Repeal Health Care, Ha!!
The Republican initiative to repeal the health care legislation passed the House but it is just one more ill-advised, idiotic, move to hoodwink the public into an agenda that has no foundation in real need or intrinsic value to the American people. The strategic plan of the Republicans is so visible, while being devious, that any person with reasonable intelligence and objective mindset can clearly see that their objectives have nothing to do with helping people, but rather to try to discredit anything accomplished by the Democrats with the one objective of taking over power in Washington. They do this in spite of its cost to ordinary, middle class and low income, American people, short term or long term.
Their strategy was set early, before the election of Obama as President and before the passing HR 3590 "The Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act". First they carried out a monstrous PR and advertising campaign to convince the American public that the bill was terrible and something to be despised rather than embraced. This was meticulously planned and successfully executed to the extent that all the benefits and advantages to middle and low income Americans were overshadowed by ominous threats. This included "death panels", uncontrollable increases in insurance premiums, and vanishing doctors who would certainly exclude all medicare patients from their office appointments. All of which were not just exagerations, but blatant falsehoods.
That program engendered enough distrust of the Democrat agenda that the Republicans claimed a "people's mandate" to repeal the health care law, and the call for replacement of the Democratic Congress with Republicans who would do it. A mandate they fomented as a part of their strategic plan. It was all hype, no substance, but ingeniously crafted political manuvering. That was stage two of the strategy, "get the Congress". Fortunately for the American people they were only able to get half of it, The House of Representatives. There is still a body in Washington that can apply some rational and sane thinking to the health care legislation, and limit the Republican tide with the Senate under Democratic control.
Now that they have the majority in The House they can play with lip service to the Health Care Law repeal promise while manipulating the more significant agenda of recapturing the White House. This is stage three, but really it is the underlying priority that has driven the Republicans throughout the Obama term. It is astonishing that the reality of this being their #1 priority was explicitly presented to the American public by the Senate minority leader in a public address. The #1 priority of the Republicans in the Senate is not to legislate for the benefit of the American people, no, the #1 priority is to drive Obama out of office.
The Republican decision to use the Health Care legislative program as the vehicle for selling their mischieve will come home to roost, and will be their undoing. The first signs of this are already becoming evident. All the lies that discredited the law are now starting to be understood by the public as being lies. The statements of disengenuous intent to do something better in the area of health care reform are being exposed as just that, disengenuous, i.e. there is no intent to reform. There is an intent to maintain the status quo, i.e. a process that keeps the greater leverage on health care cost and service in the hands of the insurance industry.
As they scramble for the next great issue to use as a rallying call for public endorsement of their political agenda they will find that the public will be less inclined to buy the falsehoods. The old saw, "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me" is very much engrained in the voting public. Extension of the so-called "Bush tax cuts" is an example of how the Republican double talk is so egregious. It is only their arrogant thick skin that allowed them to withstand the ridiculousness of their position and place the President in a "back to the wall" situation that led to the passing of this extension in the form they demanded. But that strategy will also come back to roost on them. There will be more to come.
But what about Health Care? The chance that the "Patient Affordable and Protection Health Care Act" will be fully repealed is as close to zero that any probability estimate can ever be forecasted. The Republican agenda for Health Care reform will be simply to let the law evolve through its various stages of implementation as written. All in all that is probably not a bad outcome.
The Republican initiative to repeal the health care legislation passed the House but it is just one more ill-advised, idiotic, move to hoodwink the public into an agenda that has no foundation in real need or intrinsic value to the American people. The strategic plan of the Republicans is so visible, while being devious, that any person with reasonable intelligence and objective mindset can clearly see that their objectives have nothing to do with helping people, but rather to try to discredit anything accomplished by the Democrats with the one objective of taking over power in Washington. They do this in spite of its cost to ordinary, middle class and low income, American people, short term or long term.
Their strategy was set early, before the election of Obama as President and before the passing HR 3590 "The Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act". First they carried out a monstrous PR and advertising campaign to convince the American public that the bill was terrible and something to be despised rather than embraced. This was meticulously planned and successfully executed to the extent that all the benefits and advantages to middle and low income Americans were overshadowed by ominous threats. This included "death panels", uncontrollable increases in insurance premiums, and vanishing doctors who would certainly exclude all medicare patients from their office appointments. All of which were not just exagerations, but blatant falsehoods.
That program engendered enough distrust of the Democrat agenda that the Republicans claimed a "people's mandate" to repeal the health care law, and the call for replacement of the Democratic Congress with Republicans who would do it. A mandate they fomented as a part of their strategic plan. It was all hype, no substance, but ingeniously crafted political manuvering. That was stage two of the strategy, "get the Congress". Fortunately for the American people they were only able to get half of it, The House of Representatives. There is still a body in Washington that can apply some rational and sane thinking to the health care legislation, and limit the Republican tide with the Senate under Democratic control.
Now that they have the majority in The House they can play with lip service to the Health Care Law repeal promise while manipulating the more significant agenda of recapturing the White House. This is stage three, but really it is the underlying priority that has driven the Republicans throughout the Obama term. It is astonishing that the reality of this being their #1 priority was explicitly presented to the American public by the Senate minority leader in a public address. The #1 priority of the Republicans in the Senate is not to legislate for the benefit of the American people, no, the #1 priority is to drive Obama out of office.
The Republican decision to use the Health Care legislative program as the vehicle for selling their mischieve will come home to roost, and will be their undoing. The first signs of this are already becoming evident. All the lies that discredited the law are now starting to be understood by the public as being lies. The statements of disengenuous intent to do something better in the area of health care reform are being exposed as just that, disengenuous, i.e. there is no intent to reform. There is an intent to maintain the status quo, i.e. a process that keeps the greater leverage on health care cost and service in the hands of the insurance industry.
As they scramble for the next great issue to use as a rallying call for public endorsement of their political agenda they will find that the public will be less inclined to buy the falsehoods. The old saw, "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me" is very much engrained in the voting public. Extension of the so-called "Bush tax cuts" is an example of how the Republican double talk is so egregious. It is only their arrogant thick skin that allowed them to withstand the ridiculousness of their position and place the President in a "back to the wall" situation that led to the passing of this extension in the form they demanded. But that strategy will also come back to roost on them. There will be more to come.
But what about Health Care? The chance that the "Patient Affordable and Protection Health Care Act" will be fully repealed is as close to zero that any probability estimate can ever be forecasted. The Republican agenda for Health Care reform will be simply to let the law evolve through its various stages of implementation as written. All in all that is probably not a bad outcome.
posted by Joe | 8:30 AM
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