Feb 22 2010
Obama’s God Complex Is His Achilles’ Heel
Update: Allahpundit has some choice observations on this over at Hot Air for those interested – end update
The message coming from the electorate to the government these days is pretty simple: “stop screwing things up, get out of the way, let us create and have jobs”. It is a very libertarian mood as the country has suffered through years and years of hyper partisan bickering, brinkmanship and stalemate. What we have learned in these years is to stop following false promises of simple solutions – stop believing in DC solving problems, they mostly create them.
I think most people forget that George W Bush received huge bipartisan and centrist support for his policies. From tax cuts to the successful prescription drug benefit for seniors in Medicare (and it is a success, where the needy get their drugs and those with money pay insurance premiums for theirs) to war funding, Bush was able to garner bipartisan support (not just peal off a Democrat or two and call it bipartisan).
That is because Bush trusted the process could work given the right leadership. He had faith in the American people and their representatives in DC to work out some positive progress. He surveyed the common ground, lifted it up as the new direction and avoided the wedge aspects – and he had success.
It was the fringes left and right who were impatient with the small steady steps of pragmatic compromise. It was the fringes who want scorched-earth blowout wins. It was the fringe who complained from their far left and far right positions of superior purity that Bush was a failure.
President Obama’s first term was supposed to herald the end of all this fringe fighting, this hyper partisan zero-sum game. He campaigned as the uniter. But in reality he appears to be the last of the hyper-partisan hangover from the 1960’s and 1970’s. He refuses to see America as anything other than his sand box, for him to shape into what ever form he deems proper. His fringe superiority complex is just like all the ones you see on the far left.
Today the spinmeister-in-chief has come out with the most drastic of health care proposals yet produced in a year of drastic health care proposals from the far left:
President Obama will call for new government power to regulate insurance-rate increases as part of comprehensive changes to the health-care system that the White House will unveil on its Web site Monday, senior officials said.
The proposal — part of a package that a top official said will serve as a “starting point” for the bipartisan health summit Thursday — comes as Obama has pointed to recent rate increases as evidence that his proposed changes are necessary.
Emphasis mine. It seems the most important aspect of the liberal health care plan – ‘death panels’ – is alive and well. Recall the term ‘death panels’ refers to the process of limiting the funds available for health care, which then requires boards of government appointed health czars to determine who gets what care with the now limited funds. When funds are limited it becomes unavoidable for health care to become rationed.
The legislation would create a rate board, called the Health Insurance Rate Authority, which would broadly determine what increases are reasonable and justifiable. The seven-member board would have consumer, industry and medical representatives, as well as experts in health economics.
These ‘death panels’ use the politically correct determination of whom is worthy of care and whom is not – who is worthy of the funds. This is how it works in England, where living to a ripe old age is many times lumped in with supposedly bad behavior like smoking, drinking or becoming over weight. In England they restrict health care for these sins against the public health care budget. And people die because of this rationing.
Thus the term ‘death panels’ for those lordly superior among us who are blessed with God’s sight of who is worthy and who is not.
It is this God complex which runs through out the far left (and sometimes the far right) that makes them so insufferable and such lousy political leaders. It is this God complex which turns off the voters big time.
Government determining insurance premiums is the same as government determining what services can be offered. It is the nth attempt by the left to tell us saps what is good for us.
No longer will the negotiation be between insurer and customer (i.e. you and me). No longer will there be competition between insurers to provide the best suite of services for a reasonable price – the government will force everyone to one rate. In fact, there will no longer be insurance companies, because we all know the government will be picking winners and losers by setting premium prices that will send the private companies they don’t like out of business.
You know how Gods are when you anger them with independent thinking and all that stuff.
In announcing this latest health care farce (and job killer) President Obama is doing exactly what I outlined yesterday. He is going hyper partisan and showing a massive streak of dumbership – which is the opposite of leadership.
We don’t need to do that. After the election, WE will be running the Death Panels.
I don’t think the Left has considered that…or the fact that people are now just angry enough to USE that power.
