Scott Spiegel

The new test of liberal political ideology seems to be, not whether you favor Obama’s health care plan, but how long it takes you to realize what a disaster it is.

The American people were, as usual, first out of the gate to demonstrate their common-sense conservatism.  Although a slim majority voted for Obama in November, a growing preponderance has been telling pollsters they disapprove of the President and his handling of health care.   On Sunday, Rasmussen reported that Obama had reached a new low in their Presidential Approval Index, with health care one of his lowest-rated issues.

Like a teacher indulging a failing student’s pleas to find a way to give him extra points on his test, the Congressional Budget Office has spent all summer admonishing Obama for presenting legislation that will be more expensive than advertised, produce no savings, and yield expanding and unsustainable deficits for the next 10 years.  (“Now, Barry, I’ve already given you all the credit I can—next time you’ll just have to try harder.”)

The Mayo Clinic, which Obama cites as a model for cost-cutting measures, called the Medicare payment model proposed by Congress a “catastrophe.”

Seven state medical associations banded together with private medical societies and two previous AMA presidents in a letter to the President opposing the legislation.  The American Hospital Association is imploring hospital directors to counter Congress’s bill, as are specialty associations such as the American College of Physicians.

John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal cataloging the myriad flaws in Democrats’ proposal.

Sixty-thousand AARP members have cut up their cards since July over their leadership’s endorsement of Congress’s approach.  Though AARP supports the President’s general strategy, even they had to smack Obama down for claiming they had endorsed a bill when they had not yet done so.

After Obama insulted the Postal Service in his quest for a bill, the National Association of Postal Supervisors wrote Obama a letter expressing “our collective disappointment that you chose to use the Postal Service as a scapegoat …  [I]t was a kick to the chest to have you take a shot at a group of federal employees who are working hard every day to support this country.”

Pseudo-moderate network CNN recently chronicled “Five Freedoms You’d Lose in Health Care Reform,” including the freedom to negotiate details of your plan, cut costs by living healthier, choose a high-deductible plan, keep your current plan, and select your doctors.

The Associated Press fact-checked Obama’s claims and called him out for continuing to tell the same lies: e.g., if you like your health insurance, you can keep it—the implication being that you can keep it for as long as your employer and insurance company would otherwise have offered it without government health care, which is outlawed in Congress’s plan.

The Washington Post, no friend to conservatives, has been barraging readers with columns opposing ObamaCare.  Columnist David Hilzenrath affirmed that the administration would not be able to ensure that employees can keep the plans they have now.  Martin Feldstein explained that the 85% of Americans who now have insurance would pay higher taxes and receive fewer services.  Maya MacGuineas ridiculed the administration’s pledge that it can add an expensive new health care plan covering millions more Americans that will cost no extra and actually alleviate the budget deficit.

The Post’s editorial board also reminded the administration of the CBO’s harsh projections and warned him not to treat these lightly.  In a separate editorial, they scorned Democrats’ stubborn, mindless fixation on a public option.

Obama’s own Hyde Park doctor suggests that Congress’s legislation is worthless and adds of his patient, “I’m not sure he really understands what we face in primary care.”

In the workers’ paradise to our north, the current and incoming presidents of the Canadian Medical Association recently bemoaned the failures of Canada’s universal health care system, calling it “sick,” “precarious,” and “imploding,” and urged Canadian doctors to support free market reforms to the system.

The artist of the Obama “Joker” poster, Palestinian socialist and Dennis Kucinich supporter Firas Alkhateeb, admitted, “[Y]ou had all of these people who basically saw him as the second coming of Christ.  From my perspective, there wasn’t much substance to him.”

Air America host Christiane Brown decried Obama’s reversal of his promise not to bar negotiation for lower drug prices, then purred, “He’s such a charming liar, though.  He’s such a nice guy when he lies like that.”

On Sunday, Senator Joe Lieberman, who caucuses with Democrats, said he’s changed his mind on proposed legislation and urges postponing it until the economy recovers.

