An American Lion

The thing that I don’t get is, why not call the bluff? If so-and-so says they will stop the health care legislation, actually make them do it. On television. In prime time. On a Tuesday night. With a gallery full of Americans watching. Make them do it. Make them stand there and explain why they oppose a piece of legislation that might save lives. Cowboy up. Fold your arms and watch them sink themselves with their obstructionist ways.

Democrat Party, you’re not getting your “ic” back from me anytime soon:

The end game at hand, Senate Democrats appeared ready to jettison a proposed Medicare expansion from sweeping health care legislation Monday in a bid to remove the largest remaining obstacle in the way of Christmas-week passage of the measure.

“Democrats aren’t going to let the American people down. We all stand shoulder-to-shoulder,” Majority Leader Harry Reid said after a closed-door meeting called to discuss last-minute trade-offs in the legislation that President Barack Obama has made a top priority.

Liberals had sought the Medicare expansion as a last-minute substitute for a full-blown, government-run insurance program that moderates insisted be removed from the legislation. But it drew strong opposition from Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and quieter concerns from a dozen Democrats — all of whom hold votes essential for passage.

Reid did not say flatly that Democrats had decided to drop the proposal for uninsured Americans as young as 55 to purchase coverage under Medicare. But several senators said it appeared inevitable.

This whole “Young as 55” thing is a ridiculous ploy to get Baby Boomers to acknowledge that their spendthrift ways, their lackadaisical saving habits, and their general inability to be productive members of society is the sole reason for throwing them a lifeline.

I was a bit ho-hum about all of this nonsensical drama today. I felt I had to say something, even though there is nothing intelligent that can be said in defense of either political party right now. In the crafting of “big time” legislation, you cannot go huge and wide and complicated and large. That allows the opposition to cherry-pick details to death. You cannot let the process drag out for eight or nine months. You cannot allow your political opposition to organize and run television ads and hold rallies against what you want to do.

No one will tell you what they think should have been done, but I will anyway. In February of this year, President Obama should have said that “we are going to fix health care this year.” In 30 to 60 days, the first part of that reform should have happened in rapid succession—a way to allow small businesses to provide affordable health care insurance to employees with limited government involvement and a subsidy, i.e., a “public option” that everyone in that category of worker would have to buy into. This should have signaled to everyone, “we must get Americans back to work, and controlling health care costs for small business is the way to do it.”

That would have put the Republican Party AGAINST small business and AGAINST putting people back to work. With a rapidly drafted and passed piece of legislation, there would have been very little there to significantly oppose.

Then, in May, a bankruptcy reform bill should have been drafted and passed. No one in America should go bankrupt because of a health care induced financial obligation. In effect, we should create a health care bankruptcy option to allow Americans to keep their homes, keep their cars, keep their lives intact but allow them to repay a financial obligation in a restructured form. If a person loses their job, they do not lose their home or their assets—they, in effect, go into health care bankruptcy and their obligation is restructured or subsidized by the government. Not a perfect system, but how do you sink a piece of legislation that, in effect, allows Americans to keep their homes, keep their assets, and stave off ruin? How do you obstruct something like that? Oh, and tie it to a full repeal of the death tax. That makes it a poison pill—whammo, blammo—the bill sails through.

It’s now July or so, of 2009, and what have you done? You’ve reformed health care insurance for small business and you’ve taken health care related bankruptcy off the table. Good stuff. You’ve got a track record now. This is where you enforce discipline in your caucus, by the way. This is where you lay down the law—it’s time to move into insuring every American, no matter the circumstance, with a reform of the health care system. This is where you move to cut costs, control health care insurer premiums and fees, and where you give every American a chance at affordable health care.

You do not roll forward with this until every Democrat in the Senate and 90% of them in the House are under control. As in, if you break with us, we break you.

Could such a thing have happened? You would have had two solid wins, and momentum behind a comprehensive reform by taking two incremental steps forward. A win would be huge, a loss would have been easy to absorb. A loss on the third big piece would not be so devastating. A loss would have turned it against the Republicans.

Failure to control the Democrat caucus is what has sunk the process. Sure, they’ll pass something. It will be a farce. Sure, they’ll claim victory. But it won’t be one. It will be proof that the decision to let the Republican Party control the agenda, appear to be in command of the details, and to let Joe Lieberman have a seat at the table was your Waterloo.

Snark won’t save you now, Democrats. Snark doesn’t win an argument over costs and obligations and hard choices for small business owners. Snark isn’t working and snark isn’t selling. Snark is what you used against President Bush, and that man won every legislative fight with you, save privatizing Social Security, and made you look like the chumps you really are. Snark doesn’t help the American people. You sniveling bastards have pissed away your chance. You had it all, but you blew it.

So much for letting the “adults” run things. So much for having a bunch of really smart Poindexters and Chicago politicians run things. This is the beginning of the end of the first and only term for President Obama. Short of nominating a sex offender and Newt Gingrich in 2012, the Republicans are back on track, mister.