Most members of Congress and lobbyists are delighted that the White House has surrendered so much authority to Capitol Hill. Everybody is working on a way to push their own particular vision of reform through the muddle.
There are good plans on offer, but it won’t take long for this to get ugly. We’ll either get an irresponsible bill produced by the Old Order or no bill at all. It could be that even with a thousand “conversations,” no consensus will automatically emerge from the hundreds of players who have produced the gridlock of the past 30 years.
Even though the budget is not all one would have hoped, I’d trust the folks in the Obama administration to craft a decent health care plan before I’d trust the Congressional Old Bulls.
Obama blew a mighty trumpet Tuesday night, but after you blow the trumpet, you actually have to charge.
Surely Malcolm Wallop had David Brooks in mind when he growled that if the Democrats put forth a proposal to burn down the Capitol, the Republicans would counter with a plan to phase it in over three years.
The only way universal health care works is to ration and prioritize. Hawaii’s health care for children went broke in 7 months. An example of rationing is if you are over 75 in New Zealand you do not get dialysis, they simply let you die of renal failure. Surgery is rationed and prioritized. If you are stable but have chronic hip pain you will wait years as those with an unstable hip problems receive priority. This waiting and prioritizing care can cause problems. Stethoscope Socialism by Deroy Murdock on National Review Online lists the fact that women with breast cancer have a 46% mortality rate in England as apposed to 26% in the US.
President Obama is failing in his leadership. President Obama, in my view has the cart before the horse. He is running to achieve leftist goals with out first forming a government. There is a lack of focus on large fronts such as foreign policy and legislation while focus is spent on programs with no attention to detail. On something like his agenda for health care reform this will be disastrous.