Now The New York Times has gotten on the bandwagon; you might say they finally have some “skin in the game.”  Times reporter David Pear reported a few days ago that there is, after all, a legitimate basis for elderly Americans’ fear that legislation will lead to rationing of health care.

Paul Krugman criticized the President’s priorities, belittled his dwindling ability to inspire confidence, and lamented that “his speeches and op-eds still read as if they were written by a committee.”

Bob Herbert scolded Obama for not explaining why a gargantuan new government program is in our country’s interest in the middle of a recession: “Many sane and intelligent people who voted for Mr. Obama… have legitimate concerns about the timing of this health reform initiative…  [He] has not been at all clear about how the reform that is coming will rein in runaway costs…  [P]eople are starting to lose faith in the president.”

I’m glad the Times is finally starting to see the light on Obama’s executive inexperience and his disastrous agenda.  Maybe now millions of Middle Americans who hang on Krugman and Herbert’s every word will develop more confidence in expressing their opposition at all those town hall meetings I keep hearing about.

The pile of victims President Obama has thrown under the bus in his attempts to get health care reform passed is growing so large that just treating their internal injuries is going to bankrupt the national health care system.

First it was the insurance companies.  When Obama realized early on that Americans weren’t chomping at the bit for socialized medicine, he subtly changed his language to imply that he was merely seeking “health insurance reform.”  Insurance companies, to remind Obama, by definition have a vested interest in not covering costly treatments for people with a 100% risk of having a particular medical condition.  But the administration nobly promised to go after, as the New York Times put it, “unpopular insurance industry practices, like refusing patients with pre-existing conditions”—also known as “providing insurance.”

Nancy Pelosi swore to oppose the “shock and awe, carpet-bombing by the health insurance industry to perpetuate the status quo”—as opposed to the couple, two-three homemade signs proffered by paid armies for Health Care for America Now, Organizing for America, SEIU, and ACORN.  Obama promised to “reform the insurance companies so they can’t take advantage of you.”  Pelosi slandered insurance companies as “villains.”

Surprisingly, insurance executives didn’t take kindly to being called monsters.  Karen Ignagni, CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans, seethed, “Attacking our community will not help get anyone covered…  We have to… correct the record.”

Next it was the pharmaceutical industry: in June, Obama twisted drug companies’ arms into forking over $80 billion toward health care reform, on the condition that the government would not bargain for reduced drug prices for Medicare or mandate price rebates.  Industry lobbyists, just to make sure they weren’t going to be stabbed in the back like the insurance companies, wrote the White House and secured confirmation from White House officials that these promises would be kept.

Congressional Democrats heard about these communications and had a fit.  The administration subsequently claimed that no such conditions had ever been discussed.  One of the House versions of the bill emerged containing provisions mandating both government drug price negotiations and additional price rebates.

Obama then started sacrificing groups less directly involved in health care but assumed to be shoo-in supporters of his agenda.  First he falsely claimed that AARP had endorsed Congress’s health care legislation: “We have the AARP on board” and “AARP would not be endorsing a bill if it was undermining Medicare.”  AARP’s terse response: “Indications that we have endorsed any of the major health care reform bills currently under consideration in Congress are inaccurate.”

Then Obama tossed 760,000 U.S. Post Office employees in the street when he argued that private health insurers wouldn’t be threatened by a public option: “If you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine.  It’s the post office that’s always having problems.”

The President of the National Association of Postal Supervisors responded to this charming occupational morale booster by sending Obama a letter asking him to rescind his comments: “On behalf of the 35,000 members of our association, I am writing to express our collective disappointment that you chose to use the Postal Service as a scapegoat…  [Y]our negative references to the Postal Services without knowledge of the facts was a disservice… to all postal employees…  [I]t was a kick to the chest to have you take a shot at a group of federal employees who are working hard every day to support this country…  [W]e would like to be treated fairly and not have our current situation misrepresented, especially by the Commander-in-Chief.”

