Throw Out the TV.
Imagine a poll question that asked, if you could, would you throw out every member of the TV and video news media and replace them with the first 5000 people shopping at Sam's Club (or Walmart's or Pet City or Apple etc) on Sunday afternoons? Would the result be half the voters or all the voters? Same for Congress? Who wants to look at these guys and gals another moment? Go to robots.
Whip Count Byrding.
Spoke to David Drucker, Roll Call, to learn that the Senate GOP is combing over the reconciliation bill for errors to permit challenges (points of order) un the Bird Rule, call Birding, that will oblige the item to be changes, and that once it is changed, the bill must go back to the House for another vote. Each time. Meanwhile, the first vote on Sunday (if successful) will turn the Senate bill into an Act of law once POTUS signs it. That is, the Dem House members negotiating for changes could well be left with ashes and the Senate bill that all hate and don't want to vote on. Drucker says that the GOP (Gregg and Alexander) will not reveal what they have already found. Kent Dorgan of the Democrats acknowledges that there are mistakes to be exploited. In sum, the first vote on Sunday, if successful, will start the process of vote and vote and vote. All the way for weeks. The whip count still remains uncertain. Charlie Dent, PA 15, tells that he heard on the floor today a count between 200 and 212. Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, tells me that Dahlkemper and Ellsworth and Boccieri remain NOs and that she is no longer sure of Jason Altmire, whose head is turned by the TV attention and the White House flattery. Jodi Schneider,American Banker, tells that the Speaker does not have 216 yet, and that the vote may be delayed until Monday or more. John Fund asserts that POTUS delayed his trip to Southeast Asia because he is needed to soothe and appeal, not because he is confident of the vote. POTUS is the one advancing the case that the vote is about the survival of his presidency. Silly season. Mention that Charlie Dent says the Rules Committee room is wired for cameras, yet it is only one of three that does not permit cameras to cover the hearings (the other two being obvious spots for discretion, House Intel and the Ethics Committee).
No doubt, our health care system needs improvement. Health care in America is way too expensive. Over the years there have been many calls for reform. I too agree that reform is long overdue.
If I were to reform health care, I would talk with people in the industry. I would listen to their ideas. I would then ask them to put something together that makes sense. Some of it I already know first hand. I know that in India I can get first class medical care at one-tenth of what it would cost me here in America. I know that one reason for this is competition. If I think an Indian doctor is charging too much, I simply go to another. A second reason for the high cost of health care in America is the high premiums doctors (and medical staff in general) must pay for liability insurance. A fix in this part of the equation would involve the thorny issue of tort reform. I am convinced that this, coupled with some version of patient-controlled medical savings accounts, would solve the lion’s share of our medical insurance problems.
Karl Marx was once to have said, "First you socialize medicine and everything else follows like night follows day." Whether or not this quote is accurate, or even if it can be attributed to Marx is not the issue. Significant is that the quote exists and has likely found itself into various socialist catechisms. Additionally, it is also likely that Barack Hussein Obama (who has never been known to be a stickler for exactitude) is profoundly aware of it. At any rate, our star-crossed president is acting as if he believes it.
In a nutshell, I would suggest that health care can be fixed by taking the advice of professionals and proceeding reasonably and incrementally towards a solution. Obama, on the other hand is looking to ‘fix’ health care by taking an entirely ideological approach. As such, this would not necessarily require expertise. All he would need to do is to pass into law a loose framework that remains open to interpretation. It must be remembered that, in Obama’s mind, the goal is not to fix health care. The goal is control. The clue that this is indeed this administration’s plan is obvious by their relentless bashing of the industry and shunning its experts.
We have learned much about the Left in the past year. We have learned who they are and how they operate. The implementation of policy is a reasoned and linear process. It is like an equation whose variables cannot be assumed to be such intangibles as platitudes and emotion. It may work in the Middle East where ignorance, cruelty and cult of personality still reign supreme; where self-destruction is part and parcel with articles of faith; where martyrdom, not progeny, is seen as the link to salvation.
But it won’t work here in these United States.
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/
IMHO, I think we have C-SPAN to thank for the wonderful image we have of our elected officials. Wilson was an idiot when he pushed for "open covenants openly arrived at" in 1919. No proper work of governance can be done in the full klieg lights of public attention, be it international negotiations or national government. We wanted to know; now we know, and we hate knowing. Americans don't like to pay too much attention to politics and government, and when we are forced to do so, we punish those who compelled our attention.
Why stop there. How about Congress, the senate and the white house?