Health Care and Closed Doors

In writing this blog, I've been pretty silent about the health care debate. I'm retired military and I was a military "brat." So you see, for most of my life, health care has been provided to me by the Federal government, in one form or another. Military medical coverage has good points and bad points; but you are "covered" (mostly). So, I haven't joined the debate about whether "nationalized" health care is a good thing, or whether "universal health coverage" would actually work. I didn't think it was right, since my health care is covered by the Veteran's Administration and by a form of nationalized insurance called Tricare.

Having said that.....I just have to weigh in now that the Democrats have decided to finalize the "look" of the health care bill behind closed doors; involving only a few "highly placed" Democrats. To me, this plan silences the voice of any opposition. It minimizes the voice of those who spoke at the health care town hall meetings held last fall. It ignores the ideas of the elected representatives of a good portion of this Country....those who vote Republican. By meeting behind closed doors, and not allowing any input into the "final" health care bill, it appears that the Democrat bigwigs will pander to their radical base, their fundraisers, and their ivory-tower apologists rather than try to find a way to approach any health care "crisis" from the point of view of a realist. This is not "open government" and it's not the way important issues should be decided! Secret, back-room meetings do nothing to advance the debate....they silence debate!

Check out this article by Max Pappas on the Freedom Works website. He summarizes several newspaper editors that are calling on the Obama administration to honor the "C-Span Promise" he made during his campaign; to have a more "transparent" government. I know that more campaign promises are broken than are kept...but this is one promise that should have been inviolate; especially when considering this health care bill. This is something that will have a profound impact on this country, its economy and its citizens. Those citizens have a right to know how the "final form" of the bill was written, and to know that their interests have been considered. All citizens have that right, even those who vote Republican!

"Make Mine Freedom" circa 1948

This cartoon, produced in 1948, was going around the web in October 2009. I'm a bit late and just saw it this morning, when a good friend sent it to me via email. (Thanks NoDak Dan!) Nevertheless, I think that it's worth posting here. It's a bit long (almost 10 minutes), but well worth viewing! The interesting thing is that the cartoon was considered "far-fetched" in 1948.....

Partisan Politics Stikes Again

Remember high school? You know, that period in your life that, on one hand, you'd like to remember fondly for the friends, fun times, and frolic. But on the other hand, that period in your life you'd like to forget because of the immaturity, infighting, and imbecility of it all. Yesterday, the House of Representatives acted like everything we'd like to forget about the high school experience. Those we've elected to represent our interests on a national level acted like high school kids involved in a battle over who would get to sit at the best table in the lunchroom or date the homecoming queen (king).

The insertion of partisan politics into what should have been a bi-partisan effort to address a looming financial crisis (whether the crisis is real or not doesn't matter when people and investors believe it's real) was just as immature and imbecilic as anything we should be ashamed of in high school. Both political parties are responsible for this failure. No wonder Congress' approval ratings are so low, when those who should be our leaders can't put aside partisan politics to work together for the good of the nation and those they purport to lead.

The Democrats and Speaker Pelosi are responsible for their continued partisan attacks and "get Bush" finger pointing (most of which is inaccurate and incorrect) since this crisis arose. (Read one liberal blogger's opinion why Speaker Pelosi has to go.) As I've said before, the "Why" is important only in order to figure out how to prevent it from happening again. It seems like everything the Democrats do, every action they take or speech they make, is designed to, somehow, point blame at Bush, McCain, Palin or the Republicans. Even in the bi-partisan meeting at the White House last week to discuss the pending crisis and propose a possible solution, the reports are that the Democrats, through their spokesperson Senator Obama, injected partisan politics and angered those they were supposed to work with in order to decide what action needed to be taken. Did they not want a bi-partisan effort to succeed? But the capstone of this partisan political finger pointing was Speaker Pelosi's ill-conceived and ill-timed partisan tirade on the floor of the House Chamber just before the bail-out bill vote. What in the world was she thinking? Wasn't this supposed to be a bi-partisan effort, with our leaders working in concert to avert a continued economic meltdown? Was she deliberately trying to sabotage the passage of this bill? Did she want to alienate the House Republicans? She's no political neophyte and had to know what she was doing when she launched that shot across the Republican bow. Is it because she didn't have sufficient Democrat votes to pass the bill, even though the Democrats control the House, and so decided to take the nuclear option of a political tirade to try to shift blame?

The House Republicans' actions are just as bad. If, indeed, they changed their vote because of Speaker Pelosi's tirade, they fell right into her potential trap and looked like immature high schoolers who decided to let their hurt feelings override their common sense. It gave her, and the Democrats a chance to blame the bill's failure on the House Republicans rather than accept where that the real failure lies with them. I don't know if the Republican leadership had sufficient votes to pass the legislation, or not, but they if they didn't they should have said so and not blamed Pelosi's speech, no matter how incendiary it was. Most conservatives will have had legitimate concerns about the bailout bill; it grows government and spends taxpayer money in a way that is antithetical to conservative principles. It is the next best thing to nationalizing some banking interests, and is more akin to socialism than conservatism. I can understand why House Republicans who want to stick to their political principles would vote against the bill. I also happen to respect legislators who listen to the needs of their constituents, and it seems like most of the House Republicans had constituents who were vehemently opposed to the bailout bill. Those are legitimate reasons to vote against the bill; not because their feelings were hurt by the Democrat Speaker's partisan political tirade.

So what's next? Almost everyone agrees that the Government needs to do something. What shape that "something" will take remains to be seen; but what is very clear (at least to me) is that our representatives need to stop the partisan political bickering. As Senator McCain says, there needs to be a stop to the blame-game. There's a time and a place for political wrangling; and there is no place for it when there is a real (or perceived-real) crisis facing the nation. Our legislators and national leaders need to get it together and work toward a solution, and not play high school one-up-manship. Grow up, will ya!

Check out what Time says about the political credibility crisis.

Big Government & Self-Reliance

I heard an interview of Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, today. She (again) stated how off-shore drilling for oil would not solve today's energy crisis, since we wouldn't be able to take advantage of any drilling for at least 5 years. She had all kinds of reasons why the "oil man in the White House" and his plan to help the energy situation were worthless; but the only solution she offered was a call to open up the strategic oil reserves to increase the oil supply and (hopefully) bring down prices. This struck me as a good example of the difference in approaches to problem solving between those who believe the Government can solve every ill and those who believe in self-reliance (as much as possible).

Speaker Pelosi's proposed solution was for the Government to give away something put aside for true emergencies. (Yes, I know the cost of gas is approaching emergency levels; but come on, is it a true National emergency?) She wants to "redistribute" oil reserves as a short-term fix rather than take the long-term approach of drilling into the resources available to us. She proposes using the Government to alleviate the immediate need, without fixing the source of the problem; our dependence on foreign oil. This is the same type of solution Speaker Pelosi and those who believe in Big Government have for so many problems: use the Government to redistribute assets, create entitlements, and make people dependent on the Government to solve their problems.

We also see the same proposed solution to the "mortgage crisis." Certain lenders gave loans to people who couldn't carry the debt. The lender took that risk in return for a higher payoff on the loan. The people who signed the mortgage made a bad judgment in taking on more debt-burden than they could carry. That was their risk. Why is this now the taxpayer's crisis to resolve? Why must Big Government step in and redistribute taxpayer's dollars to absolve bad judgments on the part of the lenders and those who took the loan? I know I'm looking at this one-dimensionally, but doesn't a Big Government generated solution create sense that everyone is entitled to have the Government solve their problems? What happened to self-reliance?