Such Obama tactics recall his disastrous health care forum last month, in which he planted a question about Cambridge Police Department Sergeant James Crowley’s arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., which gave Obama the chance to change the subject and denigrate blue-collar Massachusetts police officers who support him.  As department member Sergeant Kelly King stated after Obama declared that her department had acted “stupidly”: “It’s unfortunate.  I supported the president.  I voted for him.  I will not again.”

Obama even threw his dead grandmother under the bus—again.  When Sarah Palin charged that proposed legislation would lead to death panels that ration health care and decide which old people are not worth saving, Obama said he had favored his grandmother’s hip operation while she was alive, but could understand how a government panel might have calculated otherwise.

Unlike insurance companies, drug companies, the AARP, the post office, and the police, Obama’s grandmother couldn’t respond to his delightful remarks.  Would Obama have dared use that example if she were alive and in need of the operation?  Why doesn’t he try using it on seniors at townhall meetings who are in need of costly treatments?  “I’d pay for your operation if I were your relative, but I can see how a government panel made up of people you don’t know might feel otherwise.”

The latest Obama special interest group to be Greyhounded is House Democrats.  In June, Obama declared, “Any plan I sign must include an insurance exchange… including a public option.”  On Sunday, Obama demurred, “The public option, whether we have it or we don’t have it, is not the entirety of health care reform.”  Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius insisted that a public option, which House Democrats heavily favor, is “not the essential element” of the plan.  Why, whatever gave you that idea?  Was it perhaps inclusion of the ambiguous word “must”?

Predictably, House Democrats have not accepted this about-face without a fight.  According to New York Representative Anthony Weiner, “Some of us who have gotten roughed up pretty good at town hall meetings and stuck in there because we believe in this, now kind of feel like we have a tire track on our chest where the bus that rolled over us is.”

Fortunately, House Democrats are the one party in all of this who deserve to be thrown under the bus—which is probably why the administration is already backtracking on their disavowal of the public option.

The speaker was Nancy Pelosi.  The date was January 17, 2006.  The setting was a town hall meeting in San Francisco, captured on video and available at Breitbart TV.  The subject was the Iraq War.  The surgery was Botox.

The authors are Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer.  The date is August 10, 2009.  The setting is an editorial in USA Today.  The subject is protestors at health care townhall meetings.  The surgery is still Botox.

Pelosi passionately spoke of free speech rights and the necessity of hearing all viewpoints: “I say to the President, ‘Mr. President [Bush], if you think that our troops in Iraq are there to fight for democracy, do not destroy it at home by cutting off our freedom of speech.’”

She highlighted the critical, historical role of townhall meetings and the importance of face-to-face confrontations between congressmen and the voters they represent: “Democrats and Republicans… are starting to speak out [about the war].  And you know why?  Because they’re hearing from home.  There’s nothing more articulate, more eloquent to a member of Congress than the voice of his or her own constituent.”

Most importantly, she reminded listeners of the strengths of our uniquely American system of representative democracy, and advised them that there is no higher patriotic calling than standing up for what you believe in: “So I thank all of you who have spoken out for your courage, your point of view, all of it—your advocacy is very American and very important…  So let’s not question each other’s patriotism when we have this very honest debate that our country expects and deserves.”

Her words were reminiscent of Hillary Clinton’s defense of criticizing the Iraq War and the administration more generally: “Since when has it been part of American patriotism to keep our mouths shut and not raise questions about what our government is doing? That has always been the tradition of America.”  And who can forget: “I’m sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic.  We need to stand up and say we’re Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration.”

Pelosi and Hoyer characterize health care townhall protests as “un-American” attacks.  They portray the protestors as enemies, not just of reform, but of our very way of life: “These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid… of differing views…  Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American.”

In a related development, the Obama administration asks Americans to send the White House any “fishy” comments or criticisms they hear about the health care bill, and the e-mail addresses of those who send them this information.

