Who Lost Healthcare?

What do Harlem Globetrotters basketball, professional wrestling and American politics all have in common? They are FAKES.  

Oh, the consequences are real enough and can be catastrophic. And, the players are not fakes; some are marvelous performers and others are fine athletes (was there ever a better ball handler than Meadowlark Lemon or a political bone crusher better at the political Hammerlock and the High Crotch Takedown than Nancy Pelosi?); it is the contest that is fake; it is choreographed violence, cliffhanging drama; a blood sport with real blood carefully let that titillates a gullible audience. Although professional wrestlers appear to be bitter foes inside the ring, outside the ropes they are drinking buddies, just like U.S. Senators. Wrestling matches, like congressional debates, are carefully choreographed and the punches, gouges and kicks are pulled or exaggerated for effect. The blood in the ring is real enough—wrestlers frequently use a small razor to 'blade' (cut themselves) to draw blood—which completes the illusion and makes the match more exhilarating and dramatic for the fans.

The sad thing is, most conservatives actually think American politics is a real contest between different visions and alternative practical courses for America. Au contraire. Politics in America today is between two Establishment political parties that need each other as foils—gotta’ have that “bad guy”—egged on by the mouth-radio carnies. The dirty little secret is most of the participants fundamentally agree on the need or the practical necessity of perpetuating and growing the welfare/warfare state. They differ only in degree, not kind.

The proof of this assertion is unambiguously clear: Government in the United States continues relentlessly to get bigger, more intrusive and oppressive no matter which political party is in control, no matter for how long. Yes, each party proceeds at a different pace and by different routes but they all herd us to the same destination nonetheless, confirming Thomas Jefferson’s observation that, “The natural tendency of things is for government to gain ground and for liberty to yield.”

American politics is theatre; played by naifs and idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. So, whenever I hear a conservative politician protest in high dudgeon when their conviction and dedication to reducing the size of government is questioned, a little Groucho Marx voice in the back of my head whispers, “What are you going to believe; your own two eyes or what they tell you?” As for me, I’ve decided to believe my own two eyes.

The pattern is clear enough to anyone who uses his own two eyes. When Republicans are in control, they boil Americans’ freedoms away one degree at a time (e.g., read McCain’s old healthcare reform plan, or remember McCain/Feingold, which even the Supreme Court found constitutionally repulsive). When Democrats retake control, they turn up the burner and proceed to a rapid fry until so many little froggies have jumped out of the pan they scurry off to the polls and restore Republicans to power, proclaiming them champions of limited government and freedom. Back to slow cookin’. . . and all America’s chumps say “Amen.”

The so-called “conservative” party—The GOP—has mastered its own political rendition of the late Michael Jackson’s Moonwalk—appearing to walk in one direction while actually perambulating in exactly the opposite direction. And, when they accompany their stroll with singing of freedom, accompanied by waving flags and blaring patriotic music, the paying audience gets an adrenalin rush that makes them think George Washington himself has returned from the grave.

I dubbed W “George MoonWalker Bush” the minute he stepped onto the stage—most of my conservative friends were not amused—and to this day most conservatives still don’t understand that he walked America further into government oppression and deeper into the mire of government control and brutality than any president since Franklin D. Roosevelt. There is no greater domestic monument to this bi-partisan welfarism than the Medicare prescription drugs entitlement program foisted on the American people by George W. Bush and the Republican Congress—an unsustainable entitlement that laid the foundation for the complete government takeover of healthcare that passed the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday.

The joke is on those Americans who actually believe a restoration of limited government, individual freedom and personal liberty are the objectives of either political party. The poor saps have spent their entire lives paying the full price of admission to cheer on the Washington Generals. How pathetic is that? Pitiful.

So, when the history of the government takeover of healthcare is written and the question asked, “Who lost healthcare?” the answer will be unambiguous: “Republicans, who failed to take a political risk and refused to employ every parliamentary device at their disposal to stop ObamaCare from being enacted into law.”

The White House and the Democratic Congress lost the Mandate of Heaven on healthcare when they concocted two versions of healthcare reform the people rejected, overwhelmingly. Congressional Republicans had the opportunity to kill ObamaCare for good this year by insisting that having lost the Mandate of the People on healthcare, Congress should put all health legislation the shelf until after the November elections, not to be brought back until the 112th Congress convenes next year. Instead, Republicans lacked the courage to pin ObamaCare to the canvass. Republicans restored Obama’s mandate on healthcare and now ask to be rewarded at the polls to reverse the consequences their blunder created. One is reminded of the child who murders his parents and throws himself on the mercy of the court as an orphan.

When the question is asked, “What was the turning point when the struggle was lost to prevent the White House and a radical-liberal Democratic majority in the Congress from flouting the will of the people and taking over healthcare?” the answer will be, “The bipartisan Blair House Healthcare Summit on February 25, 2010.”

