A Denver Post Look at Obamacare- delightfully sarcastic
Harsanyi: No bickering. No thinking. Just do it
By David Harsanyi
Those who claim that President Barack Obama's speech on health care this week wasn't a glorious success are fooling themselves. A Washington takeover of health care never sounded so enticing or fun.
Just ignore the specifics. Because when the president says he welcomes substantive new ideas, he means that if you have the nerve to offer any ideas -- like Whole Foods CEO John Mackey did in the Wall Street Journal last month -- his allies will attempt to destroy your business and reputation.
And when the president says he welcomes bipartisanship, what he means is that he hasn't met with a single Republican on the issue since April -- despite numerous requests and two separate House bills chock full of ideas.
Silly question. As we all know, if any organization has demonstrated an uncanny ability to control costs, drive innovation and foster competition, it's been government.
The best part? Like that exotic mortgage taxpayers are paying for you, according to the president, all this wonderment can be yours for absolutely nothing! Better yet, it will not add a single dime to the deficit in the next 10 years. Ignore the Congressional Budget Office's $900 billion estimate (and the Lewin Group's $1 trillion estimate).
You may wonder how President Obama can logically sell a public option while at the same time claim that reform will be paid for by waste found in another "public" option. You may also be wondering how mandates, price controls, regulations and added costs will save us any money and preserve level of care. Don't. Just bask in the radiance of barren rhetoric.
Because when the president tells us that this is "the season for action" and we can no longer waste time debating, he means that legislation won't be initiated until 2013, that this is all about politics and his very own entrenched ideology -- not yours.
Posted by: Glenmore 2009-09-12 |