When anti-war protestors in the back of the San Francisco auditorium held up signs and loudly chanted, “No more funding the war!” thus drowning out Nancy Pelosi, she gamely replied, “I appreciate that you, as advocates, can say that.  I appreciate that!”  The chair of the event intervened on her behalf and pleaded, “Ladies and gentlemen, please, let’s not dissolve into a shouting match here,” but Pelosi cried, “That’s OK!  That’s OK!”

Later, while in the middle of a sentence, Pelosi noticed a row of Code Pink protestors standing up and holding signs across the front of the stage.  Pelosi jokingly called out, “Hello!”  The chair, getting into the spirit of the thing, jovially observed, “This is the way we know we’re in San Francisco.”  Pelosi laughed heartily and exclaimed, “And we love it!”  The Code Pink protestors beamed.

Soon afterward, a woman in the audience began screaming about some conspiracy theory involving “bulldozing people’s homes.”  Pelosi politely interjected, “Excuse me…” but the woman continued to yell while standing and waving a stack of papers.  While audience members hollered, “Shut up!” Pelosi soothingly reassured the woman, “I understand your anger,” and murmured “Yes… Yes…” as the woman rattled off her points.

Pelosi and Hoyer excoriate health care townhall protestors for their disorderly behavior: “[Their] tactics have included… shout[ing] ‘Just say no!’ [and] drowning out those who wanted to hold a substantive discussion.”

Pelosi inspiringly ended her address, “Let me close with this on the Democrats and how we see ourselves…  When Franklin Roosevelt died—and I draw great inspiration from him, because he was a disruptor.”  She added, “I’m a fan of disruptors,” and pumped her fists up and down as though agitating a crowd.

Pelosi and Hoyer somberly write, “[I]t is now evident that an ugly campaign is underway… to disrupt public meetings and prevent members of Congress and constituents from conducting a civil dialogue.”

Well, that’s clear, then.

Senator Barbara Boxer recently declared that, before the current round of town hall meetings on health care reform, the last time she had seen such suspiciously well-dressed protestors was during the 2000 Florida election recount.  Well, yes—until Obama’s presidency, that’s the last time Republicans showed up en masse to get really angry about something; screaming and chanting are political tactics more naturally suited to the left.

As for the couture angle—here’s a newsflash for Boxer: Republicans have higher standards than Democrats.  A typical left-wing protest involves twenty-somethings and washed-up hippies in ratty T-shirts and shredded jeans breaking windows at a local Starbucks during the midmorning rush.

The average right-wing protest—invariably held in the evening, since attendees have jobs in the daytime—involves adults who dress as though they would like to elevate community standards, not degrade them.  Participants address their concerns directly to those in power, such as legislators, rather than assailing defenseless third parties, such as coffee franchise employees.  The fact that most conservative protestors come directly from work may explain why they wear suits and skirts, but apparently Senate Democrats believe opinions are valid only if expressed by people sporting Birkenstocks and buttons urging presidential assassinations.

When Boxer and other Congressional Democrats realized that Americans don’t view “well-dressed” as an epithet, they moved in the opposite direction: they claimed that the protestors were scruffy rabble-rousers after all.  House Leader Nancy Pelosi insisted that she had seen demonstrators “carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on healthcare.”  Translation: One protestor had a swastika with a slash through it, and others were displaying American flags and ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ banners—you know, symbols like swastikas.

Saddling protestors with the “brownshirt” label didn’t work, so Obama’s Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina warned Democrats who were planning town hall meetings, “If you get hit… punch back twice as hard.”

Evidently some representatives took this message literally: at a town hall meeting in Ohio, Representative Russ Carnahan hired union organizers to deny entry to citizens who looked as though they might oppose health care reform legislation, several of whom were promptly mauled by union thugs and sent to the hospital.  Outside, black conservative Kenneth Gladney was racially slandered and physically attacked and sent to the emergency room by an unidentified opponent for handing out ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ flags.  Protestors were also roughed up at a meeting held by Florida Representatives Kathy Castor and Betty Reed.

