Tag: health care

Ben Smith: Wilson wins?

Time:

The controversy over Republican Representative Joe Wilson’s shouting “You lie!” at the President over his claim that illegal immigrants wouldn’t benefit from health-care reform apparently sparked some reconsideration of the relevant language. “We really thought we’d resolved this question of people who are here illegally, but as we reflected on the President’s speech last night, we wanted to go back and drill down again,” said Senator Kent Conrad, one of the Democrats in the talks after a meeting Thursday morning. Later that afternoon, Baucus said the group would add a proof-of-citizenship requirement for participation in the new health exchange — a move likely to inflame the left.

Wilson wins, Ben.  Oddly, in much the same way that another particular dispute was won by THAT WOMAN.

See also Hot Air, Ace of Spades, Sister Toldjah, and –  for that special extra flavor of whiny Lefty exasperation, TPMDC:

But though Wilson’s allegation was false, and the political impact has been largely negative, Democratic leaders on the Senate Finance Committee seem to think it’s worth fixing the non-existent problem Wilson was complaining about.

Seldom does one see a sentence quite so at war with itself as this one is.

Moe Lane

PS: Yeah, kids: I saw the Democratic flash poll, and I saw that the current state of the potlatch is at, what, $750K at this point?  Alas, I also saw Wood & Sabato’s current estimate of the GOP’s likely gains next year (20 to 30, and Wilson’s not on their competitive races  list).  This just isn’t a cycle to topple a R+9 incumbent.  Particularly since none of the people currently at white-hot levels of hatred are going to remember his opponent’s name in two weeks.

Or possibly even one.

PPS: I tell a lie.  AMERICAblog is even whinier than TPMDC.

Crossposted to RedState.

Rasmussen: modest gain in support for health care rationing.

The first of what will be a daily series of Rasmussen polls charting post-speech opinions on the health care rationing bill is in: as expected, the numbers have shifted in the Democrats’ favor (from 44/53 for/against to 46/51). If that the increase in support is sustained today, we’ll see those numbers increase to a statistical tie (which is what Rasmussen reported the numbers being right after the speech itself). So, good news for the President, right?

Depends on what his actual goal was. If he wanted to shore up his base? Yes. If he wanted to change the conditions of the fight? …No, not really: Continue reading Rasmussen: modest gain in support for health care rationing.

Boehner to White House: You’ve been dodging our calls since April.

I’m translating this into English, of course – but not too much; Boehner made it clear Monday that the White House was disinterested in getting anything except a rubber-stamp on health care.

Earlier this year, GOP leaders sent a letter to the president in May stating that they would like to work with the administration to find “common ground” on healthcare reform.

But the administration responded with a tersely worded letter indicating that they had healthcare reform under control.

Continue reading Boehner to White House: You’ve been dodging our calls since April.

Everything that you need to know about tonight’s health care speech.

Everything.

But a Democratic leadership aide who sat in on an administration briefing Tuesday said that while Obama will offer support Wednesday for a public option, the president will not insist on it.

“He’s going to say it’s the best tool for reducing costs,” the aide said. “I think he’s going to be a bit noncommittal.”

(Via Instapundit) If I was still a Democrat, I’d be praying right now that this is just some massive head fake, and that the President was going to show up to the speech tonight with an actual bill.  Because the one thing that nobody wants from President Obama right now is for him to be ‘a bit noncommittal.’

Crossposted to RedState.

Sarah Palin’s Wall Street Journal Health Care Op-Ed.

[UPDATE]: Welcome, Instapundit readers.

Former governor and VP candidate Sarah Palin wrote a pretty good op-ed for the Wall Street Journal on the health care situation – one where she points out, repeatedly, that we’re being asked to blindly fund a government program that will affect every aspect of our life and will not save us money in either the short or long term.  As Ace of Spades notes, this is not going to cover new ground for the people already intimately familiar with the debate – but for those who aren’t, it will give a good idea of conservative objections to Obamacare, not to mention providing the alternatives that the Democrats are pretending that the Republicans aren’t providing.  All in all, useful and timely.

And, as an added, special bonus, it includes the written equivalent of a smack on the nose:

Now look at one way Mr. Obama wants to eliminate inefficiency and waste: He’s asked Congress to create an Independent Medicare Advisory Council—an unelected, largely unaccountable group of experts charged with containing Medicare costs. In an interview with the New York Times in April, the president suggested that such a group, working outside of “normal political channels,” should guide decisions regarding that “huge driver of cost . . . the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives . . . .”

