“The proposal to televise the Feb. 25 health care summit with Republicans followed the conclusion by top White House aides that Obama defeated GOP leaders in the House during a 90-minute televised discussion in Baltimore last month,” it says. Washington Post.”
We thought ObamaCare was dead with the election of Scott Brown, so why are Republicans even discussing it? The American people have won victory over this key pillar of Obama’s socialist agenda. Now, frail and unprincipled Republicans, as they have done so many times in the past, can step in to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Only when it became abundantly clear that ObamaCare would never be passed, after Massachusetts voters announced its death, did Barack Obama ask for change, a mulligan, in the form of a supposedly “bipartisan” televised health care summit.
Bipartisan? Nonsense. It doesn’t take a MENSA IQ to figure out that Barack Obama didn’t call this meeting to hear Republican ideas. As Rush Limbaugh said, it’s a “trap” and an attempt to paint Republicans as the “Party of No” and lay the groundwork for bringing ObamaCare back from the dead.
This is why the obvious answer to Obama’s request for a televised health care summit should elicit an immediate and emphatic “no,” but apparently it’s not so obvious to some of our Republican legislators because they’re falling into the trap.
Someone has to save these Republicans from themselves. The New York Times called the televised health care summit “a high-profile move that will allow Americans to watch Democrats and Republicans try to break their political gridlock.”
Political impasse? Give me a break. There is no deadlock. Americans don’t want government health care, and Barack Obama and the Democrats don’t have enough votes to pass it. It should be dead.
So why do we continue the debate? And why do Republicans allow this, enable this. Republicans have absolutely nothing to gain from this meeting.
Obama will apply this opportunity, with a little support from his spin doctors at CBS, MSNBC, ABC and CNN, to make Republicans look bad and/or Republicans actually offer concessions and put ObamaCare back on the table. Both of these outcomes are lose-lose propositions for the American people.
Here’s what Republicans should say: With all due respect, Mr. President, the American people have already made their verdict on ObamaCare. Further discussion would be pointless, fruitless, and an insult to the people who elected us all to public office.
Moreover, Mr. President, we need not remind you that members of your party literally excluded Republicans from the process, wrote the House and Senate version of ObamaCare in closed-door meetings with liberal interest groups, and against the will of the American people, pulled out every legislative shenanigans described in book to shove ObamaCare down our throats. Therefore, your offer of bipartisanship after defeat is ridiculous.
We will not be puppets of your little political theater. If you are really grave about reforming the health care system, meet with members of your party and tell them to start putting forward some ideas that will actually make health care more affordable and more accessible to Americans, such as tort reform and authorization companies sell health insurance across state lines. We will support these activities.
If members of your party don’t want to go down this path, you can still work with us to advance real health care reform. We’ll just agree to wait until November, when Republicans regain the majority, and put real health care reform legislation on your desk.
That’s what they should have said. Will they have the courage? All readings look bad.
Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren asked House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio if he planned to attend the Obama health summit. Boehner tap danced. He never answered the question.
And yet he admitted that the whole exercise was idiotic. At one point he admitted to asking the question: “Why are we going to talk about a bill that cannot be adopted?” He also expressed reservations that he might “fall into some kind of trap.”
Indeed, Congressman Boehner, this televised health care summit is a “trap” and a fraud designed to make you and the rest of Republicans look bad. If you’re falling into this trap of “talking about a bill that can’t be passed,” why fall into it?
Moreover, why take the chance that your efforts might actually revive ObamaCare and give Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid the opportunity to start the whole sullied process over again? Americans are fed up with secret meetings, backroom deals, legislative intrigue, and repeated attempts to shove ObamaCare down the throats of the American people.
