WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's administration signaled on Sunday it is ready to abandon the idea of giving Americans the option of government-run health insurance as part of his ambitious health care proposal.
This article highlights the newest danger in the health care nationalization battle that was to be expected. Obama is going to appear to "compromise" and give up the "nationalization" part, and unless people speak up, many of the feckless Republicans will doubtless join him, while betraying the rest of us.
"Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said Obama's team is making a political calculation and embracing the co-op alternative as "a step away from the government takeover of the health care system" that the GOP has pummeled. "I don't know if it will do everything people want, but we ought to look at it. I think it's a far cry from the original proposals," he said. "
No, we shouldn't even look at it, except to expose what's in it. Any new bill that comes out is going to have all the government oversight and other 1984-ish provisions of the old bill, with the foundations for a later "public option" -- a dead certainty. Exhibit A:
As proposed by Conrad, the co-ops would receive federal startup money, but then would operate independently of the government. They would have to maintain the same financial reserves that private companies are required to keep to handle unexpectedly high claims.
Obama's ultimate goal is socialism in America in every sphere of life, and this health care "overhaul" bill is only a means to that end. He won't give up on it. (Many of the provisions in the bill establish a legal basis and precedent for government involvement and takeover of other industries.)
I think the primary goal we should support right now is the total abandonment of any health care bill, but I also think now the time is ripe to help achieve that end by boldly putting forth the free market alternative (as John Mackey almost did): get the government out of health care entirely. (There's a protest sign for you.) This is the time when people need to hear that the alternative is not one form of government involvement or another, but no government involvement at all, whether in regulation or in tax policy. People need to realize that nothing in that health care bill should be salvaged.
(FYI, if you read Toohey's speech to Keating in The Fountainhead, he makes the point that a key method of the Left is to provide false alternatives -- I don't know if Saul Alinsky said it, but Obama certainly subscribes to it:
"Watch the pincer movement. If you're sick of one version, we push you into the other. We get you coming and going. We've closed the doors. We've fixed the coin. Heads--collectivism, and tails--collectivism. Fight the doctrine which slaughters the individual with a doctrine which slaughters the individual. Give up your soul to a council--or give it up to a leader. But give it up, give it up, give it up. My technique, Peter. Offer poison as food and poison as antidote.
I made this point in my "Good Night, America" piece which the guys at Wall Street Journal seemed to be considering for a week or so. (Scroll down a few posts.)
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