Health Care as “Proxy” for Big Government?
Just saw this on the Corner and it got me thinking. Commenting on the CNN poll showing 61% of Americans opposing the Reid health care bill in the Senate (a bill which most Democrats “admit they don’t know much about“) Lamar Alexander, Tennessee’s senior Senator said
Friday, December 11 may turn out to be a seminal day for the health-care debate. . . . The majority leader has been trying to create a sense of inevitability, but this debate is beginning to feel a lot like the 2007 immigration debate. The sense of inevitability is rapidly diminishing. Every new survey shows public support fading . . .
Health care is not the only issue at work here. . . . Health care has become a proxy for public restlessness and anger about bailouts, spending, and debt. All of these issues are tied up.
A proxy for public restlessness about big government programs. . . Hmmm. . . . Has public opinion finally jelled? Is it that now that the American people are used to having Obama as President, they don’t automatically assume his proposals represent the kind of change they were looking for in last fall’s election?
Leads me to wonder. . . Had the Democrats delayed the “stimulus,” maybe Americans would have seen it for the big government boondoggle it was? No wonder Pelosi, Reid & Co been rushing all their legislation. But, now the American people have caught up with their game and are no longer playing along.
It may not be a very merry Christmas for some Democrats if this bill continues to totter.
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It may, just may, be a very merry Christmas for the rest of us — especially if Republicans can stall the vote until after Senators go home where their constituents stand ready with bags of feathers and tar on the boil.
I now await Tano’s explanation for why the CNN poll showing 61% of Americans disapprove of Obamacare actually means that they love Obamacare and the entire fascist Democrat agenda.
Comment by American Elephant — December 12, 2009 @ 3:37 am - December 12, 2009
Speaking of Obamacare and Christmas, I think the 12 second video linked below illustrates perfectly how the Democrats see the rest of us:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiBaMPdQvLw&feature=player_embedded
I guess when you’re an evil, elitist, handmaiden of lies sitting atop a $100 million dollar San Francisco real estate fortune, it actually seems reasonable to characterize a law that forces the rest of us to invest in the Left’s vastly superior ideas for our collective well-being under threat of incarceration as a “Christmas gift.” I don’t claim to be Emily Post, but I would personally consider it rude if my neighbor stole by ATM card, drained my bank account, spent a week slung up at the Ritz Carlton in New Orleans, and then showed up at my door with a box of Cafe du Monde beignet mix and said, “Merry Fuc*in’ Christmas.” Seriously, who do these people think they are?
Comment by Sean A — December 12, 2009 @ 4:35 am - December 12, 2009
AE: You don’t have to wait for Tano. The new meme on the polls as that most of the people registering opposition are upset that the bill does not go far enough! Hahahaha.
Have you ever heard a bigger pile of yellow manure? Between this and Climategate this it turning into a Christmas to remember!
Best wishes,
-MFS
Comment by MFS — December 12, 2009 @ 8:12 am - December 12, 2009
Lamar Alexander is pretty cool.
We’re about to find out, as the
FascistsDemocrats push Porkulus II. I think the answer is in your “maybe”. I think more Americans will see through it this time, but still not enough to stop it. It will unfortunately take phase 2 of the financial crisis, the hyperinflationary depression that theFascists’Democrats’ policies are hurtling America toward as we speak, to make most people see.Comment by ILoveCapitalism — December 12, 2009 @ 8:32 am - December 12, 2009
Yes, Sean A. It’s a Christmas gift for fascism.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — December 12, 2009 @ 8:34 am - December 12, 2009
“I now await Tano’s explanation for why the CNN poll showing 61% of Americans disapprove”
I don’t know about this exact poll but here is a very smiliar poll:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/12/in-polls-much-opposition-to-health-care.html
Nate Silver does his usual excellent job breaking down the numbers.
Quote:
a significant minority of about 25 percent of the people who opposed the plan — or about 12 of the overall sample — did so from the left; they thought the plan didn’t go far enough.
Comment by gillie — December 12, 2009 @ 9:09 am - December 12, 2009
#5: “Yes, Sean A. It’s a Christmas gift for fascism.”
The gift that keeps on taking (and taking and taking…).
Comment by Sean A — December 12, 2009 @ 9:58 am - December 12, 2009
I know I haven’t been paying much attention this month, but when this bill become a suppository? BOHICA!
Comment by Jax Dancer — December 12, 2009 @ 10:20 am - December 12, 2009
“The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can’t get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.”
— H.L. Mencken
Why try to out do the master? We are divided between self responsibility and the welfare state. There is very little time left before the tipping point for state socialism is reached. We will still be a divided nation of Politburo and government agents above and away from the entitlement fed masses who can not get enough and are not allowed to go it alone.
Comment by heliotrope — December 12, 2009 @ 11:15 am - December 12, 2009
Gillie, even with all that voodoo, your buddy cannot even get split—50/50–support let alone majority support. But here’s a question for you since you like to play what if, what if the bill moved farther left to get that 12% onboard, how many of the 31% would drop off? Here’s a question that wasn’t asked, how many support reform but prefer a free-market approach? How many of the undecided do you think fall into that category? How many of the 31% do you think fall into that category but support because it’s something? Can you channel that for us? Even your buddy admits that:
Some caveats, certainly, are necessarily. Ipsos’ question wording is somewhat ambiguous. For example, among those opposed to the plan, they didn’t provide a clear way to distinguish those who support health care reform but think the plan goes too far, from those who are opposed to health care reform in general. So it doesn’t necessarily follow that the plan would have better numbers if it were more liberal (by containing a robust public option, etc.)
And it doesn’t follow that if the plan was more free-market oriented, that all of the 31% would be against it. I believe the question was targeting the current reform proposals and not any other proposal.
The only thing this shows me is that extreme Regressives are not on board with the current plan.
Comment by Steven E. Kalbach — December 12, 2009 @ 12:02 pm - December 12, 2009
Yes, Gillie, and a great many, probably a majority, of people who disapproved of President Bush thought he was not conservative enough.
The truth is that in an election year that SHOULD have been a landslide for Democrats, Obama won with a fairly small 52.7% majority. And since it was the first time Democrats have won the presidency with a majority at ALL in the past 33 years, they behaved as though they had a mandate.
The polls show they clearly dont.
The polls show Americans disapprove of Democrats ON EVERY ISSUE, and trust Republicans more ON EVERY ISSUE.
The fact is that Obama and the Democrats agenda is SO unpopular that they cant pass it even with FILIBUSTER PROOF Democrat majorities.
Comment by American Elephant — December 12, 2009 @ 4:42 pm - December 12, 2009
Re: Pelosi’s Christmas present, I’d rather a lump of coal.
Gummint has no constitutional authority to loot the economy in order to bestow a “gift” on anyone.
PS: did you guys read where some federal judge has delayed defunding ACORN saying that Congress violated ACORN’s right to due process before enacting a law that threatened to financially destroy the organization. So the judiciary usurps spending authority granted solely to Congress to decide that some “private” entity has a right to tax money. Wow. Any bets that Justice won’t lift a finger to challenge the ruling?
Comment by SoCalRobert — December 12, 2009 @ 5:20 pm - December 12, 2009