Posted on 08/14/2009 5:31:33 AM PDT by SJackson
All across the country, Americans alarmed by the Obama administration’s proposed overhaul of health care have been coming together to vent their concerns in town-hall meetings and protests. Some are worried about the possible effects of ObamaCare on health care services, the cost of insurance, and the recovery of the economy; others are troubled by the intrusion of government into their lives. Given his background, one might expect President Obama to take seriously this vigorous grassroots reaction to his policies. Instead, aided by Congressional Democrats, the White House has taken to painting this mass outpouring of civic discontent as a fringe phenomenon – driven by extremists, un-American in its aims, and requiring careful monitoring so that any “fishy” concerns and criticisms about the administration’s health care plans are reported to the proper (read: government) channels. The town-hall critics won’t be so easily silenced. One of the primary reasons so many have flocked to these meetings concerns the cost of the reforms that the administration seeks. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the cost of the Senate’s proposed health care bill at $1 trillion. With a price tag of that size, many are concerned about its potential to increase the ever-growing budget deficit, which the Obama administration itself says will approach $1.84 trillion by 2010. A deficit that big, many worry, could have dire ramifications for the economy. On the minds of many, too, is the possibility that the administration will raise taxes on the middle class – even as it has denied all intentions of doing so. But the arithmetic of health care reform only serves to bolster suspicions of a looming tax hike. In order to pay for the plan, the government must raise $544 billion in taxes, which will supposedly come from those making $250,000 per year or more. But given that consumer spending still has yet to rebound, and that personal incomes are still falling, it’s hard to see how instituting $544 billion in new taxes will benefit the economy. And if the rich don’t generate the required revenue, the middle class will likely be forced to pick up the tab. Cost is just one of the contentious questions surrounding ObamaCare. Others are concerned about the government intruding into their health care. The administration boasts that they are simply creating a government-sponsored health care plan that would compete with private insurers. But this presents many problems for the private insurers with which the government intends to compete. According to Texas Republican Congressman Lamar Smith, who wrote in the Christian Science Monitor: Obama's claim that "if you like your healthcare plan, you can keep your healthcare plan" rings hollow. Government intervention in private markets has consequences. A public option wouldn't "level the playing field" – it would destroy it. After all, a government plan can afford to lose money indefinitely. Private plans don't have that luxury. Unable to match the government's market manipulation, they'd soon fold. Employers would drop private insurance, thereby decreasing choice and moving the country toward a single-payer system. Without private insurers making up the difference, government-controlled prices would reduce the supply of healthcare services and lead to further rationing. Many are also concerned about so-called “death panels” in which a government bureaucrat could be placed in a position to determine if it would cost too much money to keep someone alive. While there is certainly some hysteria about this fear, the fact is that the government does intend to play a role during end-of-life scenarios. If some version of ObamaCare is passed, doctors may be given an incentive to go over end-of-life counseling with patients; to receive these funds, a doctor must adhere to a government-enforced list of questions during these sessions. ABC News chief medical editor, Dr. Timothy Johnson, supports these provisions, but he warns that they may cross a line, saying that this provision “maybe has too much the flavor of reporting back to big government or big brother." With so much to dislike in the health care legislation, it’s easy to see why people have been turning out in droves to town hall meetings. And the numbers show that people are against it: a recent Rasmussen Reports survey found that 53% now oppose the plan, up nine points since the end of June. Re The backlash against health care reform is also reflected in the president’s slipping polling numbers. According to a Quinnipiac poll, 52 percent of people surveyed no longer support the way Obama is handling the health care issue. And he currently has a 50 percent approval rating, down 7 percent in a single month – largely, it seems, because of health care. Unable to convince the public to support its reforms, the administration, with Congressional Democrats leading the charge, has turned on the growing opposition. While Obama has started to bend the facts in his public statements about health care, other Democrats are making disparaging remarks about the vocal opposition at town hall meetings. In a USA Today op-ed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer called the town-hall protests “un-American.” Now-Democrat Arlen Specter has found himself embroiled in this fray. Earlier this week, Specter hosted a series of Town Hall meetings throughout central Pennsylvania; much like his brethren across the country, he has been met with very loud crowds opposed to health care. However, Specter has cast their opinions aside, saying these people were “unrepresentative” of the American people, despite polls showing otherwise. Missouri Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill publicly admonished an audience that had become loud during her comments. There’s even video of longtime Democratic Michigan Congressman John Dingell comparing the town hall demonstrators to the Ku Klux Klan. But while the House Democrats are painting those opposed to health care reform as un-American, the administration has decided to go another route entirely. Last week, on its official website, The White House asked citizens to report on each other: There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov. The mainstream media has also helped paint the town-hall protesters as fringe extremists. Timeswatch, a website that monitors biase in New York Times articles, has done an excellent job comparing media coverage of the health care debate versus coverage of George W. Bush’s attempts at overhauling Social Security. One glaring example of the Times’ portrayal of the town hall protestors was clear on Tuesday, when an article on Specter’s meeting described angry crowds that were “almost entirely white and irritable.” Yes those that heckled then-Senator Rick Santorum at a similar style meeting held in 2005 were described as “freewheeling.” It’s a new age of irony that we live in. The president is a self-described community organizer who used his skills at grassroots activism to launch a populist movement that swept him into office. Now his administration, along with its Congressional allies, is worried about a determined civic movement that is turning against it. The folks turning up for the town-halls may be maligned by their elected officials. They may be painted as rage-filled lunatics by the media. But unfortunately for the Obama administration and its transformational vision for health care, they aren’t going away. The Audacity of Dissent
By: Gregory Gethard
FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, August 14, 2009
Call them community organizers.
