What to do about Obamacare

1. Repeal it
This is extremely difficult and historically not likely. To repeal, the plan would have to pass the House and the Senate (with 60 votes). Even if Republicans regain the House in 2010, they will not have control of the Senate until at least 2012. Even then, they are 19 seats away from controlling 60 seats. The odds of a democrat joining with Republicans to repeal it is nil. We would need 19 Senate wins, control of the House, and we must defeat Obama in 2012. A very tall order.

2. Legal challenges
Numerous states are going to try this. I don't know if this will go anywhere. Some of the most heinous provisions may be defeated but Obamacare as a whole will survive legal challenges.

What about the 2010 election?
If Republicans campaign on repealing Obamacare, it will score points in conservative districts and states. About 25-30 of the competitive House races would qualify along with 2 Senate races. Not enough really considering Republicans were probably going to win almost all of these races anyway. It might be a rallying cry to mobilize conservatives and Tea Partiers in many swing districts if they are not mobilized already. However, as a campaign issue, I don't think it helps in swing district.

Also, I am doubting how wise it would be to keep rehashing our defeat on Healthcare. What about the focus on Jobs this year? Unemployment? The lack of stock market movement in the last 6 months? How about Iran?

There are plenty of things to strike at Obama and Democrats with. The country is probably sick of Healthcare talk. Now that it is passed, I think many political junkies (myself included) will be glad to see it go. If anything, Republicans should slam Obama on the economy relentlessly for the next six months.

Was it Obama's Gettysburg? Well we would have to re-write history. In this case, Pickett's Charge succeeded and Obama now controls the high ground over Gettysburg. The Union Army will have to retreat and lick its wounds, but it was not destroyed. It must replenish itself and regain its composure and focus. Lee's Army (Obama), even with this victory, has completely worn itself out. It won the day but at what cost? Can Obama push through any other part of his agenda? No. Will it help him with a second term? Highly doubtful. Will it save Democrats from big losses in November? No, the best they can hope for is a wash on the issue in November.

What is the Democratic Strategy?
The Democrats will do everything they can to mitigate their losses in November. If they come out with majorities in both chambers, it will be a small victory for them. They will use 2010-2012 to pursue more popular policies and be more responsive to public opinion. That way, this rough term will be forgotten and the Republicans would be hard-pressed to make gains two elections in a row. Obama will have a legitimate shot ata second term, and Republicans would have to fight hard to retake either chamber.

If Democrats maintain majorities in both chambers in 2010, I think Obama can claim the first two years were a success in some measure. Rather than the disaster at Gettysburg, Obama could claim a draw and try for more small-scale operations from this point on. In the end, he got his Healthcare Reform.

If Republicans want to avoid this trek, they need to retake the House in November. That means that it has to be about more than just repealing Healthcare, there are plenty of issues to slam Democrats on. They cannot remain fixated on this battle, they need to move on and look for opportunities to counterattack Lee's weak Army (Obama). Boehner as a strategist is thoroughly unimpressive. McConnell has shown a bit more ability but not much. Steele is outright incompetent. The Union Army will have to find victory through the strength and energy of its soldiers (grassroots campaign) not its generals.

Will Healthcare be Obama's Waterloo?

Republicans had often mentioned that if they can defeat Obama's Healthcare plan, it could be his Waterloo, they famous defeat of the mighty Napoleon. There was criticism in that the Republicans did not have the interests of the country in mind but only the political interest of destroying the new Democratic President. Republicans countered with criticisms of the Plan itself but by then realy it did not matter. This was all in the Summer and Fall of 2009 when the Town Halls and Tea Party were becoming louder and angrier.

As doubt rose as to the passage of the Healthcare Plan, Obama and the Democrats got two small victories. The first was in the House, when the more liberal and expansive plan was passed 220-215. The second was in the Senate, when a less expansive but still liberal plan was passed 60-40. In both cases not a single Republican voted for it (well one did in the House but won't the second time around) and again the criticism was they are just obstructing Obama in hopes of arguing in November that he has accomplished nothing.

It is now March 2010, and Healthcare is still being debated. Obama had plenty of issues to choose from in his first two years: foreign policy, Iraq, Afghanistan, the economy, unemployment, illegal immigration, energy, education, and Terrorism in general. It is probably fair to say he has spent maybe 15-20% of his time on foreign policy and all of it turned out to be a continuance of the Bush Plan and the McCain Proposal in terms of Iraq and Afghanistan. He has spent 10% on economy with his failed Stimulus Package, Financial Reform, Mortgage Aid, and Bailouts. He is now only beginning to indicate an interest in illegal immigration. Cap and Trade barely passed the House and is stalled in the Senate but Obama does not seem to care too much. He has failed to close Gitmo by his self-imposed deadline and in the end may try the suspects in military tribunals as intended by Bush and McCain.

But his focus for over 50% of the time has been the passing of Healthcare. Everything else has been waiting or moving very slowly through the Congress. Obama is pressing this as his prime priority. This will be the one issue of his first two years.

