Health Care End Game

President Obama’s discourteous riposte to Senator John McCain during the televised health care summit tells us all we need to know about the Democrat strategy. By essentially saying: we won, you lost, Obama-Pelosi-Reid are saying to the country: you are getting this health care bill. This explains why they are seemingly deaf to the polls: both those which show that the bill is enormously unpopular, as well as those that indicate their party may suffer huge electoral defeats as a result. Obama and company are focused on the last election – the one that brought them to power – and not the next one which may sweep them out. As with all federal entitlement programs, they view passage of a health care bill as a bell which cannot be unrung.

Sure Obama would prefer to have Republican support as a hedge against the bad things that will result from this bill (e.g. higher deficits, new taxes, cuts in Medicare). This is why he previously lauded the one Republican Senate vote in favor as “bipartisan.” And it is further why he will today seemingly signal openness to several Republican ideas. But this 11th hour willingness to consider the opposition party’s ideas is politically transparent. Now? Now you will discuss ideas that have been out there for months?

As to the big question of whether Dems will use reconciliation and any other parliamentary maneuvers to pass a bill, the answer is yes. Yes, because as Obama said, they won. The only remaining question then is whether Dem leadership can again get their House colleagues to drink the kool-aid and commit political suicide.

Harbinger of things to come
There's no Obama bump for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. A poll conducted for the Las Vegas Review-Journal showed President Obama's visit to Nevada two weeks ago had a negligible effect on Reid's poll numbers. Though the president spent time praising Reid effusively for his leadership, 75 percent of those surveyed said the visit would not affect how they vote. Of those who might be swayed, more respondents said they'd be more inclined to vote against Reid than for him. Seventeen percent said the visit made them less likely to vote for Reid, while just 7 percent said the visit made them more likely to vote for him. (FoxNews.com, 3/1/2010)