|
| |
Not long before the president assembled Democrats and Republicans at the Garden Room of Blair House for a health care powwow, Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., let it all hang out on the House floor, roaring that "every single Republican I have ever met in my entire life is a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry."
Civility was the cool thing during the grand gathering, but the real purpose behind this televised event was cutthroat.
A Politico story by Mike Allen made that clear, reporting that according to a Democratic official the summit was meant to "give a face to gridlock, in the form of House and Senate Republicans."
Democratic Party strategists told the Web-based publication that the push will begin early next week for "a massive, Democrats-only health care plan." The official said of the summit's purpose: "The point is to alter the political atmospherics."
Clearly, while the public face with the C-SPAN cameras on is the president's soft-spoken "those are all reasonable points," the unseen reality is closer to the partisan rants of Rep. Weiner.
Again and again, Democratic participants insisted that "we're really not that far apart," "we really are close" and "we basically agree" except for "semantic differences." House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., whose trouble with numbers extends to his own tax returns and whose airtime was buried toward the end of the event, absurdly claimed that there was 70% agreement between Democrats and Republicans.
When Republicans respectfully objected, with factual backup, that the differences were actually basic, relating to government vs. individual control, they were curtly accused of rattling off political "talking points" by the president.
A perfect example of the trickery was the president's seeming willingness to agree to let consumers buy health insurance across state lines — maybe after his national health insurance exchange is established. The continual theme: Let the federal government intrude, then we can talk.
What we can expect now is the possibility of a modest increase in the dismal approval ratings of the Democrats' plan — almost inevitable after such a big media event. We'll also likely be told that the Democratic plan incorporates lots of Republican ideas — though it doesn't. All this will provide cover for Democrats to push hard to enact ObamaCare through the misuse of the budget reconciliation process, requiring only 50 votes in the Senate.
The real issue on health reform is an incompetent centralized government — whose intentions may be good — getting control.
Democratic politicians, so many of whom have no business or practical experience in their careers, see government as a solution. But they don't see that placing government in charge of pooling beneficiaries' risk will actually cause costs to rise because of all the restrictions and mandates the government will impose.
As viewers listen to Democrats playing on their sympathies with anecdotes about health coverage horror stories, they shouldn't forget an incompetent government's limited ability to deal with such problems.
Do Americans really want to spend trillions, then find that a Washington bureaucrat is deciding what type of surgery is proper?
The president and congressional Democrats may look forward to pleasing their core supporters if this summit serves as the prelude to ramming through their big-government plan.
But it will be a costly Pyrrhic victory, and they will pay by losing
control of Congress this November.