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OPINION Page 2
States Show How Not To Fix Health Care Since the debate over the government takeover of medical care exploded onto the national stage, advocates of market-based, patient-centered reforms have pointed to the failed government health care systems of Canada and the U.K. as examples of what America should not replicate. And rightfully so. Democrat proposals have duplicated many components of these systems, creating frighteningly similar base lines here to these unsuccessful foreign models of "universal" coverage. Time to Act Like a President Sooner or later it is going to occur to Barack Obama that he is the president of the United States. As of yet, though, he does not act that way, appearing promiscuously on television and granting interviews like the presidential candidate he no longer is. The election has been held, but the campaign goes on and on. The candidate has yet to become commander in chief. Take last week's Group of 20 meeting in Pittsburgh. There, the candidate-in-full commandeered the television networks and the leaders of Britain and France to give the Iranians a dramatic warning. Harry situation: What if Reid loses? It’s a question few in the Senate will ask aloud but one that’s creeping into the chamber’s collective consciousness: What happens to Democrats if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid really does get knocked off in the 2010 midterm elections? Most of his fellow Democrats believe the Nevadan will pull out a win, avoiding the humiliation of ousted Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota in 2004. But privately, they’re looking ahead with some trepidation, imagining a Reid-less Senate that could be more chaotic and even more partisan than it is today. Are We Witnessing the Collapse of Liberalism? Less than a year into his presidency, Barack Obama's world grows bleaker. Liberalism's world is bleaker. At home and abroad, liberalism, as advanced by the President, is failing. Are we witnessing the beginnings of another historic event, loosely comparable to the fall of communism twenty years ago? Now the fall of liberalism? Remember, at the beginning of the 1980s, no one would have predicted that by the decade's close the Berlin Wall would fall, communism would be discredited and the Soviet Union would be less than a couple of years away from dissolution. Obama the impotent Much hope has been invested in Barack Obama's ability to strike a new course for the US following eight years of Bush administration unpopularity. Yet many in the US and abroad are impatient with the pace of progress under the Obama administration. The president made the rounds on five news talkshows on Sunday as he pressed his policies and vision, preparing for what is likely to be a difficult week. Does He Lie? You lie? No. Barack Obama doesn't lie. He's too subtle for that. He ... well, you judge. Herewith three examples within a single speech -- the now-famous Obama-Wilson "you lie" address to Congress on health care -- of Obama's relationship with truth. (1) "I will not sign (a plan)," he solemnly pledged, "if it adds one dime to the deficit, now or in the future. Period." Obama's Dissolving Credibility Remember Barack Obama's famous speech on race, back in March of 2008? Obama had spent 20 years listening to the sermons of Jeremiah Wright, full of venomous anti-Americanism and attacks on "white America." Yet when the reverend's rants were revealed to the public, Obama tried to convince us that he just happened to be missing from the pews on any well-documented Sunday, and that the Jeremiah Wright we saw and heard was not the Jeremiah Wright he knew. Democrats losing seniors Nowhere is the fallout from Obama’s healthcare proposals more evident than among the elderly, and nothing is more dangerous permanently for the Democratic Party than their increasing disaffection. A Wall Street Journal poll taken last week reflects a gain by Republicans in party identification, closing the gap from 40-33 in April in favor of the Democrats to a Democratic margin of only 35-34. The data reflects that one-third of this six-point closure of the partisan gap comes from a major shift among the elderly — the only demographic group to have moved dramatically. How To Answer Obama's Plea on Health Care What is the President likely to say in his big speech to Congress on health care and how should Republicans respond to him? First, its easy to anticipate the theme and tone of President Obamas remarks. He will call for a new spirit of unity and bipartisanship (just as he did in the campaign) and lament the bitterness and divisions roiling the nation when all agree on general goals for health care reform: insuring the uninsured, while making insurance more secure and affordable for those who already have it. The Bigger the Government, the Smaller the Citizen Those of us who oppose a massive increase in the role the national government plays in health care ("ObamaCare") do so because we fear the immense and unsustainable national debt it would incur and because we are certain that medical care in America would deteriorate. But there is a bigger reason most of us oppose it: We believe that the bigger the government becomes, the smaller the individual citizen becomes. Here are five reasons why bigger government makes less impressive people. Enough is enough, Harry: Stop the childish bullying This newspaper traces its roots to before Las Vegas was Las Vegas. We've seen cattle ranches give way to railroads. We chronicled the construction of Hoover Dam. We reported on the first day of legalized gambling. The first hospital. The first school. The first church. We survived the mob, Howard Hughes, the Great Depression, several recessions, two world wars, dozens of news competitors and any number of two-bit politicians who couldn't stand scrutiny, much less criticism. EDITORIAL: Health care run by trial lawyers Political power, rather than substance, is at the heart of the Democrats' proposed health care legislation. Admission of that power-politics reality was the most significant occurrence in a very odd town-hall meeting Tuesday night held by Virginia Democratic Rep. James P. Moran. It is now clearer than ever that plaintiffs' lawyers collectively are the political powerhouse running the health care show. If Obamacare’s So Great, Why Do Dems Have to Lie About It? As President Obama continues to push for Obamacare under the guise that it’s a “necessary” reform, and the spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) talks about getting it passed “by any legislative means necessary,” one question remains unanswered: If Obamacare’s so great, why do Democrats have to lie about it? Time and again when congressional town hall meetings have erupted in protests against universal health care, Obama has offered up press releases assuring the public that Obamacare is not about universal health care. He’s even gone as far as to say he doesn’t support universal health care, otherwise known as “a single payer system.” The Spending Sickness Makes for Unhealthy Reform Government at all levels now eats up twice the share of the national economy it consumed 60 years ago. Are the government services you receive twice as valuable? That challenge should become the key question in the ongoing battle over Obamacare. Given the obvious tendency of government to spend more and more with no discernable benefit to the public, why should anyone expect a better result from a huge expansion of the federal role in medical care? Opinion Pages: 1 2 |
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