Posted on 08/28/2009 2:33:24 AM PDT by Schnucki
Obamacare Version 1.0 is dead. The 1,000-page monstrosity that emerged in various editions from Congress was done in by widespread national revulsion not just at its expense and intrusiveness but also at the mendacity with which it is being sold. You don't need a PhD to see that the promise to expand coverage and reduce costs is a crude deception, or that cutting $500 billion from Medicare without affecting care is a fiction.
But there is an exit strategy. And a politically clever one, if the Democrats are smart enough to seize it.
(1) Forget the public option. Whatever the merits, and they are few, it is political poison. It dies by the Liasson Logic, the unassailable observation by NPR's Mara Liasson that there are no liberal Democrats who will lose their seats if the public option is left out, while there are many moderate Democrats who could lose their seats if the public option is included.
(2) Jettison any reference to end-of-life counseling. People see (correctly) such Medicare-paid advice as subtle encouragement to voluntarily refuse treatment. People don't want government involvement in a process they consider the private province of patient, family and doctor. The Senate is already dropping it. The House must follow.
(3) Soft-pedal the idea of government committees determining "best practices." President Obama's Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research was sold as simply government helping doctors choose the best treatments. But there are dozens of medical journal review articles that do just that. The real purpose of such councils is ultimately to establish official criteria for denying reimbursement to less favored (because presumably less effective) treatments -- precisely the triage done by the NICE committee in Britain, the Orwellian body that once blocked access to a certain expensive anti-blindness drug until you went blind in
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Sure, the kraut is now all for “jettisoning end-of-life counseling” but he’ll fail to give credit to Sarah Palin for bringing this issue to the forefront because of HIS intellectual snobbery and misogyny. Just use her ideas and her courage to express that idea and weave it into a column he gets paid to write.
But support the person who set the torch to this aspect of the obamanation bill?
Nooooo...can’t do that. she isn’t Ivy League, not elitist enough for him.
Removal of the Democrat Senators and Reps by the voters is not hinged on ObamaCare it is a mission because of Obama, his administration i.e. Holder, all the Czars, and Obama’s life long goal to end our freedom.
BUMP
No Single Payer
Means no Democrat Support.
That is what they want.
They cannot afford
To “solve” the insurance gap
Without more power.
They have to move from
Scaring people on access,
To straight coersion
Single Payer means
Democrats Win Forever.
It’s the Game Changer.
But until that time,
Enough voters to matter
Must stay uninsured.
This might have worked about 2 months ago, but the liberals have enraged not only the Republicans and Independents but many average Democrats. They’re mistake was to call their own people “Nazis”, “nutcases”, “right wingers”, and a host of other names. Heck, the left is still doing it as Pete Stark showed by calling the Blue Dogs names a couple of days ago. They’re eating their young. No one is going to buy anything about health care now from Obama, Peloski, or Reid.
Regrettably, the only way health care is going to be salvage now is through liberal Republicans. Given John McCain’s stupid statements in the last week, don’t be surprise if this doesn’t happen. If they were smart they would let this die.
Charlie needs to “leave the room”.
His act is worn out.
KILL THE BILL
Excellent synopsis.
I, too am disappointed in Charles. He just does not ‘get’ Palin. And a watered down plan is still going to be over the top expensive that we cannot afford.
2010 can’t come fast enough
On Fox, during the week, Krauthammer said what is needed is Tort reform. Other FReepers have also recommended Tort reform, but since Congress is loaded with lawyers, it won’t happen - short of a revolution.
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