Given such statements, is it any wonder that many of the sick and elderly are concerned that the Democrats’ proposals will ultimately lead to rationing of their health care by—dare I say it—death panels? Establishment voices dismissed that phrase, but it rang true for many Americans. Working through “normal political channels,” they made themselves heard, and as a result Congress will likely reject a wrong-headed proposal to authorize end-of-life counseling in this cost-cutting context. But the fact remains that the Democrats’ proposals would still empower unelected bureaucrats to make decisions affecting life or death health-care matters. Such government overreaching is what we’ve come to expect from this administration.

Continue reading Sarah Palin’s Wall Street Journal Health Care Op-Ed.

I would like to thank the pro-health care rationing folks for their help.

Thanks in large part to your activities – and according to Rasmussen:

  • 49% “have a favorable opinion of those opposing the health care reforms at town hall meetings” (41% last month).
  • 59% “say the town hall protesters are citizens reflecting the concerns of their neighbors (49% last month).
  • 56% “say that it’s more important for Congressmen to hear the view of their constituents rather than explain the proposed health care legislation.”

And, best of all?  While Democrats disagree on all three of those – Republicans and independents don’t.

So.  Speaking for the Republican party: much obliged.  Can we count on your invaluable assistance, if and when the Democrats in Congress find the courage to again address cap-and-trade?

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Moveon.org zombie bites off health care protester’s finger. Wait, what?

No, really.

About 20 minutes earlier, a man on MoveOn.org’s side of the street crossed over and shouted “Why don’t you like the public option?” Several of the counter-protesters said that they don’t want the government to run everything. The MoveOn.org man got nose to nose with a short, gray-haired counter-protester, and sneered, “You’re an idiot.”

At that point, I’m told the victim either swung at or pushed his assailant’s face away with an open hand, and his finger entered his mouth.

[snip]

The MoveOn.org protester then allegedly bit off the finger up to the first knuckle, and spat it into the street where it was recovered by Bush.

(H/T) @jeffemanuel.

The Moveon.org zombie apparently then left.  At a walk.  And none of his Moveon.org colleagues stopped him.  And then they themselves later walked through the crime scene.

Again: wait, what?

Moe Lane Continue reading Moveon.org zombie bites off health care protester’s finger. Wait, what?

An Education Department that can’t spell.

You’d think that the slapdash sorts in this particular administration would check to make sure that they spelled quite simple words properly in their media advisories:

schoochildren-tn

Then again, you’d also expect them to check to see whether a major Presidential address to schoolchildren was actually taking place after the start of everybody’s school year*.

Moe Lane

*Alternatively, we can all stop pretending that the White House was not planning to use this speech to push the Democrats’ health care rationing bill.

Crossposted to RedState. And posted with malice aforethought, of course.

Obama retreats from fight on ‘public option.’

I wonder what else he’s planning to give up?

Aides to President Barack Obama are putting the final touches on a new strategy to help Democrats recover from a brutal August recess by specifying what Obama wants to see in a compromise health care deal and directly confronting other trouble spots, West Wing officials tell POLITICO.

Obama is considering detailing his health-care demands in a major speech as soon as next week, when Congress returns from the August recess. And although House leaders have said their members will demand the inclusion of a public insurance option, Obama has no plans to insist on it himself, the officials said.

“We’re entering a new season,” senior adviser David Axelrod said in a telephone interview. “It’s time to synthesize and harmonize these strands and get this done. We’re confident that we can do that. But obviously it is a different phase. We’re going to approach it in a different way. The president is going to be very active.”

(H/T: Drudge) I look forward to seeing whatever plan the President’s committee of aides put together for him to push on Congress, of course. It’ll almost certainly be a platitudinous, amorphous piece of stitched-together fluff that will satisfy nobody and lecture everyone on the planet – at least, based on past experience – but at least we’ll finally have gotten the White House to actually think about and discuss what changes in health care policy the executive branch would like to see. Letting the liberal Democratic leadership in Congress do it for the President was a serious error: it’s about time that he puts his personal stamp on an actual, ‘official’ plan. In other words: it’s nice that the administration is finally taking health care reform seriously, and we look forward to seeing its tentative plan.

After we hack out all the bits of said plan that are just stupid, of course.  And make sure that various concessions are made.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.