When the question is posed, “What could a Republican minority have done to defeat ObamaCare?” the answer will be unambiguous: “Obstruct, hamper, impede, block and, if necessary, shut down the U.S. Senate until the Democrats agreed to MOVE ON—move off healthcare for the rest of the year and allow the people to restore the congressional mandate through an election.”

As I chronicled in earlier blogs (here and here), ObamaCare was dead until Republicans helped revive it. It is worth repeating at length what I wrote last week:

“Scott Brown’s election to Senator Ted Kennedy’s U.S. Senate seat was a stake through the heart of ObamaCare. It was dead as a doornail until Republicans pulled the stake out and revived the president’s healthcare monster by traipsing to the White House and breathing life back into the corpse. Before that strategic blunder, Republicans persuasively could have insisted that this Congress had lost the Mandate of Heaven on healthcare and demanded that healthcare reform be put on the shelf until after the November elections and stay there at least until the 112th Congress convenes next year.

“Like a Maestro, though, President Obama played on Republicans’ insecurity and vanity when he challenged them to a game of chicken on Pennsylvania Ave. Republicans couldn’t resist the bait. Before the president’s healthcare summit, the president was a looser on healthcare but he played the game like a winner. Rather than ignoring the looser president’s challenge, Republicans fell for his taunt. Like a pack of self-absorbed lap dogs pretending to be pit bulls—a few Republicans did bare their canines during the Blair House Resurrection but it was all growl and no bite—Republican Members of Congress snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by legitimizing the continuation of the healthcare agony congressional Democrats and the president had inflicted on the country for more than a year.

“Once Republicans laid hands on the rotting corpse of ObamaCare at the February summit, it quickened back to life. By rejuvenating ObamaCare, Republicans allowed this discredited Congress to claim it had miraculously regained the Mandate of Heaven. It had not, and the people know it. But, Republicans are listening to the bluster and bravado of their Democratic colleagues and the President rather than the outrage of the American people. A mere 38 percent of polled Americans approve of ObamaCare. This Congress lacks the legitimacy to legislate on healthcare, and its legitimacy can only be revived through a restoration of its mandate at the polls in November.”

Even the White House recognizes that Obama was a healthcare loser until the hapless Republicans gratuitously stepped into the Blair-House Ring and gave him a rematch. As recounted in the New York Times:

“Some White House allies say the session proved critical in putting health care back on the national agenda. ‘When the history of this is written, it will be looked at as both a turning point and a brilliant idea,’ said Chip Kahn, who as president of the Federation of American Hospitals has been one of the administration’s main supporters.

“The event enabled Mr. Obama to claim the high ground on bipartisanship; after the Brown victory, he needed to be seen as reaching out to the other side. He also wanted to force Republicans to put their ideas on the table, so that the public would see the debate as a choice between two ways to attack a pressing problem, not just a referendum on what Republicans derisively called ‘ObamaCare.’

“The meeting also gave the Democratic leadership the gift of time.”

President Obama and Speaker Pelosi did not waste the GOP’s gift. Republicans went to Blair House to bait the Obama bear, and the Obama bear under the tutelage of his handler Nancy Pelosi decapitated them with one swoop of his claws.

So, what is to be done now? ObamaCare will become the law of the land. In the regular course of events—and the process seems right in cycle at this point—angry conservatives will ignore the fact that Republicans abandoned them at the critical moment, put career above country and failed to take a risk to kill ObamaCare. Conservatives, irate at the Democrats, will make heroes of Republicans for fighting the good fight rhetorically and overlook their unwillingness to act. They will flock to the polls and throw lots of Democrats out of office. Republicans will claim a mandate—but a mandate to do what, slow the boil?

After conservatives—especially baby boomers and seniors who stand to lose the most from ObamaCare—take out their ire against Democrats at the polls, then what? The catharsis will feel good but what good will it do to increase the retirement security and prosperity of America’s mature population? Expecting politicians to fix the problem they created is delusional.

The real question is, what can seniors do for themselves when ObamaCare begins to limit hospital stays and restrict hospital readmissions, when medical care begins to dry up under extortionate regulations imposed on doctors? What can seniors do to protect themselves against a new bureaucratic Behemoth that will put seniors out in the cold and into an early grave? Turn to AARP, Obama’s handmaiden in decimating Medicare without reforming it in order to feather its own corporate nest?

ObamaCare and Republicans’ sorry performance in protecting America against out-of-control government should be a wake-up call to America’s mature population. You are on your own. AARP does not work for you. The government and politicians of both political parties are not part of the solution; they are all part of the problem.

It’s all showbiz but unfortunately, the horror doesn’t disappear when the curtain to the voting booth falls.

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