Naturally, Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid’s response to this onslaught of leftist violence and intimidation was… to blame Republicans for not minding their manners.  Reid accused protesters of attempting to “sabotage” the process; he said, “These are nothing more than destructive efforts to interrupt a debate…  They are doing this because they don’t have any better ideas.”

Well, yes, actually, we do have one or two, which you may not have heard, because we’ve only been ranting about them for the past, oh, two decades: malpractice tort reform, Medicare reform, health savings accounts, healthcare tax credits, vouchers for private insurance, and pay for performance.  More generally, competition in the private market for health insurance, and individual autonomy regarding level and type of coverage and risk tolerance.  Other than that, we’re flush out of ideas!

In an effort to quell dissatisfaction among constituents, Democrats in Congress finally decided to listen to town hall participants’ ideas and give thoughtful responses that address their concerns.  Just kidding!  The latest tactics being employed by congressmen across the nation are: (1) showing up at town hall meetings, reciting a few talking points, claiming the crowd is too boisterous when they open their mouths, and leaving; (2) announcing meetings at the last minute in the hope that no one will attend; and (3) holding “virtual” town hall meetings.

For example, Representative Kathy Castor’s spokeswoman defended Castor’s abbreviated appearance in Florida by stating, “We said all along our role was to come and give an update on the bill in Congress…  [T]hat’s what we did.”  And that’s what websites are for.

Michigan Representative John Dingell waited to announce last Thursday’s 6pm town hall meeting until Thursday morning.  Word of mouth spread throughout the day, however, and that evening Dingell faced hundreds of constituents who were not impressed by his deceitful maneuver.

At least Castor and Dingell showed up in person; other congressmen, such as Representative Brian Baird of Washington, are planning virtual meetings with constituents.  According to The Columbian, “If you happen to be sitting near a publicly listed Clark County telephone line on the right day at the right time, your phone will ring…  [T]he exact date and time will be kept secret from the public…  [A]n automated message will ask whether you have a question…  Sitting at his own telephone at an as-yet-undisclosed location, Baird then will choose a name based on its location and the topic…  After the call is over, the recording will be posted on his Web site.”

Baird helpfully notes that this system will allow for “a much better cross-section of the public,” by which he means “a cross-section of the public that is not knowledgeable or concerned enough to attend a town hall meeting.”  Note to Baird: There’s a reason they’re called “town hall meetings,” not “prescreened anonymous secret one-way teleconference recordings.”

In the end, some congressmen have decided to simply give up on their constituents.  New York Representative Tim Bishop chose to suspend town hall meetings in his district until late August—you know, when just everyone will be around—because he concluded there was no point in facing an “unruly mob.”  Senator Claire McCaskill similarly issued a last-minute cancellation of a scheduled event due to “safety” concerns.

In the same way that Democrats denigrate protestors who adhere to a “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service” standard, they have sunk to a new low: projecting their party’s historic propensity for mob rule and violent agitprop onto frail, elderly grandparents in bowties and cardigans.

Thanks to the Obama administration’s new Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS), also known as Cash for Clunkers, American taxpayers are now subsidizing car owners to do what they would have done eventually—scrap their old cars and buy new ones.

CARS is perversely profligate in numerous ways, among them the fact that it forces car dealers to waste time filling out onerous paperwork to get reimbursed by the government and adding legal riders to contracts with car buyers regarding liability for rebates.  Mechanics must squander effort draining each car’s oil, then donning protective suits and carrying out a dangerous procedure involving pouring sodium silicate on the engines to make them “seize up” and cease to function.

This government-mandated engine-cide is a huge problem for auto parts sellers, who earn the bulk of their income reselling engines, motors, and transmissions—all of which must be intentionally damaged and made unsalable to comply with program rules.  Government inspectors will go around making sure engines have been properly decommissioned, a precondition for dealers and car buyers to claim refunds.