So really, it is not Republicans that have wanted to turn this into a Waterloo, it is the President himself that has doubled-down his bets and continued to trudge forward with Healthcare, raising the stakes with every day that passes. As his other agenda items collapse, this is the one he wants most. And it is looking more and more like it will fail in the House. This is similar to a general putting everything he has in a single attack, high-risk, high reward. It is not Waterloo, it "Pickett's Charge".

At Gettysburg, General Lee had fought to a stalemate with the Union Army after two days. His Army took heavy losses but was still mostly intact and potent. On the third day he decides to commit the last remaining "fresh" units in his army to an attack on the very center of the Union line, unorthodox and very risky. Rather than withdrawing and trying to find another place to fight or forcing the Yankees to defend DC, he wanted to fight at Gettysburg. He had already committed most of his army to the battle and had not obtained victory. He was now going to commit the last portion of it. The attack failed miserably. Lee's defeat permanently crippled the Army of Northern Virginia. It lost 29,000 troops including some of its most experienced and capable soldiers. It would never again have the strength to directly attack the Union Army.

The same is happening here. Obama has used up a lot of energy in his vast "political army". With dominating majorities in both chambers of Congress he has had the firepower but in every battle up to now, he has managed only stalemates or minor victories. Now, as the tide of the battle in Washington is quickly turning against the Democrats, rather than withdrawing or attempting a more modest attack to gain what they can, Obama is going to hurl himself and his party one more time against the Republicans at the exact same spot on the battlefield. It is risky. If he fails, his party will limp into November having accomplished only a failed Stimulus Package, unpopular bailouts, a still open Gitmo, and no progress on Healthcare, Immigration, or Energy.

I give Obama credit for putting it all on the line. He is not a coward or spineless. If the Healthcare Bill dies in the House, as I think it will, Obama's political capital will have been spent, he will have a far more hostile Congress after the November elections and will not be in a position to "attack" or push any of his agenda items for the remainder of the first term.

As in Gettysburg, the Union Army did not force Lee to attack them and in fact did not expect any attack at all. It was Lee who decided on his own to take the gamble. Here, Obama has made the decision to put this much time and energy on this healthcare plan. It will be his Gettysburg, his Pickett's Charge, should it fail.

Healthcare Predictions

The new Healthcare plan will fail to pass the House as is. The Abortion language will be put back in but will still come up short with only 205-210 voting in favor. The Senate will use reconciliation to use a compromised version of their own that will hopefully be more acceptable. It will pass maybe with 56-57 votes. But no Healthcare Reform in 2010.

President Obama will lash out at Republicans as obstructionists, insurance companies for buying off Congressmen, Tea Partiers for misstating his plan and fearmongering, and will also quietly criticize Pelosi and Reid. He will no longer campaign for either of them and will try to get new leadership in Congress.

He will be forced to move on to illegal immigration, cap and trade, and financial reform. Out of those three only financial reform will go through. The Summer and Fall will come and Obama will campaign full-time for Democrats, doing speeches and using his appeal to help keep a majority in the House. He will fail.

Iraq will continue to improve, Afghanistan will start to turn around slightly, Iran will probably have nuclear weapons - whether they admit it or not, and European Union will be in full catastrophe mode when Italy and Greece collapse financially. So really Obama's positives will be in foreign policy but he cannot acknowledge that and will not. Because they are succeeding because he adopted Bush's strategies.

The Democrats will thus be dealt a fatal blow. Unable to govern, incompetent, and clearly unconcerned with the will of the people, they will lose control of the House of Representatives due to a couple more retirements between now and November. Republicans will likely hit 219-222 seats, a slim majority. The Republicans will not regain the Senate but will get within 2-3 seats.

President Obama will then be forced to work with a Congress that is far less friendly.

This reform will fail in the House. The Democrats will self-destruct and it will have nothing to do with Republican dissent. I am hopeful that March will be a good month for the Conservative Movement and Republicans.

Political Considerations: Are Obama's misplaced?

There are reports that Obama is willing to shift the 9/11 conspirators from civilian courts back to military tribunals. It is also becoming clear that Gitmo will not be closed anytime soon. In this particular area, Obama is showing some regard for political realities and practicality. Trying these terrorists in civilian courts was a horrible idea and the closing of Gitmo on a specified date was just a stunt. Its not as easy as closing down a prison, the prisoners need to go somewhere and no solution had been found.

And yet, Obama has shown no willingness to compromise on Healthcare other than to sprinkle a couple Republican ideas on the giant behemoth he is proposing, and drop the public option. Why? Why is it that a legislative issue that is not a priority of the country and not a priority of the national government in general warrants such stubborness and uncompromising tactics? Why? Why is it so important to liberal democrats to pass Healthcare Reform as is without any compromise and yet an important issue of the rule of law and individual rights is open to it? I thought Obama was a former law professor.

Democrats started with a public option, which most of the country did not want. They then moved to a $1 trillion plan that would make Medicare cuts, add all sorts of new mandates, create price controls, and require the insuring of millions of people. From this point they have only reduced the size of the plan by bits and pieces to get a couple more votes.

