No Runny Eggs

I don’t believe I can do a better job than Charles Krauthammer explaining the failure of PlaceboCare. I’ll “borrow” the part where Krauthammer explains why the sum is worse than the parts:

Allow me to demystify. Imagine a bill granting every American a free federally delivered ice cream every Sunday morning. Provision 2: steak on Monday, also home delivered. Provision 3: A dozen red roses every Tuesday. You get the idea. Would each individual provision be popular in the polls? Of course.

However (life is a vale of howevers) suppose these provisions were bundled into a bill that also spelled out how the goodies are to be paid for and managed — say, half a trillion dollars in new taxes, half a trillion in Medicare cuts (cuts not to keep Medicare solvent but to pay for the ice cream, steak and flowers), 118 new boards and commissions to administer the bounty-giving, and government regulation dictating, for example, how your steak was to be cooked. How do you think this would poll?

Perhaps something like 3-1 against, which is what the latest CNN poll shows is the citizenry’s feeling about the current Democratic health care bills.

However, I do disagree that the body blow was how to pay for it. The Senate had before it, at a point when they needed absolutely no Republican support and no need for what Michelle Malkin has aptly called “Wreconciliation”, a bill that did everything the Left has ever wanted out of PlaceboCare but one “minor” detail – full federal funding for and a mandate on private insurance to provide abortion-on-demand. In order to get that into PlaceboCare, they sacrificed the official public “option” (with no real change in the cost), shifted a big part of the payment of the costs from “the rich” to businesses deemed to be too generous with their health-care plans, and threw in so much bribery that the House initially blanched at taking it up.

If you hear the word “jihad,” what comes to mind?  Outside of an immediate thought of “Islam,” how about one of this: 

A crusade or struggle characterized by the participants willingness to sacrifice their own lives for the benefit of said crusade or struggle.

It’s now apparent that the Democrat leadership of President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry, dancing on another 36,000 job deaths, Reid, have decided to do anything and everything they can to pass Placebocare.  Which version or what is actually contained in Placebocare doesn’t even matter to them anymore.  They will enact any version or combination of the government takeover of health care that they can find enough votes or contrivance of procedures to get it passed. 

The vehicle that is getting the most focus for enacting Placebocare is via reconciliation.  For the life of me I can’t figure out how they use reconciliation as there isn’t a bill that both Houses are working on.  In my mind, the only way to get Placebocare passed, as things stand today, is to convince the House to pass the Senate bill just as it stands.

Whether the Democrats attempt reconciliation, pass the Senate bill or use some other mechanism, the implications on their November prospects are the same; Horrible!  Note the following quotes and polls:

“What the President is really asking House Democrats to do is hold hands, jump off a cliff and hope Harry Reid catches them,” Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Republican Conference said.  “And, Harry Reid will have no incentive to catch them because by the time he gets to the reconciliation bill, the President will have already signed the health care bill into law.”

“It was another emphatic denunciation by [Democratic Rep. Stephanie] Herseth Sandlin of the reconciliation process, a controversial technique allowing Democratic leadership in the Senate to bypass an otherwise required 60-vote super majority. And it also was a clear rejection of the Senate version of health-care reform, approved when Democrats still had the 60 votes needed for a super majority.” (Kevin Woster, “Herseth Sandlin says no to Senate health bill, reconciliation,” Rapid City Journal, 03/04/10)

“House Democrats have said they don’t trust the Senate to actto make changes to the Senate bill, which the House would likely have to pass before they’re able to take up a new bill to make changes to that original legislation.” (Michael O’Brien, “Stabenow: House and Dems hammering out final health bill details,” The Hill, 03/04/10)

 “… 48 percent saying lawmakers should work on an entirely new bill and a quarter saying Congress should stop all work on health care reform.” (Paul Steinhauser, “CNN Poll: Health care provisions popular but overall bills unpopular,” CNN, 02/24/10)

Even Howard Dean, no shrinking violet when it comes to larger government and bureaucratic controls, recognizes that budget gimmickry of Placebocare will cause the Democrats pain not only in 2010 but also in the 2012 election:

“The plan, as it comes from the Senate, hangs out every Democrat who’s running for office to dry — including the president, in 2012, because it makes him defend a plan that isn’t in effect essentially yet,” Dean said during an appearance on the liberal Bill Press Radio Show.

With the heated, negative perception of Placebocare, even amongst the Democrats themselves, a reasonable question would be, “Why, if the results are surely political death, would Obama, Pelosi and Reid push for the passage of Placebocare?”  The answer is very straight forward; the Democrat leadership is perfectly willing to commit political suicide for themselves and all those around them, if they are able to move their crusade forward.  Obama, Pelosi and Reid are American jihadists.

If you believe that my use of the term “jihadist” is nothing but hyperbole, you haven’t been paying attention.  Look at the words of Nancy Pelosi.  Numerous publications including the WSJ, have reported Pelosi telling members of her caucus that she is willing to lose seats if they can pass Placebocare.  More to the point, were the Democrats to lose the number of seats that they are now estimated to lose, Pelosi herself would certainly lose the Speaker position.

One of the confounding challenges of combating Islamic jihadists is that they don’t fear their own death.  In fact, Islamic jihadists are told that they will garner a great reward in the afterlife if they sacrifice their physical bodies.  In like manner, the Democrats are willing to sacrifice their political lives to ensure the securing a key victory in their crusade.  President Obama and Nancy Pelosi have been working hard to ensure the House jihadists that they too will receive great rewards should they lose their political life.

In the end, whether Placebocare succeeds or fails in the House will depend on one thing; will the House members choose the life they know or will they choose the rewards promised them in their political afterlife?