Having looked at Obama’s proposed bill a bit, I don’t think they can get it passed. Too many taxes, more than either house will go for. But if they cut out the taxes, then they have to cut out all the extra benny’s Obama loaded in to try to get rid of the contentious parts of the bill. And if they do that the CBO scoring will fall to pieces.
They’re still at ground zero – pretending they have something that will work when in fact, they don’t have squat.
I have never in my life watched an entire political party work so hard to destroy itself as the Dems are right now.
The drug prescription benefit is a public/private plan that people can pay into for a drug discount. The government does not negotiate with the drug companies, private companies do. If you don’t want it, don’t use it.
Bush wanted Health Savings Accounts and Medicare Advantage, another private/public plan that has been very popular, even with conservatives because of its market approach. The only way Bush could get Democrats to go along with these initiatives was to support a drug prescription plan. They did not like the one Bush wanted, because it does not cover all the costs and it does not allow the government to negotiate directly with drug companies. But they went with it because they thought it was better than nothing. The Obama administration wants to get rid of this plan and replace with one that is more expensive, they also want to get rid of health savings accounts and medicare advantage.
BTW, this existing plan actually came in under budget..I do not know of any other program you can say that about.
Rite Blog Round-Up (2/22/10)…
Haven’t done one of these in a while … Josh Fulton: 75 Reasons to Be Skeptical of “Global Warming†[h/t Greg at Rhymes With Right] Roman Around: Happy Birthday, Father of our Country Stand by Liberty: A New Law Takes Affect Today Permitting Concealed…
Krauthammer and Barnes both said on Fox tonight that the Dims could probably ram it in the Senate with Reconciliation but that the votes weren’t there in the House. This suprises me. Am I to believe enough Catholics got principled because Stupak is not in there?
I figured the House would be easier. Maybe its easier to bribe 10 or so Senators with jobs for life in a healthcare bueracracy than 50 House members!
See what happens when a Brown get’s elected, he joins the Dims to SPEND, SPEND, SPEND…….
I have never in my life watched an entire political party work so hard to destroy itself as the Dems are right now.
I agree they are doing their best to destroy themselves, but the Repubs did about that much in the last 4 years under Bush. That’s how the Dims got this chance.
Redteam:
I don’t think there is any comparison between what the Democrats and Republicans. None. I do think that some purists decided to sit out the last two elections because they were miffed and in the process they helped Obama, Reid and Pelosi take over.
But remember, Bush never had a super majority, and in his last term, he did not have a majority at all. The Anchoress made an intersting point once, how do people take a good? In other words, when things go their way, how do they respond? Well, in Bush’s second term, a lot of people on the right went stupid. Oh yes, Bush was going to sell our ports to terrorists, he was telling border agents not to stop people, he was going to put a mentally retarded crony on the Supreme Court..I heard all that stuff. But it was the corruption, Foley, and the infighting that did them in, not Bush.
You know what? When the Republicans lost Congress, unemployment was 4.6%. The DOW was over 12,000 and the deficit was $162 billion. We spend that in a month now. There is a difference, a big difference.
dhunter:
Well, they only passed the other plan in the only passed by a handful of votes in the House, and they have lost some of those. No Murtha…the one Republican who voted for it, will not vote for it again, they keep losing people.
Brown needed to vote with the Dems sometimes, he did run as someone who would do that, after all, and it is Massachusetts. This jobs bill is a fairly cheap way for him to do that, and since Snowe, Collins, and Voinovich also voted for it his vote didn’t make any differece to the big picture. Remember he runs in 2 years in a heavy dem district that’s stacked against him, and it’s no good if he goes hardline and then gets bounced in 2012.
Also, this will end all the silly talk of “Brown for President” that was being casually tossed about after he won. Nobody should ever be put up for national office until they’ve had a few years on the firing line to see how they act. This is why Obama is a disaster.
Terrye,
I figured when the first HealthScare bill barely passed the House it was by design that some Dems were given the OK to vote against for political cover as long as it had enough to pass and I still believe that to be the case. Now I am confused. Maybe some ubber libs jumped ship because of no public option or maybe the Mass. election scared some Blue dogs back under the porch?
I guess we have to trust that Barnes and Krauthammer have better inside info than we at this point.