Posted on 08/10/2009 2:37:15 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
August 2009 may go down as the coolest weather on record, but the political rhetoric on President Obamas attempt to nationalize health care is more heated than ever.
Health care is a kitchen table issue: every American adult wants the best health care for themselves and their families and -- across the generation gaps -- they are coming out in record numbers against the Obamacare proposal.
As a result, the president and congressional Democrats are doing their best to stifle the debate and silence their critics.
Nancy Pelosis August recess strategy memo said, (as HUMAN EVENTS Connie Hair reported on August 3) Winning the health reform debate in August requires nothing less than an aggressive, multi-front effort to control the message and keep the momentum moving forward.
The president is working hard to control the message. Campaigning for Virginia gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds last week, Obama criticized those who opposed his nationalization of healthcare. He said, I don't want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess
Barack Obamas rhetoric is straight out of Ring Lardner. One of the greatest writers America has ever produced, Larder wrote the best fictional dialogue. Heres one brief exchange from The Young Immigrunts, between father and child:
Are we lost, daddy? I asked tenderly.
Shut up, he explained.
But Americans arent shutting up: theyre making their voices heard just like they did in the 2007 immigration debate. And their greatest voice is conservative talk radio, the loud folks liberal Sen. Lindsay Graham (R?-SC) complained of then.
After calling health insurance companies villains, Speaker Pelosi said that the thousands of Americans who are protesting Obamacare at congressional Democrats town hall meetings are phonies, organized by right wing extremists. She said, I think theyre AstroTurf, you be the judge...Theyre carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on healthcare."
Despite Obamas command to silence dissent, people are speaking out and his legislation has stalled because many Democrats are uncomfortable with the cost and the intervention of government in the doctor-patient relationship. As Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said, So far, they have produced a measure that they cannot sell even to their own members. The only thing bipartisan, so far, is the opposition.
For the next three weeks, until Congress returns on September 4, congressional Democrats -- at least those, unlike Indianas Baron Hill, who is apparently too scared of his constituents to even schedule a town hall meeting -- will be hearing continuously from constituents who are concerned and angry at the Dems approach to health care reform.
But they have a lot on their side. Especially Obamas three stooges: the SEIU, AARP and PhRMA.
Pelosis strategy memo also said, The Leadership is working in close coordination with the White House and outside groups (including but not limited to HCAN, Families USA, AFSCME, SEIU, AARP, etc.) to ensure complementary efforts during August. Complimentary means opposing the protests of concerned Americans.
The three stooges are all members of a coalition of union, lobbying and business groups called Heathy Economy Now which is spending an enormous amount of money on television ads aimed at the Blue Dog Democrats, seeking to push them into supporting Obamacare.
The Service Employees International Union made its presence felt in the 2008 election, spending a reported $150 million to elect Obama and Congressional Democrats. And theyre showing up at the town hall meetings in considerable numbers. Weve all seen the video of people wearing SEIU t-shirts pushing and shoving -- physically assaulting -- protesters outside one town hall meeting. They want the so-called public option which will establish government-run healthcare, and they will brook no dissent.
AARP supposedly represents the retired and elderly. But Obamacare proposes to cut about $500 million out of Medicare over the next decade, and will result in both healthcare rationing and rationalization. The rationalization -- based on cost effectiveness determined by life expectancy -- will limit what the elderly can obtain from their doctors. If the Washington bureaucracy decides that youre too old for a hip replacement, youll either have to pay for it yourself, or be unable to get it.
And AARP members arent supporting Obamacare. But the AARP -- now nothing more than a liberal lobbying group disconnected from the interests of its members -- is spending time and a lot of money to help stampede congress into passing the bill.
Perhaps the most shameful is PhRMA: the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. PhRMA is the business lobby comprised of drug manufacturers. Its support was purchased in negotiations with the White House. PhRMAs chief is former Louisiana Democratic congressman Billy Tauzin.
