Let Them Eat Health Care

Experience matters.  And it is painfully obvious, yet again, that the B team is running the show.  As proof we have the Obama release of an 11 page outline with pointers to the massive Senate bill, with what could be an even higher price tag, just days before the so-called bipartisan confab.  In short, Mr. Obama invited the republicans into the policy kitchen, told them they’d have an opportunity to work with him to develop a menu of options, then showed them what they are serving. 

The new menu is no different fundamentally than what members of his own party objected to previously, so why would republicans even bother showing up now?  Just because he split the difference between the House and Senate Bill and added a provision to cut waste fraud and abuse?  As the harbinger of a massive increase in waste fraud and abuse himself, this looks not unlike adding 20% more to every federal departments budget last year and then thinking a freeze on a fraction of that spending would convince us he’s a deficit hawk this year.  And funny how his 11 page outline is looking more expensive and more taxing that either of the previous bills it seeks to reform. 

Until the release, the New and Improved Judd Gregg, now with Peter Orzag crushing Kung-Fu Grip  was ready to sit down and discuss options but he wasn’t invited.  And no matter, because he’s having second thoughts about reaching any kind of compromise that addresses the more serious concerns to the right of center.  He’s once again noticed that bi-partisan actually means getting both sides of the democrat party to sit down and agree on a way to pass the bill.  And I suspect that most of the other Republicans are sensing this as well.  So the flatulent expulsion of the same old gas on ‘reform’ is clearly meant to keep republicans home. The White House wants a press opportunity.  They wanted C-SPAN to show a room with a handful of democrats, a frowning ‘I told you so” Obama, and no republicans.  But whatever you think, that’s not going to happen. 

Robert Costa over at the corner provides us with this…

 Senior House GOP aides tell National Review Online that congressional Republicans have not officially accepted the invitation to President Obama’s health-care summit. Speaking to members at a conference meeting this morning, House Republican Leader John Boehner (Ohio) said that he is still waiting on a response to a list a questions he and Rep. Eric Cantor (R., Va.) sent to the White House two weeks ago. Nevertheless, Boehner and Cantor, with or without a response, are preparing a team to go and “intend to participate.” Boehner told his colleagues that the summit is a “charade” and that “the Democrats clearly want us to boycott so they can say Republicans walked away and they have no choice but to plow ahead.” 

“We shouldn’t let the White House have a six-hour taxpayer-funded infomercial on Obamacare,” Boehner said. “We need to show up. We need to crash the party.” 

So republicans are going.  They are going whether they were invited or not.  And they are bringing the GOP plan that’s been posted online since October.  This is the plan that has been scored by the CBO, that will actually cut insurance costs, and which the White house insists does not exist, even though their web site has a link on it, to the plan.   So we can expect that it will be equally ignored when viewed in person, shot down, or declared obstructionist by the Obamacrats.  Obama’s “plan,” which cannot be scored because it does not provide the kind of details necessary to even guess at its cost, (1 trillion is the ballpark guesstimate) will be heralded as a sign of progress, and then shoved through the congress as quickly as possible.  But  given liberal math skills, that’s only a fraction of the real cost, as is the memo a fraction of the massive growth of government it represents. 

So the menu has been defined by Mr. Obama in advance, the outcome pre-determined; let them eat health care.

Comments

[Steve Mac Donald]

And the GOP hits it out of the park. And... Obama is going to cram his lousy on-sided plan down congress throat anyway just like we expected.

So.

Will The Pelosi twins vote with the leadership against the people? I'm going to say yes. They are all in on Health Scare Reform.