Obama Loses On ‘Don’t Think, Just Vote’ Health Care: Grandma Gets A Reprieve

Barack Obama gave a national presidential news conference on July 22.  And he did such a great job selling his Obamacare that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid put the kibosh on Obama’s imperious August deadline the very next day.

Even the New York Times turned on Obama’s presentation and faulted his “facts.”  And in the lexicon of liberal heresies and heretics, that’s almost like the Apostles turning on Jesus.  The Associated Press also found plenty of Obama’s “facts” to be somewhat deficient of truth content.  The biggest gripe of all about Obama’s news conference is that he didn’t actually tell us anything.  When you’re talking about taking over 1/5th of the US economy, a few details would have been nice.

That said, it would have helped Mr. Obama if he had bothered to actually bother to read the legislation before calling a national infomercial to sell it.  Eventually Democrats are going to have to actually read the provisions of the major legislation they ram down the country’s collective throat, after all.

But no, it was a lot easier to just go out and demonize the Republicans as being the fearmongering forces opposing reform instead.  Campaigning on vague notions of “hope” and “change,” without ever bothering to really describe what “hope” and “change” actually meant – and at the same time demagoguing against those opposing said amorphous “hope” and “change” – has worked wonderfully for Obama thus far.  So it’s really no surprise that he would go back to that same magician’s hat again.

The good news, though, is that the Frankenstein monster of health care has been driven back into the castle for at least the time being.  Grandma and grandpa have a reprieve.

Obama’s answer to a question that a woman asked about her mother’s health care is incredibly illustrative as to the bullet the elderly dodged today:

Member of the audience. Jane Sturm: “My mother is now over 105. But at 100, the doctors said to her, ‘I can’t do anything more unless you have a pacemaker.’ I said, ‘Go for it.’ She said, ‘Go for it.’ But the specialist said, ‘No, she’s too old.’ But when the other specialist saw her and saw her joy of life, he said, ‘I’m going for it.’ That was over five years ago. My question to you is:  Outside the medical criteria for prolonging life for somebody who is elderly, is there any consideration that can be given for a certain spirit, a certain joy of living, a quality of life, or is it just a medical cutoff at a certain age?”

Obama: “I don’t think that we can make judgments based on people’s ’spirit.’ Uh, that would be, uh, a pretty subjective decision to be making. I think we have to have rules that, uh, say that, uh, we are going to provide good quality care for all people. End-of-life care is one of the most difficult sets of decisions that we’re going to have to make. But understand that those decisions are already being made in one way or another. If they’re not being made under Medicare and Medicaid, they’re being made by private insurers. At least we can let doctors know — and your mom know — that you know what, maybe this isn’t going to help. Maybe you’re better off, uhh, not having the surgery, but, uhh, taking the painkiller.”

You can watch the exchange for yourself:

What is remarkable is the fact that this woman Jane Sturm was seeking reassurance that Obama would clearly and unequivocally affirm the elderly mother’s right to life, and Obama responded by telling her that maybe mom should just take a painkiller and die as a drugged-out zombie-veg due to government-sanctioned medical neglect.

This is nothing new: Democrats have been pursuing rationing as an antidote to the costs of their government system all along.

It is simply a fact that the vast majority of health care resources are consumed at the end of life.  And as costs explode – and the CBO director has already told us the ugly truth that the cost of the Democrats’ plan WILL EXPLODE – it’s going to be the “resource-hogging” and “unproductive” senior citizens who are going to start seeing the short end of the health care stick.

Obama News Conference: We Need A Government Program To Save Us From Government Programs

President Obama’s July 22nd presidential news conference amounted to largely incomprehensible answers from softball press questions.

Obama began by congratulating himself for pulling “our economy out of the brink” with his massive stimulus legislation.  He conveniently omitted the fact that the Obama administration – after Obama himself repeatedly fearmongering the economy by repeatedly comparing it to the Great Depression – claimed that unemployment would not rise above 8% if his stimulus passed.  He was so incredibly wrong it is absolutely unreal: it is now around 10%, and respected Wall Street analyst Meredith Whitney is on the record predicting 13% or higher unemployment.

Obama also conveniently omitted the fact that he has delayed releasing his midsummer budget update because the figures are so bleak it would kill his trillion-five health care bill he’s so desperate to pitch:

WASHINGTON — The White House said Monday it was delaying the release of the annual midsummer US budget update, but refuted charges it was trying to put distance between its own optimistic predictions and the sour state of today’s economy. […]

The delayed midsummer update is expected to reveal the executive branch’s financial outlook for the United States clouded by rising unemployment and growth figures less favorable than earlier in the year. […]

An administration official speaking on condition of anonymity said the figures had rattled the government…

Maybe it’s just me, but I would say it’s WAAAAAAAYY too soon for your self-administered back-patting session, Mr. Obama.  It’s a shame you don’t give a fig about church (although at least you’re not still going to that “God damn America” church), because you seriously should be in one every single morning on your knees praying about your economy.

Several other things leaped out of a few key paragraphs from Obama’s opening statement that need to be pointed out and laughed at:

“And health-insurance reform is central to that effort.

This is not just about the 47 million Americans who don’t have any health insurance at all. Reform is about every American who has ever feared that they may lose their coverage, if they become too sick or lose their job or change their job.

It’s about every small business that has been forced to lay off employees or cut back on their coverage, because it became too expensive. It’s about the fact that the biggest driving force behind our federal deficit is the skyrocketing cost of Medicare and Medicaid.

