Free Republic

The phone rang and it was Ross Perot, who hasn't given an interview in years. Perot, who won 19 percent of the vote in the 1992 presidential election, making him one of the strongest third-party candidates in American history, got straight to the point. "Remember what you wrote about John McCain in the March 13, 2000, NEWSWEEK?" "Sure," I lied. "When McCain called Perot 'nuttier than a fruitcake'?" The Texas billionaire, now 77, still has some scores to settle from the Vietnam era, and his timing is exquisite. Just days before the South Carolina GOP primary, he wants me to...

Piggybacking off of this Politico article on conservatives attacking RomneyCare, Jon Chait asks why in 2008, "nearly all (conservatives) were fine with Romney's health care plan." If you were reading the National Review -- which had a soft spot for Mitt -- I can see why you would have that impression, but the reality is a lot more complicated. For starters, there were a lot of conservatives who did raise issues about his health care plan, and we published a lot of them here at the Spectator. I was a frequent critic of both Romney and his health care plan,...

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(snip) In just three years, a majority of workers—51 percent—will be in plans subject to new federal requirements, according to the draft.

Have at it!

Democrats wrongly believe Americans voted their party out in droves in 1994 due to their party's inability to deliver universal health care legislation back then. It appeared to be a politically convenient way for Democrats to explain away their losses that year and think up new ways to tee up another universal health care bill in the future. Unfortunately for Democrats, what was once political spin to save face after losing the House and Senate to Republicans, became accepted as correct political analysis among party leaders and will likely cost Democrats even more seats come this November. In 1994 the...

Speaker Pelosi's Treasure Hunt for votes isn't going well.

Mitt Romney's role in overseeing passage of a universal health care plan in Massachusetts appears likely to cause headaches for the former Republican governor should he make his widely-expected run for the White House in 2012. As Matt Yglesias noted Sunday, all of the government-subsidized health care plans offered to low-income Massachusetts residents, under a program called Commonwealth Care, cover abortion.

The Daily Mail published this report on the events at one UK hospital. "Not a single official has been disciplined over the worst-ever NHS hospital scandal, it emerged last night. Up to 1,200 people lost their lives needlessly because Mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust put government targets and cost-cutting ahead of patient care. But none of the doctors, nurses and managers who failed them has suffered any formal sanction." The inquiry found that: • Patients were left unwashed in their own filth for up to a month as nurses ignored their requests to use the toilet or change their sheets; • Four...

Televised Meeting to talk about healthcare..........

Three days before President Obama's supposedly bipartisan health-care summit, the White House released a new blueprint that Democrats say they will ram through Congress with or without Republican support. So after election defeats in Virginia, New Jersey and even Massachusetts, and amid overwhelming public opposition, Democrats have decided to give the voters want they don't want anyway. Ah, the glory of "progressive" governance and democratic consent. "The President's Proposal," as the White House document is headlined, is in one sense a notable achievement: It manages to take the worst of both the House and Senate bills and combine them into...

Recently, President Barack Obama addressed a gathering of House Republicans at their annual retreat in Baltimore. This effort at cross-party outreach was somewhat marred when Obama accused the gathered Republicans of maliciously poisoning the public against his health care plan, complaining that they had portrayed it as a "Bolshevik plot." Obama's address to the GOP retreat was a philippic, an accusatory and condemnatory speech. Obama said in essence to his political adversaries: "The public would like my plan and it would succeed - if only you would stop lying about it." One common feature of these kinds of addresses is...

The details are alarming. At least a third of the 5000 or so Dutch patients who each year receive lethal doses of drugs from their doctors do not give their unequivocal consent. About 400 of these patients never even raise the issue of euthanasia with their doctors...But the most flagrant abuse of euthanasia was the killing of a two-day-old child with Down's syndrome - a child who would probably have lived for 40 to 50 years.

The Hill today is reporting that Harry Reid will be using the Reconciliation process to pass ObamaCare. The Democrats, who have been offering “bipartisanship,” apparently see the meeting on the 25th as a formality. They actually intend on having a bill done within the next 60 days. By Michael O’Brien - 02/20/10 01:44 PM ET Democrats will finish their health reform efforts within the next two months by using a majority-vote maneuver in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said. “I’ve had many conversations this week with the president, his chief of staff, and Speaker Pelosi,” Reid said during...

"Now, two weeks before publication of "No Apology: The Case for American Greatness," Romney is pivoting again -- this time pitching himself as a problem solver whose background as a successful financier makes him the ideal candidate to rescue the ailing U.S. economy. But the real problem, said the paper, is "the real Mitt Romney — Harvard MBA, political scion, hard-working businessman, super-wealthy master of Wall Street offerings, devout Mormon — might not be what Republican primary voters actually want."

President Obama called Thursday for high-level talks with Republicans to work out a compromise on health care legislation, then putting the resulting bill to a vote in Congress. "If Congress decides we're not going to do it, even after all the facts are laid out, after all the options are clear, then the American people can make a judgment as to whether this Congress has done the right thing for them or not," Obama said. "That's how democracy works." Obama's comments were the first clear signal from the White House or Democrats in Congress on how they would proceed on...

BALTIMORE – President Barack Obama is accusing Republicans of portraying health care overhaul legislation as a "Bolshevik plot." ... The 1917 revolution in Russia brought the Bolsheviks to power. Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin were among the leaders.

Various representatives of the Barack Obama administration were out on the Sunday talk shows in the U.S. today, trying to spin the election of Senator Scott Brown (R -MA) [and how often do you see that abbreviation?] as being an endorsement of the Obama agenda, particularly with regard to health care. I witnessed the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, on "Fox News Sunday," trying to do this very thing. Gibbs was making the very same kinds of arguments to host Chris Wallace as Howard Dean tried making a few days ago to MSNBC's Chris Matthews. Wallace was a lot...

Health Care: Will the administration seize the moment of Scott Brown's victory to work out real solutions, or will it follow Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid over the cliff? Or is it just about government control? Before Sen.-elect Brown became the Scott heard 'round the world, House Speaker Pelosi was asked what his victory in the bluest of blue states would mean. "Certainly the dynamic will change depending on what happens in Massachusetts," she replied in a bit of an understatement. The dynamic has changed, yet the Democrats, as the country song goes, apparently don't know when to hold them...

Election 2010: The back-to-back Senate retirements of Byron Dorgan and Chris Dodd may be just the beginning. The people have seen the future of health care reform and found it doesn't work. Apres moi, le deluge. We don't know what the Mayan calendar says about 2010, but it's starting to look like the end of the world for Democratic electoral prospects. Americans who watched in shock as government tried to step between them and their doctors, may have the last laugh. The tea party isn't over until the angry mob votes. As rage grew over the attempt to nationalize one-sixth...