On Sunday February 7, 2010 President Obama called for a Health Care televised summit with the GOP. The call for the meeting came after the President vowed on Saturday to overcome a “blizzard” of political opposition and salvage his health care reform effort. The Health Care reform effort that the voters of Massachusetts clearly voted in opposition, giving the seat once held by Edward Kennedy [a staunch supporter of ObamaCare] that now belongs to the Republicans.
In my humble opinion, President Obama is riding a dead horse, and he keeps on beating it with a stick to urge it forward. The country’s polls are all against Government Health Care. The citizens of the United States cannot abide the thought of the Government telling them how they have to spend their money. The working stiff on the street who will receive the greatest impact from ObamaCare has said: No!
Some may look at Massachusetts as only one State in the union. Some may think that Massachusetts turn to a republican is in reaction to the frustration carried over from the Bush Years. Some may want to believe that it has nothing to do with a referendum on Health Care Reform. Those people are grasping at unreality straws. A predominantly Democrat state like Massachusetts does not vote republican; not unless the major cities and precincts filled with the hard working, no nonsense American Voter is fed up with their normal Party.
All it takes is a simple look at the timing between the Nebraska deal for a single vote worth $300 million dollars, and the precipitous decline in the Democrat polls in Massachusetts. The Democrats in Massachusetts saw the extent to which the Federal Government was willing to go, to ram through the ObamaCare package, and decided that something smelled fishy; and voted to stop it.
The country is fed up with ObamaCare and it should be allowed to die a dignified death, and move forward with true, market based reform. However, the Summit is not going to focus on what are the right steps to take. The Summit will focus on what Political moves need to be made to get the current bills through the house and the senate: Wrong move Mr. President.
If the Republicans make the mistake of attending the meeting, the conversation should clearly be about the lack of support from the American people for a bad plan. We have been accused of not being smart enough to get it. The White House has said on a number of occasions that their mistake was to not [explain it better]. Well, the fact is that the American people, when given the facts about the government take over of the health care industry in incremental but unstoppable steps, decided that it was not the improvement we wanted.
What do the people I talk to want; you can generalize from there if you wish.
- Minimize the increases in health care costs
- Open up health care so we can shop all over the country and get the best rates
- Redefine the cost adders for runaway litigation costs
- Reduce the UNCERTAINTY in our future cost structure
We don’t want much yet we want a great deal. We want to be able to plan what our cost structure is going to be, factor that into our manufacturing margins, and our profit margins and then plan our growth. Amid all this uncertainty, we are all sitting back and waiting.
To the GOP leadership we say: Don’t walk into a meeting where it is all going to lead to how do we pass the current bills. They are bad law and they are bad for the country. Congress needs to get with their constituents, understand what we truly want, and then draft legislation that will move us in that direction.
To the those of us in Lee’s Summit, to our local representatives, to our federal representatives, to our Senators both at the State and the Federal level we ask that you start a dialog where you “truly” listen. To the citizens of our great representative democracy: Contact your government officials, and let them know exactly what you want. Not hyperbole but actual facts and straight forward, actionable requests.
This democracy, our free market society, and our capitalist engine of growth only works, if we all actively and intelligently participate. Do so; participate.
Respectfully submitted
The Lee’s Summit Conservative
