ObamaKennedyDeathCare Speech Preview And Discussion

So, the big speech is tonight.  What can we expect to hear, and what should we think about it?

First of all, it probably won't be anything new:

Just in case you hadn't already heard, President Barack Obama will deliver what the media is describing as a "make or break" health care speech tonight. But don't feel bad if you have to miss it. According to the Wall Street Journal, President Obama has already given 27 speeches entirely devoted to health care and he has mentioned the issue prominently in another 92. The American people already know what Obamacare looks like: more power to Washington, less choice for patients and doctors, trillions in new deficit spending, job killing employer mandates, and unprecedented government intrusion into every American's private life.

No wonder 44% of independents tell Gallup they would direct their Representative to vote against Obamacare (compared to only 29% of independents who would vote for it).

No matter how much the President and his liberal allies try to deny it, the American public signaled in hundreds of town hall meetings last month that they believe health care reform is headed in the wrong direction. The Obama administration may believe that the election of liberal majorities to the White House, Senate, and House meant that the American people wanted Washington to control more of our lives, but that is simply not the case.

All those speeches, and we still don't know the details of his plan?  Conservative Senator Jim DeMint is targeting just that thought, calling out Obama's previous pledge to go line-by-line through the bill for those details:

But I want to hear him defend his bill. I want him to open up the house bill that was passed and actually point to sections…and say it is in there, read it… I don't want to hear any generalities, I don't want to hear any more false promises… He needs to defend his plan and not just criticize those of us who are presenting alternatives.

He won't because he can't.  If he does get into specifics tonight, you can pretty much bet that they'll be the same old lines that Dems have been using for weeks...and getting pounded on by an informed and angry public.

One thing he is almost certain to say tonight is the much-debunked straw man that anyone who doesn't want his plan simply wants nothing to change.  That is patently untrue, and you can search back through the pages of this blog to find at least half a dozen distinct health care reform plans proposed by the GOP.  Here's another, and it's real simple:

1: Give states more freedom form federal rules to experiment with health care reforms, like medical malpractice reform and allowing people to buy health insurance across state lines. This approach worked with welfare reform.

2: Fix the tax treatment of health care in a budget neutral way so that lower-paid taxpayers get a bigger tax break for their current coverage costs or if they buy coverage outside the place of work. With this reform, you would no longer lose your health insurance when you move or lose jobs, just as you don't lose your car insurance or life insurance when this happens.

I would add a third bullet point to include tort reform, but I'll take these two as a start.

And, once again, where are all the new doctors and nurses and hospitals going to come from if we suddenly dump millions of new people into the health care system?  There is no possible way we will not experience massive new wait times for even the most routine of visits and procedures.

The speech tonight will be widely regarded by Kool-Aid drinkers as a smashing success, but don't be deceived:

Mark it down.  President Obama's "make or break" speech, as the media is portraying it, will be widely viewed as a success among the chattering class.  It will be groundbreaking, visionary, full of clarity, and a "game changer," as CNN has already labeled it.

But sit tight, that's just for a while.  Patrick Rufini had it right on Twitter last night.

Tmrw's speech will be widely praised for resetting the debate on #hcr. And then everything will go back to exactly how it was within 96 hrs

Exactly.  What Patrick realizes, that the MSM does not, is that short term gain is all the president's speech is intended to do.  If the speech was to be anything like what the media is previewing, the White House would not be making it known that Obama does not plan to offer any real specifics, and plans to be "non-committal" on the central question of the whole debate, the so-called "public option."

No, the speech is nothing more than an "operational pause," to borrow a military term of art.  The aftermath is meant to be the calm before the storm.  Next week, the real advance begins.

So as you read the headlines tomorrow, and watch the tingling commentators tonight, remember that it's all just part of the plan.  And steel yourself for the coming fight.

And a fight it will be!

One of the more toxic parts of ObamaKennedyDeathCare is that people will literally be fined if they don't carry coverage.  Right now there are around 12 million people who can afford health insurance but choose not to pay for it.  [Side note: by my calculator, that's about 4% of the public.  Obama is going to add trillions of dollars to the deficit, taking money away from some to force others onto a government-controlled health care plan, all in the name of covering just 4% who choose not to participate!]  Under Obama's plan, they'll get whacked:

Americans would be fined up to $3,800 for failing to buy health insurance under a plan that circulated in Congress on Tuesday as President Barack Obama met Democratic leaders to search for ways to salvage his health care overhaul.

