much more. Republicans can just say no as long as the country seems to agree with them. Do you want to guess what they'll be saying to television cameras next week at the "negotiating" session on health care?
So what went wrong? Every Democrat I talk to has a different answer or, rather, a different person to blame. It was Nancy Pelosi's fault or Harry Reid's or Rahm Emanuel's. Should have made a bigger show of reaching out to Republicans; shouldn't have cut those deals behind closed doors. It is, I am told every day, a communications problem.
Years ago, when I was working in politics, I had a meeting with our pollsters that I'll never forget. After a particularly detailed (and negative) survey, one of the guys who had been polling for years leaned over to me and said, "We have a very big problem. People just don't like our candidate." Not an ideological problem. Not a problem with his experience or positions. They just didn't like him.
Of course, you can't tell your candidate that the people don't like him. So we looked at each other and shook our heads. There is only one way to translate that result. Candidate, we said to him, the people don't know you.
The White House is trying to treat the problem with its health care proposal as a communications problem. It's not that people don't want the plan; they just don't know how great it is. Our fault, says the president, for not communicating more effectively.
Not so fast.
Barack Obama is a great communicator. He's talked a lot about health care in the past year. And I've been listening. I know just as many horror stories as they do about what happens to people with pre-existing conditions, how you can't get insurance no matter what you're willing to pay, and if you have it, you can't afford to give it up, no matter how many arms and legs they charge you or how bad the coverage.
I'm all for letting people with pre-existing conditions buy affordable insurance. But letting a slew of older, sicker people into any pool will dramatically increase premiums for everyone in that pool. (What did they say about letting everyone into the pool with federal workers?) So you have to make the young, healthy people join, too, or the costs will be exorbitant.
So, hypothetically, now everyone has insurance — either they pay for it, or we do. Then what happens? Everybody gets more health care. Just exactly how does that save us money? Just exactly how do we pay for it?
Cost controls? In order to get refills for my arthritis medicine every month, I have to get pre-approval each time from the insurance company, which this week has taken most of the week. I always get the approval, of course, because this is medicine you don't stop taking after a month or two. If the insurance company saves money, it's only because making the pharmacist jump through more hoops sometimes means I miss a dose or two. This cannot be what they mean by cost control.
Get rid of unnecessary tests? I'm not really into unnecessary tests. It's getting the necessary tests approved that causes so much trouble.
Paying doctors and hospitals less to give us more? That's bound to work…
It's not a communications problem. What's gone wrong is that people see the country swimming in debt, see the jobs recovery lagging, see friends and neighbors who are not even hanging on, and they just don't know how this administration is planning to pay for a massive health care reform effort.
The appointment of a bipartisan commission on the deficit only underscores the problem and makes it seem that the administration has no answer for it except another new spending program. "Just say no" isn't the answer to the need for health care reform — but neither is another big spending program when we are being told our historic debt is a ticking time bomb for our children.
Not the usual brain dead liberal propaganda.
Which means that even a leftie like Estrich is not buying Obama’s endless lies.
Which in turn is why Obama is a rapidly failing One Term Wonder.
Aside from her grating voice and condescending attitude in every appearance I see of her... she does have nice hair. /s-on/
Her analysis and advice in regards to this wonderful country, USA... are completely and totally insane.... just about every time she opines.
A low voltage buld sometimes starts to glow when there is enough static...
buld = bulb
Yeah - Susan Estrogen is an idiot.
I’m hoping he gets himself impeached and his butt thrown out of the white house.
LOL! Very funny (even without the correction the picture is painted). Thanks.
It's great to mock them BUMP!
It took a year to figure out something’s whacked? Earth to Susan: Wakey! Wakey! You can’t make everybody happy.
parsy, who figures in 2014, a Republican will be asking the same thing
Susan, your political philosophy is a failure. Always has been, always will be. You will occasionally gain power due to a powerful personality, or outright cheating, or both, but Socialism Always Fails. Hope that helps.
And siding with the American people is a bad thing?!
She did miss a major point.
Past 50, you’ll get the insurance, at an expanded cost, of course, due to your age and the medical conditions that go along with it. You’ll be INSURED!
But at the rates they plan to pay to the health care industry, you won’t have access to health CARE.
Not a problem, though, since your INSURED!
The only thing I wonder about is how long it’ll take one of these geniuses to figure out that you can save $10 if you don’t bother to give them their final pills.
After all, they were going to die anyway...
The president has zero credibility on this issue. What good is a bipartisan committee going to do? If Obama wants to start suggesting some specific cuts, I'm sure the Republicans will support him. But why waste time with committees when there is no will at the top.
"It is, I am told every day, a communications problem."
I once described a problem as a "communications problem" in a business strategy class. The professor took a long hard look at me and said, "Every problem is a communications problem." The problem is that Obama is not listening to the people. And keeps trying to ramrod his own agenda down our throat.
"What's gone wrong is that people see the country swimming in debt, see the jobs recovery lagging, see friends and neighbors who are not even hanging on, and they just don't know how this administration is planning to pay for a massive health care reform effort.
She got that one right. But she still missed the parts about the public option, abortion, lack of transparency, and backroom deals.
Obama and the rats pushed the public option and abortion too hard. Nobody wanted Government as the insurer, nobody wanted to pay for abortions, and now nobody trusts Obama to be able to do any type of reform without trying to sneak those things in.
They not only pushed for these things over our objections they did so with a complete lack of promised transparency, and even then they had to bribe democratic senators to vote for it.
Obama has no credibility left. He should resign.
BO was a great communicator. He speaks well, but the things he says make no sense. Just like, "the govt. can run health care cheaper and better than the private sector, cover everyone and it won't cost you one single dime".
Even people who don't pay attention to politics know he is lying, incomptent or a fool.
These liberals purposefully ignore the reason there are so many unnecessary tests--defensive medicine. They also are in bed with the primary cause of defensive medicine--greedy lawyers and their even more greedy clients.
I still relate everything Susan Estrogen says in comparison to her drunken performance on Fox News the night Algore told GWB not to get snippy.
I don’t think she’s become as accurate as the broken clock, but she’s nailed it in this piece. Why, I’m not sure. Do they think this kind of “OMG!, we’re losing!” commentary will shock the Dems into doing something new or different?
Or maybe they’re just whores, working a different street now that the corner of Hope and Change isn’t working out too well anymore.
Everytime I see her know, I think of a bulldogs face and do the same revolted shake he did. Guess I inherited his 0 tollerance for liberal propaganda. Thank you Dad!
Yes, that will work as well as your candidate that no one liked, Susan!
Ha! This was a good piece, her analysis is much more tolerable when you don’t have to hear her wretched voice!
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