Obama Is Reduced To Infomercials

In his final push for health care reform we see a president desperately talking out of both sides of his mouth. He's promising moderate democrats the reconciliation process will address their concerns while in another room promising the liberal democrats that he will personally pursue the public option once this current bill passes, according to Raul Grivalja, democrat..Az...co-chair of the progressive caucus. He is cajoling all democrats to pass health care reform for his own political standing and for theirs. In his weekly radio address he tried to assure the public, but was really trying to convince wavering house members, that they will see a significant impact from the legislation this year, obviously trying to ease the fears of those vulnerable democrats. His assertion that positive results will be immediate, and that house member can go home with something positive seems highly suspicious.

After Scott Brown's victory in January the public was convinced... wrongly I might add, that Obama Care was dead for the time being. The president and the democrats in congress seemed to signal a 180 degree shift to job creation which lasted about four weeks. In reality it was a smoke screen while they huddled around a witches cauldron concocting ways to pass an unpopular bill without their 60 vote super majority in the senate. Soon we began to hear reconciliation being bantered about, even though Obama himself had previously signaled that health Care reform needed to be bipartisan and should never be passed with a simple majority. The next distraction was the sham of a health care summit, which did nothing but convince the public that both parties were dug in to their ideas of what health care reform should be. The democrats wanting sweeping comprehensive government control, and republicans wanting incremental steps. It's clear the president called for this summit with the attempt to appear bipartisan and conciliatory to the GOP. But, as we all witnessed he was neither, and even signaled in his closing statement that he wouldn't rule out reconciliation.

Now his rhetoric is appearing desperate and disjointed. Overblown promises and broad assumptions in the same genre as infomercial hosts who promise fat dissipation and  overnight abdominal definition if only they make three easy payments of  $139.95 plus the cost of handling and shipping. It is a pitiful reality that the president of the United States has been reduced to this kind of manipulative governance, and endless campaign rhetoric to pass legislation that will effect every single American for generations to come. Not only has the substance of the bill caused revulsion throughout the country but the process has been even more abhorrent. 

Small business owners all over the country continue to withhold broad and decisive action on  hiring and expansion because the implications of this legislation are so far reaching. Seniors worry about their future with a 500 billion dollar cut in medicare expenditures, and a possible reduction in services. Those with health insurance they're happy with wonder what will happen to them, and the unexplainable reality of how to insure 30 million more without some sort of rationing, especially when you consider that physicians all around the country are talking retirement if Obama Care passes. Doctors dropping medicaid patients will undoubtedly grow with a huge new influx  to cover the uninsured, and an appalling reimbursement mechanism.  30 million more health care patients with less health care providers looks more like a redistribution of health, and a formula for rationed and reduced care rather than a serious attempt to contain costs and provide access to more. All Americans want to see health care costs contained and access provided to more, but they're skeptical and unwilling to trust a government that seems to bankrupt everything it touches.

Where does all this leave house democrats who are on the fence and are faced with the choice of passing the senate bill which many consider anathema? The president is telling them to trust him, and he will fix all that they disagree with in reconciliation. But, what will be the motivation to actually do that once the house passes the senate bill... You will have the exact same bill passed through both houses of congress, which the president can then sign into law. Why would the president then risk the reconciliation process with the republicans offering endless amendments, and the possibility of continued fights over abortion language, public options, etc. The president only has the bully pulpit in the reconciliation process while the majority in the senate has the final say. The president is saying to fence sitting democrats, like the late night infomercial host, "trust me, sign on to my program today, and I promise you that in six months you'll have the body you've always dreamed of, with rippling abs and a toned and sexy new you, that your constituents will love as they flock to  town hall meetings to applaud you." Or the other possible scenario..... a dusty piece of fitness equipment, taking up space in your garage while you hunt for a new career, with a pot belly instead of six pack abs.
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