Its clear that this Healthcare plan, which gives the federal government all sorts of new authority and necessity for new bureaucracy, is important to liberal democrats because of control and because they believe it will be good for the country. The evidence of its projected damage to the economy, the budget, and that it won't reduce costs clearly shows that the effectiveness of the plan is not important to them. Control is important. It gives them more levers to pull, more strings, and more "favors" they can do. They simply do not trust anyone to do this right other than themselves, the elite liberal aristocracy.

It should give us real pause that the President is willing to shift his principles on legal rights and Gitmo, but not on Healthcare, an issue that is far less based on ideological principle.

Opponents of the bill must stand firm and those on the fence be fully aware that a vote in favor of this plan will end their political career in November. I hope Republicans keep the heat up on this issue as well as the economy and jobs. There is a good chance if this passes that the Democrats will lose control of the House and the Senate.

Health Summit/Law Class

President/Professor Obama called on senators and representatives alike giving input as to what he thought were good ideas, what were bad ideas, what was relevant, what was not relevant, and cut people off if he thought they were going too far...just like a professor. When counting how much time alotted he did not count himself because he is the President/professor. If you do add his talk time in, the Democrats talked for over 4 hours, Republicans talked for barely 2 hours. Obama spoke for well over two hours, more than all the other democrats combined, and more than all the republicans combined.

There were sob stories about women sharing dentures, Jesus the restaurant owner, there were jabs at silly alarmists talking about this whole reconciliation thing, and there was anger at bringing the actual bill (a giant 2300 page pile) to the Summit. God forbid you actually bring the fucking Healthcare Plan to the Healthcare Summit.

It was contentious but Republicans stayed respectful (I was hoping they would express more frustration and ask what as the point?), did not get rude by talking over anyone and did not make any direct attacks on the President. The President took a shot at McCain, Alexander, and Paul Ryan. Democrats angerly invoked all the right-wing nut jobs that think this is socialism and all other sort of random things.

To summarize: Republicans came to talk about their problems with the bill and make their talking points for the 5000th time. Democrats wanted to slam the Republicans for not voting for the bill and for being so knit-picky about portions of the bill. Obama won the election, the democrats won the election, so you should do what we want because we won! The election is over John, I won, so stop getting in my way. People don't care about process John, when the election is over, the loser should shutup and just go away.

It was a massive waste of time with no negotiation, it ran like a law class for bad lawyers, it was incredibly boring so much so that networks dumped it quickly, even the news networks started to bring in guests and commentators rather than actually hear what was being said.

And in the end, Obama stated they are going forward anyway, that Reconciliation is on the table and that really they don't need any Republican input...so why did we have a Summit? What was the point of all this? How can we conclude anything other than it was just a political gimmick?

This is the Hope and Change 53% of the country voted for. I hope your happy with your change.

Obama Healthcare Proposal: Potentially a Massive Disaster

Obama proposes new Healthcare Plan
Obama tries to show some sort of renewed focus on Healthcare with his own actual plan. Can you believe it? An actual Obama plan with pages, words, and ideas. It is not a Democratic Party plan, House plan, or Senate plan, it is actually HIS plan. Unfortunately he still has not learned to provide details on anything. The CBO reports it cannot score the President's plan because vital details are missing. Quite the surprise.

The plan is reported to be a hybrid of the House and Senate bills with more spending and control. It includes a provision limiting premium increases by private insurers. It has loose abortion language, more similar to the Senate plan. In other words, its the same crap with a new name.

It is a plan designed to be a consensus among Democrats. Reid has stated that he will use reconciliation to get past the filibuster in the Senate to avoid a possible Republican block. Obama has indicated he supports the plan. So here we are. Another Democratic plan, that will bypass any bipartisanship. It is unpopular among the people and among the experts. It is a disaster for the country.

Here is the part I think will be the political disaster. He is holding a Summit with Republicans that is televised which focuses on his Healthcare Plan. Couple problems with that. First, he promised to make jobs priority one this year. So far that has not been the case. Second, Obama and the democrats fully intend to use legislative manuevering so that they don't need a single Republican vote. So what is the Summit for? Obama doesn't need their support or their votes. How can he look bipartisan when he uses a shortcut so he only needs 51 votes instead of 60 in the Senate? Third, there is a provision limiting a rise in insurance cost. By adding this provision, Obama is admitting that his healthcare plan will result in higher premiums, higher costs, and that the only way he can control it is through the force of law.

This will hurt Obama's popularity and certainly hurt Democrats in November. Americans consider healthcare maybe the third or fourth priority of the country. They consider gaps in coverage the second biggest problem with healthcare, second to COST! The bill is not bipartisan, they will not pursue it in a bipartisan way. None of this is really in dispute. And yet, Obama is going on television with Republicans to talk about this.

How exactly does this all turn out well for Obama? It cannot. It will damage him further, make him look dictatorial, arrogant, and superifical. The Summit is a gimmick and everyone will see it for what it is.

And as an added bonus for Republican strategists, odds are that Obama's plan will pass the Senate but odds are strongly against it passing in the House. In the end, it will probably fail yet again on this part of his agenda, effectively wasting 14 months of his Presidency on a single agenda item.

I would've never guessed back in 2008 that Obama would be this incompetent and his party this bad at governing. Odds on Republicans retaking Congress are improving by the day.