Democrats Go For Suicide
By Larry Johnson on February 28, 2010 at 11:08 AM in Current Affairs
This issues may be different now than they were in the early days of the U.S. 2003 invasion of Iraq, but the attitudes of arrogance and hubris displayed by the Republicans with respect to the insurgency in Iraq seven years ago are now in full bloom with the Democrats. The mantra of the Democrats is bizarre. I just watched Florida Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz on Meet the Press and she gamely insisted that the American people are all on board with the Democrats approach to Health Care reform.
Debbie. NO THEY ARE NOT!! If you did not take time to watch this focus group run by Frank Luntz, please pay close attention. Half of this group are Obama supporters.
Did you catch Frank Luntz’s final comment?
He’s quoting a song from the movie, 1776, but it is a question worth asking. This is no longer a partisan issue. When you have Obama supporters along with Republicans saying, “start over,” it is time to start over. Scott Rasmussen’s polling supports the views expressed in Luntz’s focus group. Rasmussen reports:
Following President Obama’s bipartisan health care summit on Thursday, 44% of voters nationwide rate the U.S. health care system as good or excellent. That’s up from 35% when the President first proposed his reform ideas last May and up from 29% two years ago. In more recent months, perceptions of the system have stabilized
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 28% now say the U.S. health care system is poor.
Additionally, 76% of those with insurance rate their own coverage as good or excellent. Just three percent (3%) rate their own coverage as poor.The fact that most Americans are comfortable with their own insurance coverage has proven to be a major obstacle for advocates of reform. Forty-nine percent (49%) of insured Americans say it’s at least somewhat likely that the plan before Congress could force them to change their own coverage. Just 39% say it’s not likely. Those figures include 28% who say the proposed legislation is Very Likely to force them on to a new insurance plan while only 11% are confident that outcome is Not At All Likely.
Polling conducted last week showed that a solid plurality of Democrats believe it would be good for workers if they were forced off their private insurance plan and on to a government program. Republicans and unaffiliated voters disagree.
If the Democrats in House agreed with the Democrats in the Senate all of this would be moot. A bill would be passed and would be sitting on the President’s desk. But they don’t. Nancy Pelosi barely passed the Health Care bill towards the end of 2009 and now cannot count on the votes of Congressman Wexler (who left Congress) and John Murtha (he died). Worse the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts signaled that voters are fed up. There are a few Democrats on the House side who understand that pressing forward on Health Care will end their jobs. And most of the guys and gals in the House are making more money as a legislator than they ever made in previous jobs.
A majority of Americans want Congress and the President to start over on health care. The process needs to be transparent. Americans with Health Care coverage don’t want the Government tinkering with what already works. The Congress would be on more solid ground if they would focus on some specifics like the following:
Step one–Allow cheaper drugs from Canada to be sold in the United States. Eliminate the monopoly behavior of the drug companies, who charge higher prices for medicine in the United States.
Step two–Remove the anti-trust protection from Insurance companies and force them to compete across the board. This will reduce costs and prevent insurance companies from their own form of monopoly behavior.
Step three–The Government should set up a fund, much like the FDIC, which will backstop insurance companies who provide coverage to people previously denied coverage for pre-existing conditions.
Step four–Tort reform and government backed malpractice insurance. Too many doctors, especially Obstetricians (ie, baby doctors), are bailing out of practice and leaving folks without coverage. This is an appropriate area for government intervention.
But the Democrat leadership is not inclined to do so. They are convinced they are right and are going to muscle this through. But they do so at their peril. To pretend that the majority of Americans are not satisfied with their health care and want to scrap the current system is insane. The majority of Americans do not back what the Democrats have put forward in the House and the Senate. If Democrats insist on pursuing this madness they will be reminded come November who is in charge.
UPDATE: Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air likes Nancy Pelosi and the Dems to our old friend, Baghdad Bob. He’s right. We have not seen this level of denial since the good old days of Baghdad Bob insisting that the American invaders would be completely vanquished. How did that work out?
My favorite Baghdad Bob moment, “They are nowhere near Baghdad.” And now, Nancy Pelosi insists, we have the votes to pass health care.
by Ronald Scott
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