He is taking it seriously. Thing is, he's The Man now, and knowing what he knows he must suppress such political power by any means necessary. He knows how it works, he knows the consequences, and for once has to oppose it instead of drive it.
At the rally in Jackson Michigan Reform Now (ACORN) and Organizing for America (Barrackobama.com) were well represented but outnumbered.
They had to be bussed in at $15 an hour but they were there.
Oh, I hope they come down like a ton of bricks on dissent.
The more these closet fascists try to stifle dissent and stage “town meetings” that are friendly to their ideology, the worse it will get for them.
Bush never tried to stifle dissent. The Left conducted a 24/7 war against him and the GOP in general, with no consequences, even for damaging property and assaulting military recriuting centers.
The people are just beginning to wake up.
Any heavy-handed tactics at this stage of the game will cost the statists more than they know.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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I’m from the era when such drivel as “Question Authority” first emerged.
Now that the Left is in the driver’s seat, it’s interesting to watch how well they take to having their “authority” questioned; and how willing they seem to be to “impose their values” on the rest of us (another one of those idiotic phrases).
Well, it’s been said that pay-back is Hell. Time to turn their tactics from the 60’s back on them.
Seems to me that all the white house has managed to do is bring people to the streets who have never protested before.
I’d bet he is having a fit. What happened to all those adoring crowds? No, not the press, I’m talking about all those (staged) campaign stops. How could this be? American taxpayers standing up to him, the one we have been waiting on? What a punk. I’m guessing that no one has ever stood up to his racial thug tactics and he is probably indignant about those nazi party types who are trying to stop him from saving the world.
Hey barry, reality really sucks sometimes.
We came out of our comfortable lives, became community organizers and Obama and the Statists get p*ssed off at us.
If we are astroturf, why are the democrats trying to mow us?
Tagline updates
I note here, that The Globe tabloid has a front page report about Obama's Hawaiian birth certificate. Click Here -- Scroll Down Millions of Americans have seen the cover in grocery stores all across America. I actually read the report in a store on Monday. Left the tabloid open so that other people might read themselves.
People are getting angrier by the moment. It's all Obama's fault, too . . .
Wake up, people. Husseincare means every American will be controlled/ruled by Big Brother. Those who rebel will be fined or cut off of healthcare AND fined. And prepare to be amazed at just exactly how many things Hussein will define as “under the heading” of HUSSEINCARE!! For example: have a gun in your home? Thousands of gun-related SUICIDES occur every year. Hundreds of thousands of wounds treated. THEREFORE, guns are a tremendous ADDED RISK and must be taxed accordingly on your govt healthcare policy. So own a gun and your RATES will GO UP!! Perhaps healthcare will even be denied...too great a risk, after all. Think this can’t happen?? BWAHAHAHAHA
They’re all Nazis. Nazis. How dare they commit treason against the leader?! Send in the riot police. Tell them not to be gentle.
We have a problem with using the tactics of the ‘60s, though. Namely, the town hall protesters and tea party attendants aren’t hippies. They have lives, and jobs and families to consider. If they really get nasty, you’ll need dedicated warriors with nothing else to do. Everyone else will have to stop. Perhaps if there’s massive unemployment.
Does the author realize how stupid that sounds? I realize he's using "health care" as a quick replacement for "the government's present proposal to take over the nation's medical-care system," but still ...
“I am sick and tired, of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic.” She then screeched, “And we should stand up and say we are Americans, and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration!” - Hillary Clinton
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