So let me be clear. If we do not control these costs, we will not be able to control our deficit. If we do not reform health care, your premiums and out-of-pocket costs will continue to skyrocket.”

Let’s start with Obama’s “47 million Americans” claim.  It’s false.  Unless you agree with the statement, “Illegal immigrants are as American as you and me.”  The fact of the matter is that Barack Obama is expecting the American taxpayer to shoulder the costs for at least 12 million illegal immigrants as part of that “47 million Americans.” The Census Bureau lists 10.2 million of the 47 million Obama demands we insure under the description, “NOT A CITIZEN.” And realize that 10 million is the lowest estimate of our illegals; the figure could actually be as high as 22 million.  And Barack Obama wants you to pay to cover every single one of them.

If you think that Obama can cover all these people AND lower your cost, please contact me: because I’ve got all kinds of land and bridges to sell you, and I promise to give you a great deal.

Obama then says “Its about every small business that has been forced to lay off employees or cut back on their coverage.” Which is truly amazing, considering the fact that small businesses are screaming bloody murder that it will be Barack Obama’s OWN health care plan that will force them to lay off employees or cut back on their health coverage.

The Obamacare agenda will – and this is an easily documentable fact as the Wall Street Journal has already exposed – kick employees out of their health care plans and stick them in government plans.

It’s like I slap you and your family repeatedly across the face, and then proclaim, “It’s about families being slapped in the face.”

Then Obama provides us with my favorite line: “It’s about the fact that the biggest driving force behind our federal deficit is the skyrocketing cost of Medicare and Medicaid.”

This one is HI-Larious.  Because Medicare and Medicaid are both government programs.  And Obama in effect is saying, “We need government health care to save us from the massive crisis created by government health care.”  Or, “If we don’t have another government health plan, the cost of our other government health plans will bankrupt us.”

Medicare has a total unfunded liability of $61.6 TRILLION.  And Obama thinks we need another government health care plan to save us from the first one?  It’s like learning that the Italian mob has put a contract out on your life, and then figuring the best way out of your crisis is to get the Mexican mafia to put a contract out on your life, too.  What will happen, of course, is that you’ll end up dead twice as fast.

Obama has repeatedly assured us that we desperately need his health care agenda in order to lower the cost of our health care.  He is in fact completely wrong.  The Congressional Budget Office has gone on the record to tell us that the exact opposite is true:

CBO Director Doug Elmendorf: No, Mr. Chairman. In the legislation that has been reported we do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount. And on the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs.

Obama repeatedly bloviated about “waste” and his government plan lowering cost due to the increased efficiencies of large-scale government planning.   Obama talked about the need “to eliminate waste and inefficiency in Medicare.” Note to the sane:  AGAIN , MEDICARE IS A FREAKING GOVERNMENT PROGRAM!!!  IT’S THE GOVERNMENT WASTING THE MONEY!!!

Wise man say, “If man rape you, do not let him back in your house.”

If Obama believes that government can become a paradigm of efficiency, he has his challenge before him: rather than socialize 1/5th of the economy under a government program, perhaps instead he could focus on actually making the government programs we already have more efficient.  Just sayin’.

It makes sense as a hypothetical matter to argue that the government in the abstract, with its vast size and enormous purchasing power, can save money by lowering unit costs.  But in actuality, it just doesn’t happen – EVER – because the government is inherently inefficient.  Governments are NEVER as efficient as private businesses.

We’ve got a marvelous example that just came out the other day, with the government spending money on pork – literally.

When it was discovered that the federal government was spending millions on pork, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsak said:

The references to “2 pound frozen ham sliced” are to the sizes of the packaging. Press reports suggesting that the Recovery Act spent $1.191 million to buy “2 pounds of ham” are wrong. In fact, the contract in question purchased 760,000 pounds of ham for $1.191m, at a cost of approximately $1.50 per pound. In terms of the dairy purchase referenced, USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) purchased 837,936 pounds of mozzarella cheese and 4,039,200 pounds of processed cheese.

But sliced ham costs $.79 per pound at Food Lion.  And that isn’t even taking advantage of bulk sales, much less the kind of huge discount you’d expect with a federal government-sized “bulk sale.”

So your hard-at-work tax dollars spent easily twice as much as they needed to.

President Obama tells us that we need to control health care costs.  And, well duh, who would possibly argue with that?  And yet he sets up a rhetorical straw man in which anyone who wants to control costs has to support his cost-increasing socialized agenda.  Wrong.  If we would just do something that Barack Obama – who is owned body and soul by the trial lawyers – fundamentally opposes, we could massively lower the cost of health care immediately.  Two words: tort reform.

Another measure that would immediately lower our health care burden: stop covering illegal immigrants.  Just stop.  We clearly don’t have enough resources for our own citizens, so why should we cover everyone else’s citizens?  We need to systematically remove the incentives that lure illegals across our borders, and let them consume their own nations’ social support resources.  St. Paul said, “The man who doesn’t provide for his family is worse than an infidel.”  Let’s stop being infidels and start providing for our own.

And, yes, reform our system to cut out waste and fraud.  And start with the government programs that are CREATING most of that waste and fraud.

If we do just these three things, the rest of the problem will be a WHOLE lot smaller, and a WHOLE lot easier to solve.

Democrats are assuring us that a massive transfer of liberty and property inherent in government medicine will increase our care and simultaneously reduce our cost.  But what will certainly happen – based on the history of virtually every single government program we have ever had – is reduce our care and increase our cost.

Obama is trying to tell the American people that they desperately need a government program to save them from a runaway government program.  But what we truly need right now is for someone to save us from Obama.