More from the Patriot Post;
President Says ‘Stars Are Aligned’ for Health Care ‘Reform’
Health care is still hogging the center stage as President Barack Obama took his trusted teleprompters on prime-time TV Wednesday to tell the American people, “This isn’t about me.” We have a hunch that Obama’s fourth prime-time press conference was due to his plummeting poll numbers, so, yes, it is about him.
Of his plan, Obama empathized, “Now, I understand that people are feeling uncertain about this, they feel anxious, partly because we’ve just become so cynical about what government can accomplish.” (After all, didn’t the Founding Fathers have great faith in what “government can accomplish”? Where oh where did we lose that vision?) “So folks are skeptical,” Obama added, “and that is entirely legitimate because they haven’t seen a lot of laws coming out of Washington lately that help them.” That’s an understatement.
Obama again voiced his support for redistribution of wealth to pay for health care, saying that a surtax on families earning $1 million a year “meets my principle” that the cost of a government takeover is “not being shouldered by families who are already having a tough time.” Translation: The cost will not be shouldered by those who benefit from the program, not to mention that Obama gets to decide who is “having a tough time.”
Speaking of tough times, the debate isn’t going as well for the president as he had hoped. Republicans are fairly unified against the plan, many Democrats are openly skeptical and the Senate is delaying a vote until after the August recess. It remains to be seen if that’s just a ploy to show that Congress isn’t rubber-stamping the Obama plan.
The president absurdly claimed that nationalizing health care “will keep government out of health care decisions, giving you the option to keep your insurance if you’re happy with it.” Even the Associated Press couldn’t swallow that whopper: “In [the] House legislation, a commission appointed by the government would determine what is and isn’t covered by insurance plans offered in a new purchasing pool, including a plan sponsored by the government. The bill also holds out the possibility that, over time, those standards could be imposed on all private insurance plans, not just the ones in the pool.”
Furthermore, according to The Wall Street Journal, “[W]hen Mr. Obama says that ‘If you like your health-care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health-care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what,’ he’s wrong. Period. What he’s not telling the American people is that the government will so dramatically change the rules of the insurance market that employers will find it impossible to maintain their current coverage, and many will drop it altogether.” But pay no attention to the man behind the curtain — Obama “will keep government out of health care decisions.”
Perhaps columnist Ann Coulter put it best when she quipped, “All the problems with the American health care system come from government intervention, so naturally the Democrats’ idea for fixing it is more government intervention. This is like trying to sober up by having another drink.”
The BIG Lie
“[H]ealth insurance reform will not add to our deficit over the next decade, and I mean it. … I am very worried about federal spending.” –Barack Obama
Oh, well, in that case…
On Cross-Examination
“The last time the president made grand promises and demanded passage of a bill before it could be reviewed, we ended up with the colossal stimulus failure and unemployment near 10 percent. Now the president wants Americans to trust him again, but he can’t back up the utopian promises he’s making about a government takeover of health care. He insists his health care plan won’t add to our nation’s deficit despite the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office saying exactly the opposite.” –Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC)
This Week’s ‘Alpha Jackass’ Award
“I’m rushed because I get letters every day from people that are being clobbered by health care costs, and they ask, ‘Can you help?’ … If you don’t set deadlines in this town, things don’t happen. The default position is inertia. …[T]he stars are aligned and we need to take advantage of that.” –Barack ObamaRx on the rush to pass his health care monstrosity by August
Gaffe of the Week
“The reforms we seek would bring greater competition, choice, savings and inefficiencies to our health care system.” —Barack Obama
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