More disturbingly, for those who can barely afford to buy a used car, the reduced supply of used engines will lead to increased, often prohibitive costs for used cars, because so many used car engines—having been decommissioned by mechanics—cannot be resold to potential buyers.  That’s looking out for the little guy!

For those concerned about the “environmental impact” of the program, the plan unfortunately won’t help on that front, either.  According to the director of Columbia University’s Center for Climate Change Law, the energy required to produce a new car years earlier more than offsets any fuel savings from driving a used car for a few more years.  Without the program, car buyers would have ended up buying more fuel efficient vehicles anyway, because most vehicles are made to be more efficient nowadays.

The one thing we can’t foresee is what those in high enough tax brackets who will be funding most of this program would have done with their money if they could have kept it—say, devoted it to more profitable, wealth-creating investments of their own choosing?

If all of this isn’t enough to convince you the program is a slam dunk, there’s also the matter of how it’s being administered.  Congress allotted $1 billion and expected the funds to last 100 days—from July 24 to November 1.  They didn’t enact any sensible precautions on the limits of the program—say, no more than 20 clunkers bought by each of the nation’s nearly 20,000 car dealers—until the program’s impact could be measured.  This is, of course, because Congress is not managing its own money, but rather maintaining an infinite balance sheet.

Shockingly, Congress underestimated the cost of its new program and the rate at which people would lap up free money.  Rae Tyson, a Transportation Department spokesman, insisted on July 28, “When we get close, we will start alerting dealers so they don’t get caught with a deal in the pipeline.  We’re not going to leave them hanging. We’re not going to run out of money in a couple days.”

Two days later—surprise!—the Transportation Department announced that the program had run out of money and would be suspended at midnight.  Tyson should have concluded his statement, “When we get close, we will start alerting dealers…  OK, now!”

So the program’s funding lasted six days.  Assuming a steady rate of access by dealers over the intended life of the program, the actual rate of use so far has been 17 times as high as lawmakers anticipated.  Were the program to be funded at its current rate until November 1, it would blow through $17 billion.

Representative David Obey, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, speaking on behalf of lawmakers who want to dump more money into CARS, declared, “Consumers have spoken with their wallets, and are saying they like this program.”

Note to Obey: “speaking with your wallet” usually means that the wallet owner chooses to purchase a product or service with his own money, not that he gobbles up a heavily subsidized goody that he would have bought in a few years on his own.

Saying Cash for Clunkers has been “wildly successful,” as many reporters have decreed, is like saying that a program designed to give out $4,000 checks to anyone who’s willing to cash them has been “wildly successful.”  Cash for Clunkers would have been a colossal failure if it hadn’t run out of money in less than a week.

The sudden revelation that people like free money led to uncertainty over continuance of the program: word got out from the Transportation Department that the program was bankrupt, but Press Secretary Robert Gibbs insisted to reporters on Friday that it would continue through the weekend and beyond.  In other words, the Obama administration, caught in a jam, with no idea whether additional funding would ever be approved or not, simply lied by sowing confusion over how much money was actually left in the program.

John McEleney, chair of the National Automobile Dealers Association, and numerous car dealers across the country have reported on the risk they face that the government will not reimburse dealers for buying clunkers, given the precarious state of program funding.  They have also complained about the confusion regarding rules and continuance of the program, contradictory statements from government, inability to make future business plans, and the havoc all of this has wreaked on their dealerships.  All of which augurs well for the long-term beneficial effects of CARS on the economy—because if there’s anything the market loves, it’s confusion, conflicting information, delay, and chaos!

House Minority Leader John Boehner noted, “There are a lot of questions about how the administration administered this program.  If they can’t handle something as simple as this, how would [they] handle health care?”

The Cash for Clunkers debacle should be viewed as a test run for Congress’ overhaul of the nation’s health care system.

Break out the sodium silicate.