Dems’ health care spinning driving themselves into the ground

On Saturday and Sunday, the Obama Adminstration was backing away from a “public option”.  By Tuesday, they were in full-scale retreat.

Fortunately, the Administration is probably in a no-win situation.  With a public option, they likely cannot get a bill out of the Senate.  Without one, it’s appearing less likely they’ll get one through the House.  Bloomberg news reported on Wednesday that the 83-member Congressional Progressive Caucus (functionally the American Socialist Party) has said they will not vote for a bill that does not include a government-run health care plan. One caveat: If the Democrats are bold (and stupid) enough to try to pass health care “reform” through a budget reconciliation process that requires on 51 votes and can not be filibustered, there’s a chance they could get it done, though even that is not assured as quite a few Democrats would probably object not only to the “public option” but also to changing the Senate’s rules (or at least its traditions) to pass a bill that otherwise would not be passed.  If they go down this road, 2010 could make 1994 look like a good outcome for the Democratic Party.

The unions are demanding payback for their investment in Democrats. That payback is not just in the form of trying to get card check passed.  Socialized medicine would be the biggest-ever windfall for unions as it will relieve them of much of their retiree health care costs – costs for which unions have either saved big war chests or for which corporations still owe unions money.  In the GM bailout, the UAW got $20 billion, most of which is for retiree health care costs.  If those costs go away or even are substantially diminished by using taxpayer subsidies, the unions will have new multi-million or multi-billion dollar slush funds with which to buy supportive politicians who will then, in a vicious circle representing the destruction of our Republic, pass more pro-union legislation.

If you think that’s unlikely, don’t forget the already-proposed provision of a health care tax bill which would exempt union members from paying taxes on health care benefits that non-members would have to pay on exactly the same health benefit.

But the unions stand to gain even more than that from the “public plan” because any system in which the government has substantial control over doctors and hospitals will be one which the government then tries to force to unionize. Doctors, nurses, technicians all will be pushed, some harder than others, to join unions with their dues payments going, whether they like it or not, to support the very same politicians who will have destroyed their ability to run their businesses as free citizens rather than as serfs.

This health care debate is only partly about socialist ideology, which clearly dominates the Democratic leadership and much of their Congressional delegation. It’s even more about political power, trying to get the Democrats to the “permanent majority” that only a few years ago was arrogantly being spoken of by Karl Rove and other Republicans.

In addition to trying to benefit unions at the expense of taxpayers, the Democrats’ strategery is to get as many Americans as possible dependent on government.  Already, something on the order of 40% of Americans are “negative taxpayers”, meaning they collect more from the government than they pay in taxes.  If the Democrats can get many millions more into a government health-care plan, they will have a majority of Americans living, at least in part, off the work of others.  And people who live off the work of others support politicians who offer to give them even more.  And those politicians are Democrats.

While a beggar-they-neighbor mentality is unAmerican, it’s not easy to get people to vote to give up a handout. And that’s the Democrats’ goal with “single payer.”  When the government has forced most private insurers out of business, they will have tens of millions of voters whom they believe will now lean toward voting Democrat out of fear that the GOP might raise their health care costs by supporting capitalism.  The Democrats trust, probably rightly, that once someone is getting health insurance for $100/month less than before, that someone won’t vote to increase his own costs even if the lower costs come from the government taking money from someone else to subsidize him or even if those policies decrease citizens’ chances of getting a job or a raise.

This is why it’s absolutely critical that the public option not be passed.  It will be much more difficult than the average government program to repeal.  And the average government program is essentially impossible to repeal.

The good news is that the public is rapidly turning against Democrats’ government takeover of health care – apparently even if there is no “public option” in it. (And don’t be fooled, the “co-op” plan is simply “public option lite.”

According to the latest Rasmussen Poll, “Just 34% of voters nationwide support the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats if the so-called ‘public option’ is removed.” More details in the poll show the Administration’s conundrum: “Without the public option, just 50% of Democrats support the legislation. That’s down from 69% support measured a week ago. But here the enthusiasm gap is especially strong. A week ago, polling found that 44% of Democrats Strongly favored the reform plan. Without the public option, just 12% of Democrats Strongly support it.”

Polls by more liberal organizations are also trending against ObamaCare: An NBC poll released Tuesday shows 47% opposing a public plan, 4% more than those who support it, representing a 6% shift away from the plan in the last month. Gallup continues to show more people disapproving of Obama’s job performance on the health care issue than approving. At InTrade.com, Political bettors are giving a “public option” about a 1/3 chance of passing, after trading as high as 45% earlier this month and as low as 14% on Monday after the Administration’s brief weekend backpedaling. And in a particularly ominous sign for ObamaCare and for Democratic electoral prospects in general, it is being reported that “About 60,000 seniors have quit AARP since July 1 due to the group’s support for health care reform, a spokesman for the organization said this week.”

Obama will anger his left-wing base and House leadership if health care reform does not have a government plan.  And it will anger everyone else if it does.

The longer the debate continues, the lower the chances of any significant bill passing during this Congress.  And although the system is badly in need of pro-free market, pro-competition reforms, doing nothing is certainly better than implementing almost any of the Democrats’ pro-big-government plans.  If we get past Thanksgiving with no bill passed, there probably will be no bill passed, especially if Republicans win decisive victories in the off-year governors races in New Jersey and Virginia – both of which currently show the Republican with a double-digit lead.

One thing which conservatives and libertarians – and anyone who wants a high-quality health care system in this nation – need to be aware of and fight against is Republican politicians attempting to be “bipartisan”, to work out a “compromise” with the Democrat in the spirit of “getting something done.” Just as it was not possible to compromise with Napoleon or Hitler, it is not possible to compromise with Barack Obama or Nancy Pelosi.  Any compromise will be taken by them as a victorious first step toward their ultimate goal of government control of…just about everything.

Republicans need to tell Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Mike Enzi (R-WY) and even (unfortunately) the Heritage Foundation that it’s OK to be the “Party of ‘No’” when saying “yes” to even a subset of the opposition’s legislation is selling the American people down the river. As a wise Colorado State Senator said to me recently, “I don’t waste time trying to make bad bills better. At the end of the day, they’re still bad.”