PrintNovember 5, 2009
A real plan
There are so many problems with the current Democratic "health care reform" bills that it's hard to know where to begin. These plans can be summed up in one run on sentence:
The current crop of Democrat-proposed health care bills all share the worst aspects of committee design while not solving any problem and hurting everyone.
The lack of any sort of executive branch leadership is astounding. The executive branch has simply passed all of its leadership responsibilities on to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. It appears that the President believes that it is his job to read the teleprompter in support of what Nancy and Harry do. We don't have an executive branch, we have an official cheerleader for the farthest left elements of the Democratic party. Welcome to change you can believe in.
The Republicans have come forward with an alternative plan and it was just scored by the Congressional Budget Office. The Republican plan can be summed up in a very short sentence:
"A plan that does what it says it will do".
According to the CBO the plan cuts the deficit, lowers health care costs, and more people would be able to afford coverage. Instead of two thousand plus pages of gibberish that increases the deficit, increases taxes, increases government, and increases health care costs the Republicans have come up with a plan that reduces government, reduces costs, and reduces deficits. Finally some leadership coming out of Washington. It only took getting clobbered to get a group of folks to figure out that they work for the people, not the other way around.
If Obama was smart, he would publicly dump the current Pelosi/Reid nightmare and adopt the Republican plan. Doing so will do three things for the President.
1. Deliver on his promise to reach across the aisle
2. Deliver on his promise to improve healthcare in this country
3. Actually show that he has some leadership ability.
Obama might want to remember how Clinton survived to get to a second term. Clinton co-opted welfare reform and got credit by signing a lot of what the Gringrich led Congress provided him. That is the only reason Clinton won a second term.
If Obama follows true to form then expect a distraction about Fox News not being a news organization coupled with lots of speeches filled with bogus numbers about how good the Democrat's plan is. This is the pattern that has emerged from the Obama White House, distractions coupled with great oratory (as long as the teleprompter is working).
If Obama wants to have a second term he better start leading and if he wants an example he can look at the Republican plan for health care reform.
