Old News
Welcome to Washington where everything old is new again.
I was more than a little surprised to see the headlines of an Associated Press report that President Obama had gained support of two critical organizations for his ObamaCare nationalized healthcare bill. I quickly read the story to see who was now throwing their support his way only to find it was AARP and the AMA. My first thought was, had the Associated Press been asleep for the last several months or is this a case of déjà vu all over again.
Reading on a little farther it became clear that neither one of those assessments was correct. It was, in fact, simply a story of a president so desperate for support that he is rekindling old wood.
The “news” that AARP and the AMA have given their support to ObamaCare is not news; it’s actually “olds”. AARP has been a staunch supporter of the Democrat ideals of taxpayer supported healthcare for as long as there has been an AARP. This organization is actually nothing more than a special interest lobbying group that garners support from the aging public by offering a chance for reduced rates on hotel rooms and no medical exam life insurance. They supported the election of candidate Obama and threw their support behind his nationalized healthcare plan before there was even an official plan to support.
The AMA announced their support for ObamaCare over 2 months ago. Since then they have received numerous resignations from the 30% of American doctors who are actual members and are now in the midst of an in-house fight with several members of the board of directors. The immediate past president of the AMA has taken to calling for the resignation or removal of the current president and board on the grounds that the AMA charter forbids this organization from supporting government interference in healthcare or the price fixing that ObamaCare would create for both the medical care and the healthcare insurance.
Nothing the president said was new so why was he so pleased to announce what he was already pleased to announce months ago? The answer is to deflect attention from the Republican gains in the gubernatorial elections held in the Virginia and New Jersey this past week and the surprisingly strong showing of the conservative candidate in New York’s 23rd District special election.
Democrats got a rude wake-up call this past week. While the White House was predictable and quick in distancing the Republican gains as being local issues and having nothing to do with the president, those Democrats dependent on conservative and independent voters in the 2010 midterm elections are anything but satisfied with that assessment.
The reason for the race to a vote on this trillion dollar debacle is that the president can see his magic dwindling before his very eyes and knows that the longer this bill is delayed the less chance he has of wrangling enough support to pass it.
Nancy Pelosi may be able to pull a rabbit out of her hat and get some form of ObamaCare passed in the House within the next few weeks but that passage will be strictly symbolic. Every House member that votes for the bill knows that passage of the Senate’s version, according to Senate leader Harry Reid, will not take place this year. That means that Democrat House members can stay out of Pelosi’s crosshairs and still run for reelection without an ObamaCare package in place. Even if the Senate passes their bill early next year the House will have the opportunity to reject the Senate provisions at least until after the election.
This whole restatement of the previous endorsements is nothing more than Democrat politics as usual with the mainstream lapdog media playing right along. And what hangs in the balance? Only a trillion dollars of taxpayer money and the future of American healthcare and freedom of choice.
The game is the same, but the stakes have gotten substantially higher.
