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Obamacare: The Only Exit Strategy
The Washington Post ^ | August 28, 2009 | Charles Krauthammer

Posted on 08/28/2009 12:13:41 PM PDT by khnyny

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...

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 111th; bhohealthcare; endoflife; krauthammer; obama; publicoption
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Krauthammer lays it out logically as usual.
1 posted on 08/28/2009 12:13:41 PM PDT by khnyny
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To: khnyny
Krauthammer lays it out logically like a fellow communist-Lite RINO as usual.

The only acceptable American solution is to vote NO, and keep voting NO, on everything the Kenyan communist usurpers propose, until the bastages are removed from office.

2 posted on 08/28/2009 12:21:12 PM PDT by meadsjn
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To: khnyny

He needs to stop helping our enemies.


3 posted on 08/28/2009 12:24:01 PM PDT by Hazwaste (Liberals love the average American the same way that foxes love the average chicken.)
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To: khnyny

Huh?

Capitulate Charlie? What have you been smoking lately?

Go away!


4 posted on 08/28/2009 12:31:53 PM PDT by castowell ("I'm 95% cured" - BHO, 6/23/09)
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To: khnyny

Wow 1153 comments at the Post.


5 posted on 08/28/2009 12:32:00 PM PDT by CPT Clay (Pick up your weapon and follow me.)
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To: khnyny

I wish our guys would shut up and just kill the bill.

Why give the other team any good ideas? Nuts!


6 posted on 08/28/2009 12:34:36 PM PDT by Uncle Miltie ("UPS and FEDEX are doing fine. It's the Post Office that's always having problems." - 0bummer)
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To: khnyny

There is absolutely no reason for the dems to pass any bill that doesn’t make the gov’t the sole arbiter of who gets what medical treatment.

This is truly the only reason for “healthcare reform”.


7 posted on 08/28/2009 12:37:00 PM PDT by MrB (Go Galt now, save Bowman for later)
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To: khnyny

So now Kraut supports Government controlled healthcare and rationing? That is the endgame of the plan he laid out.


8 posted on 08/28/2009 12:45:36 PM PDT by KansasGirl ( Obama's heroes have always been left-wing radicals.)
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To: khnyny

Krauthammer is right on the ball- and he is reporting NOT as a proponant, but as a wise observer.

Unfortunatley the liberals would do well to take his advice because he is absolutley right

So, armed with this knowlege we need to kill of THESE actions too.


9 posted on 08/28/2009 12:54:38 PM PDT by Mr. K (THIS ADMINISTRATION IS WEARING OUT MY CAPSLOCK KEY DAMMIT DAMMIT DAMMIT!!!!!)
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To: KansasGirl

Krauthammer would not fair well under the

Quality Adjusted Life Year

calculation.


10 posted on 08/28/2009 12:55:50 PM PDT by MrB (Go Galt now, save Bowman for later)
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To: MrB

I read it and loved it—for the obvious sarcasm in which it meant to be taken. Only a Democrap would take it seriously.


11 posted on 08/28/2009 1:08:43 PM PDT by huckfillary (qual tyo ta)
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To: khnyny

The only exit strategy is DON’T DO ANYTHING. Any bill that gets passed now will immediately be amended so that all these awful things go into it.

We don’t need a government health program. Period. End of sentence.


12 posted on 08/28/2009 1:20:13 PM PDT by livius
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To: Mr. K

“Krauthammer is right on the ball- and he is reporting NOT as a proponant, but as a wise observer.”

That’s the way I read this also. Seems like he’s staying one step ahead of the dems here, exposing the way they will try to save face and give BO his bill, but then lays out clearly where it will lead if they follow this route.


13 posted on 08/28/2009 1:41:14 PM PDT by Heart of Georgia
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To: khnyny
Isn't there a catch? Of course there is. This scheme is the ultimate bait-and-switch. The pleasure comes now, the pain later. .....The financial and budgetary consequences will be catastrophic.

However, they will not appear immediately. And when they do, the only solution will be rationing. That's when the liberals will give the FCCCER regulatory power and give you end-of-life counseling. march you in front of Sarah Palin's "Death Panels".

But by then, resistance will be feeble. Why? Because at that point the only remaining option will be to give up the benefits we will have become accustomed to. Once granted, guaranteed universal health care is not relinquished. Look at Canada. Look at Britain. They got hooked; now they ration. So will we.

Very funny Charles. I thought it needed a little editing however.

14 posted on 08/28/2009 1:53:47 PM PDT by Donald Rumsfeld Fan (Sarah Palin is our Iron Lady of the North)
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To: khnyny
The regulated insurance companies will get two things in return. Government will impose an individual mandate that will force the purchase of health insurance on the millions of healthy young people who today forgo it. And government will subsidize all the others who are too poor to buy health insurance. The result? Two enormous new revenue streams created by government for the insurance companies.

Krauthammer has been inside the Beltway too long. I guess we conservatives must lay down as health insurance becomes compulsory. And exactly how do the insurance companies keep down their premiums and who decides what is "acceptable" insurance under any such mandate? And what are the penalties if you don't have it and how are they enforced?

15 posted on 08/28/2009 2:02:51 PM PDT by kabar
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To: khnyny

Hopefully, the moonbats won’t listen.


16 posted on 08/28/2009 2:07:25 PM PDT by neverdem (Xin loi minh oi)
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To: livius

I truly believe he is a closet communist , playing on our side. I remember his fond ramblins of Obama during the election , in his best elitist voice.


17 posted on 08/28/2009 2:21:23 PM PDT by RED SOUTH
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To: khnyny

this seems more a smaller ratchet leftward.

rather than a push hard to stop it.


18 posted on 08/28/2009 2:53:30 PM PDT by longtermmemmory (VOTE! http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov)
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To: khnyny

Excellent article by Krauthammer. He is very intelligent.


19 posted on 08/28/2009 3:04:19 PM PDT by ajay_kumar (There are realists and there are one issue voters (aka losers))
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To: RED SOUTH

I am always confused by Krauthammer. Sometimes he sounds smart and sane (and, of course, worried about his own situation), and sometimes he is so eager to curry favor with the left that I wonder if the same person is writing his articles.


20 posted on 08/28/2009 3:17:45 PM PDT by livius
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