Could anti-Semitic leftist former President Carter’s ridiculous comments about racism be the final nail in the Coffin of ObamaCare??
The national debate over health care reform has careered into the bumpy terrain of race.
Former President Jimmy Carter, some black lawmakers and some newspaper columnists have begun to call President Obama's opponents racist -- or fueled by racism -- and they are asserting that race is the underlying cause of much of the criticism of the president.
Obama's opponents, in turn, are charging the president's supporters with playing the race card -- using the issue of race for political gain.
"What Democrats are trying to do is shame white independents, who voted for President Obama in 2008 but are now uneasy about his policies, into supporting these policies to prove they are not racist," said Republican pollster and strategist David E. Johnson, who worked on Bob Dole's 1988 presidential campaign. Read The Full Article
EXCLUSIVE: Wilson: Carter's racism claims a distraction – former President Carter is the only person that has authored two books on his “must read list” – a bit scary!!
Dems and Liberals – Stop with the Race Card and the Political Correctness Game!!
Heritage Foundation says: Flawed Baucus Bill Is Not the Roadmap -Baucas Plan is the same old same old… just calling things by different names. So they are still selling us!!
Dick Morris says: BEWARE THE PUBLIC OPTION TRAP
As any good Persian rug dealer knows, you have to hold back a bargaining chit so that you can whip it out at the very end to tie down the sale. That's how Obama is playing the so-called public option in his health care program. His plan seems to be to combine its abandonment with some form of tort reform and try to buy off some Republicans - maybe only Maine's Olympia Snowe - to give moderate Democrats enough confidence in the veneer of bi-partisanship to win their backing for his bill.
But it's a fraud and a trick.
Here's why:
(a) Whether or not there is a public option makes no difference in the fundamental objection most elderly have to the bill - that it guts Medicare and Medicaid. All of the bills now under consideration cut these two programs by one half of a trillion dollars. And all of them require the medical community to serve thirty to fifty million new patients without any concomitant growth in the number of doctors or nurses. These cuts and shortages will lead to draconian rationing of medical care for the elderly, whether under a public option or not.
(b) The most likely proposal is to replace the public option with some form of buyer's co-op. But since there is no currently existing co-op to serve as a vehicle for health insurance, it would have to be formed. By who? The government, of course. That would mean, as a practical matter, that the "co-op option" would be a government run plan for several years. In fact, they may not get around to setting up a co-op at all.
(c) The other alternative, mentioned by Senator Snowe herself, would be for a "trigger" mechanism. This provision would require the creation of a public alternative to private insurance plans if, after a specified period of time, they did not lower rates to a pre-determined level. Given the escalation of health care costs, it is almost inevitable that this provision would lead to a government plan. And, anyway, who says that the government insurance option would be more successful in reducing costs?
But Obama has to at least appear to be willing to compromise, so he has invented the idea of re-packaging the public option in order to seem to be flexible.
The key, here, is not to be distracted by the debate over the public option. It matters very much to private insurance companies whether the government becomes their competitor, but, for the elderly (and the near-elderly), the key concern is not the public option by the rationing and cuts projected under the program.
In the Clinton Administration, we worked hard to kill the proposed Medicare cuts and are no less committed to stopping them in the Obama presidency. That they were once proposed by the right and are now being pushed by the left makes no difference. A cut is a cut is a cut. And Medicare should not be cut.
Posted: Knowledge Creates Power/the Daily Thought Pad
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