Posted by
Steve on Wednesday, September 09, 2009 5:57:35 PM
Tonight, Barack Obama is going to try and rescue his Presidency. I know the talk is about healthcare, but it really is about saving his Presidency. He has staked everything on getting HIS version of healthcare passed by the House and Senate. Right now, there is a lot of opposition to his version of healthcare. He is going to try and change minds tonight during his speech.
The talk show hosts from the Salem Radio Network (Mike Gallagher, Dennis Prager and Hugh Hewitt) will be presenting about 1.3 million signatures to Capitol Hill. They will be received by Republicans in the House and Senate. The Republicans will then deliver the petitions to the leadership of the House and Senate. That is the largest number of signatures delivered on a single topic on Capitol Hill. My wife and I signed the petition and will definitely vote against any Senator or House member that votes for the bill. I would hope that other signers would have the same commitment. This petition puts a lot of voters on record as opposing Obamacare. This is a big hill to climb.
Barack Obama has a lot to overcome tonight. We shall see if he even tries to overcome this built in opposition. My guess is that he will assume that everyone is on board, at least a little bit. He will most likely repeat the things that we have been hearing for the past few weeks. Most of the statements that he uses to promote the healthcare bill have been determined to be false by logic, if nothing else. He will probably bring the government option back on the table for discussion. The government option gives Obama the quickest and easiest way to get to the “single-payer” Healthcare system. Since that is the goal of the Democrats, the government option is most likely the path he will choose.
The main goal is to get the Obamacare bill passed, period. The second goal is to pass the bill with at least one Republican vote. If they get 1 Republican to vote for the bill (Olympia Snowe, that is you I am talking about), they can call the bill bi-partisan. A bi-partisan bill gives Democrats cover. If they are given cover by the Republicans, the debacle predicted for them in 2010 will be blunted. Democrats need the cover. Republicans should not give it to them by voting for Obamacare. If Obamacare is as bad as predicted, the Democrats will be severely punished. If it is the best healthcare system in the world, then they will be able to reap the rewards. Since every politician knows that it will be a disaster, Democrats want the cover very badly. They may even be willing to compromise, but the compromise would be just for show. It would go back to the worst of Obamacare as soon as the Democrats felt that they could get away with eliminating the compromise.
There are a lot of quick and easy things that could be done that would make health insurance more affordable. But this debate is not about making health care more affordable for all Americans. It is about giving Democrats more power. The words used make it seem like Democrats are concerned about the cost of healthcare. If that was the case, the Democrats would have proposed fixes to the healthcare system that would have saved everyone money. The Democrats want power. They will use and/or abuse anything to get more power.
The Republicans have proposed the fixes to the system that will reduce the cost for everyone. The Republican proposals get the government out of the healthcare system. That is always a good idea. President Reagan had it right when he said, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.” If you use that idea you can solve any problem the federal, state and local governments have. It will always result in lower cost and more freedom. Since our goal should always be more freedom, we should try and reduce the government in our lives. Unfortunately, that is not what we will hear tonight from Barack Hussein Obama.