As the Wall Street Journal reported on August 7, Chief pharma lobbyist Billy Tauzins clients were probably wondering about the return on their investment. Then, lo, Mr. Tauzin disclosed this week in a page-one story in the New York Times that, yes, the concessions were capped at $80 billion, no further. We were assured: We need somebody to come in first. If you come in first, you will have a rock-solid deal, Mr. Tauzin said. Adding other stuff changes the deal. The White House confirmed Mr. Tauzins account.
Tauzin had said, according to the Times report, that the deal was confirmed with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, deputy chief of staff Jim Messina and health care reform czarina Nancy-Ann DeParle.
PhRMA is planning to spend $150 million on television ads supporting Obamacare beginning this month. You cant expect to see the hard sell from PhRMA: with all that money to spend, theyll likely hire the best actors and actresses to star in their commercials. The old will be likely be assured by Wilford Brimley that they wont feel the pain of Medicare cuts. Younger voters will probably be told about the benefits of Obamacare by experts such as Denise Richards, famous consumer of optional enhancement surgery.
All through August, Senate negotiators will continue work on the Obamacare bill. The three Republicans -- Sens. Charles Grassley (Ia), Olympia Snowe (Me) and Mike Enzi (Wyo) -- will be the keys to killing the bill. While Snowe is hopeless, Enzi -- so far -- has rejected the nationalization approach. Which means Grassley is the key to stopping Obamacare.
Grassley has said that there should be no public option, the government-run insurance plan that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said will drive 131 million Americans out of their private plans and into the government plan. But Grassley is an old-time Washington deal-maker. He needs to hear from his constituents at every August meeting and he will. And so should every other member of Congress.
Obama and his congressional cohort are in a state of near-panic because Americans are speaking out in huge numbers against their effort to nationalize health care. Voters rightly doubt that Obamacare will do anything to improve the way they receive health care or limit its cost.
It wont do either, and the more Americans speak out to stop it, the more likely well be able to have the best healthcare system in the world: thats the one we have now, not the one Obamas three stooges want to shove us into.
--- Mr. Babbin is the editor of Human Events and HumanEvents.com. He served as a deputy undersecretary of defense in President George H.W. Bush's administration. He is the author of "In the Words of our Enemies"(Regnery,2007) and (with Edward Timperlake) of "Showdown: Why China Wants War with the United States" (Regnery, 2006) and "Inside the Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe are Worse than You Think" (Regnery, 2004). E-mail him at jbabbin@eaglepub.com.
PhRMA is a useful idiot. They are being used now to help push ObamaCare through, then once it (if) it’s enacted, PhRMA will be eaten for lunch. How they cannot see this is beyond me.
No doubt that worthless tool Billy Tauzin is in cahootz with this scam.
A most excellent poster for demonstration purposes!
They really are scared! Try as they may they can’t understand how this is happening without the use of unions and groups such as ACORN! They are in denial because they can’t find a money trail such as they would if they were running the show. It’s truly a genuine grassroots movement and they know it and they don’t like it. How much more American can we be then to exercise our rights to free speech and how Un-American can you get to tell everyone to just Shut-up?
They are sacrificing their entire future for a few years of strong profits, paid for by us, long enough until the current executives retire. Eventually they are going to get raped like the rest of us, and their entire industry as we know it will be destroyed along with everything else health care related if this monstrosity comes to pass.
Not going well for ghetto boy King obuma. The socialist freaks are outnumbered, out maneuvered and out classed. That’s what happens when your “army” is a collection of fat, 50 IQ thugs.
Why does SEIU want ObamaCare? Google “health worker SEIU”. It’s all about the money they expect to capture. Just like the NEA, they’ll have an inexhaustible stream of taxpayer $$$ to feed back into bought and paid for politicians.
True believers in the innate wisdom of governments.
[Pelosis strategy memo also said, The Leadership is working in close coordination with the White House and outside groups (including but not limited to HCAN, Families USA, AFSCME, SEIU, AARP, etc.) to ensure complementary efforts during August. ]
HCAN = ACORN
Big government in bed with big business and ganging up on the little guy. Who would have guessed? The Rat party is exposing itself.
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