$3,800!!!  This is an implicit tax on simple disagreement, if you ask me.  And what about the explicit taxes he's considering, like a new tax on soda?  Where will it stop?  Will there be a Twinkie tax?  A fast food tax?  A tax on red meat?  This certainly puts the lie to his pledge that 95% of Americans won't see a dime's worth of tax increases, doesn't it?  Seriously, though, stop and think about this...where will it stop?  Once the government has control over health care decisions and costs, they will determine everything!  They can restrict, ban, or prohibit anything that is deemed 'unhealthy' because they're footing the bill for your medical care.  They can force you into certain behaviors because they're 'good for you', and level a fine on you if you refuse.  Do you see how this will work?  This is why ObamaKennedyDeathCare must be stopped.

There will probably be talk of a trigger tonight.  Don't buy this shell game:

...liberal Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine [proposed] a "trigger" — a public option that would kick in if private insurers didn't bring down health care costs.

The trouble with the trigger gimmick is it's really a hair trigger. The other components of the bill make it next to impossible for the trigger not to be pulled and a public option thus established.

Adding tens of millions of transitorily covered people to the health care rolls without major cost-containment measures will cause medical costs to skyrocket.

So will the new rules prohibiting insurance companies from exercising discretion regarding coverage. In such an environment, it will be impossible for private insurers to control premium prices and stop the public option trigger.

The "trigger," in other words, will have already been pulled on becoming law — making the public option inevitable.

The entire premise of universal health care -- no matter if it's called 'public option', 'single-payer', 'socialized medicine', or whatever, it's all the same end result -- is to put an enormous amount of control over the literal lives of citizens into the hands of government.  I've detailed many, many horrendous stories of the failures of that kind of system around the world wreaking needless pain and death on people who would, under our current system, be treated quickly and effectively.  Do we really want to go backwards like this?

The bottom line is that someone will have to make decisions on health care, but the question is: who?  Will it be the government, or will it be the private sector (via your choices)?  Up to this point, the private sector has been doing it, and that has made something like 80-90% of Americans happy with their current health care coverage.  The American people do not want the government to take over this decision-making process.  I don't trust them on anything, much less deciding health care for me and my children...do you?

I will close this post with one final aspect of ObamaKennedyDeathCare, one that is probably one of the most volatile and personal with the public: the fact that Congress is exempting itself from whatever it forces on us:

Crappy, inferior, government-run health care for thee, but not for me:

Public anger may explain why the White House is now insisting that Congress has not exempted itself from the Public Option, most notably in [a] new "Reality Check" video on the White House web site featuring former ABC reporter Linda Douglas, who now flaks for Obama as communications director for the White House Office of Health Care Reform.

The problem is, according to The Heritage Foundation's Robert Moffitt, the White House assertion is "incorrect."

[...] Moffit points to an amendment offered by Rep. Dean Heller, R-NV, during a House Ways and Means Committee meeting just before the recess began that would have required Members to be covered by the Public Option plan if they approve it for private citizens.

Predictably, however, the Heller amendment was defeated, with all 21 committee Democrats voting against it.

If it smells like crap, looks like crap, you watched it come out of an animal's butt, and no one wants to touch it...well, it ain't a brownie.  Congress knows this ain't a brownie, and the American people know that, too.  In fact, almost 80% of Americans believe that Congress should have the same plan as the rest of us.  Thus, the anger at their self-exemption.

Once again, I believe this all comes down to how politically suicidal Obama and the Democrats are.  They've got the votes to do whatever they want if they don't care about the electoral consequences.  Obama's an ideologue, and thus completely politically suicidal.  He's all in.  Whether or not enough Congressional Democrats are there with him is another question, and the only realistic hope we have of pushing back this monstrous and fatal government intrusion into our freedom and lives.

Get informed, get involved, tell everyone you know, and make some calls to your Senators and Reps, especially if those reps are Democrat.  This is a battle for the soul of America through control of our most private and personal life decisions.  If you can't muster up a bit of fight for this one, you're already a goner.

There's my two cents.


Related Reading:
5 lies Obama will tell tonight
The audacity of refusing to be stampeded into Obamacare
Obama voted for infanticide 4 times...his nationalized health care plan will make it a policy