By Autumn Dawson
At Obama’s Blair House healthcare summit, the president demonstrated not only his willingness to disregard the majority opinion of U.S. citizens, but to throw his own party under the bus in the hopes of pursuing his own political agenda.
The political agenda that, according to the polls, most Americans do not want: Obamacare. And yet, in complete disregard for public opinion, and the falsehood that he was open to considering Republican ideas, Obama began the “summit” by stating that his purpose was to make the case for his healthcare bill. Surprise, surprise…
During the seven hour meeting, while Obama, Pelosi, Reid and a cacophony of liberals argued that there is no good alternative to Obama’s plan, the President’s demeanor changed quickly and often. When he wasn’t center stage (that consisted of 1/3 of the total seven hour event), or making despairingly rude comments to McClain and other Republicans, he could often be heard chattering away in the background while others were speaking.
Far from reaching a compromise, the only thing actually accomplished at the meeting was an illustration of the opposing ideologies. Obama and the Democrats insist on a government-controlled, government monopoly market for healthcare; the Republicans want a patient-controlled, free market healthcare system. But of course we couldn’t have the 17% of the economy that represents healthcare remain in private hands, now could we? It is apparently not enough that they already control the financial markets, the automakers, and working on the energy markets. Just checking, but was it not a function of government to prevent monopolies from existing in the US? Apparently that does not apply to the federal government. But I digress.
Basically, after seven hours, it came down to this: unless the Republicans sign on to his approach soon, the reconciliation mechanism will be invoked to pass the bill through the Senate by a simple majority vote. And after ignoring sound arguments from Republicans, such as Paul Ryan—who pointed out that the bill will not only increase the deficit, it fails to actually address the true issues faced by the healthcare industry—Obama revealed his true itinerary.
After wading through his glib speech, the warning was clear: Obama is prepared to sacrifice the House Democrats in order to get his bill passed. He demands their votes, even though many of the “moderate” democrats in the House will likely be voted out in November by their enraged constituents if they vote for the bill through reconciliation. It is, he seems to believe, a clever way to keep his Senate majority and still get Obamacare passed this year.
But the bottom line is that, like the numerous under-the-table deals already gone before to get this bill to pass through the Senate, the reconciliation ploy would be just another dirty trick. For the future of this independent nation, let us hope is that the House democrats refuse to answer the president’s call.