Who Let the Blue Dogs Out?

Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats have finally hit some resistance in their push towards socialism. Last week, something truly amazing and totally refreshing happened in Washington D.C. A group of fiscally-conservative Democrats known as the "Blue Dog" Coalition signaled that they could not support the bastard child christened "Obamacare".

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Barely two weeks ago, it appeared as if the disaster of socialized medicine would indeed be rammed through Congress and down the throats of the American people. But, the stalwart opposition of the Blue Dogs means that Congress will likely adjourn for their August recess without an agreement on Barack Obama's signature piece of legislation. That's just as well; it was nothing more than a big, fat piece of something else. But, that's what you get when Nancy Pelosi and the liberal wing of the Democrat party are tasked with writing it. The road to Obamacare was paved with a series of overt lies. Like every other issue Obama has wrapped his hands around, unless we act immediately, led by him, we face imminent catastrophe. If you remember, he chided us that without his stimulus, we were doomed to an economic Chernobyl. Economists are now cautiously (and prematurely) sounding the bottom, yet barely ten percent of those hundreds of billions has been spent; much of it wasted; and Barack Obama maintains that the stimulus was successful and operating as intended. If you believe Obama now, the American health care system is also in full cardiac arrest. Unless we (he) intervenes immediately, the entire system will melt down and grind to a halt. Let's be honest. Our health care system is not perfect, but it works. Good health care is available in this country, but there are often long lines, and it's just too expensive. Americans are generally satisfied with the quality and level of care they receive and don't see the need for radical change. What do you suppose would happen to the quality of medical care if millions of people across the nation were suddenly given health insurance? Lines and waits would become unbearable. As a result, you'd be sicker, while the quality of your care would decline. You'd be shuffled in and out of clinics much quicker and government would have to ration care to everyone just to meet the increased burden. And when you were finally seen by a doctor, a panel of Obama's choosing would determine what care you were entitled to, based on nothing more than the law of averages. This monstrosity would cost trillions of dollars and add to the crushing weight of our national debt, which is now an eye-bursting 11.6 trillion dollars, not including commitments for Social Security or Medicare, a gap which will more than likely never be closed. Perhaps the most revealing aspect of the health care legislation is what was not included in public drafts. Republicans tried but failed to get an amendment added that would have bound Congress to the same health care reforms they were trying to sell to America. Needless to say, the amendment failed and it never saw the light of day. The artificial deadline of the August recess imposed by Obama and the lack of legislative detail available to the public was by design. As with the stinkulus, Democrats don't want Americans to be able to digest the poison pill they've been force fed while they are in recess. When they return and begin campaigning for the 2010 mid-term elections, health care reform will no longer burden their chances of re-election. Much to his chagrin, like closing Guantanamo, winning in Iraq, reducing the deficit, or any of the other tasks he has taken on, health care reform is turning out to be much more difficult than Barack Obama anticipated. If it wasn't, it would have already been accomplished. It's not a matter of economics, rather third-grade math. The reforms he mandates require either raising taxes or gutting other programs. Period. If the Blue Dogs had not put some sanity back in this process, Democrats could have very well destroyed the US health care system themselves by cramming this ill-conceived socialist takeover down our throats. But, why would Democrats resist their own party to side with the minority? The stakes were simply too high. And the Blue Dogs have shown that they can put aside politics and stand on principle, even when coming under fire by members in their own party. Even Republicans fail on that score. The debate over Obamacare isn't about reforming the system any more than the Obama stinkulus was about helping the economy. Talk is cheap and words mean nothing, particularly when they are carefully chosen in advance and read off a Teleprompter; or answers to questions from Democrats planted in the audience. He can talk about fixing things forever, but every move Obama has made since becoming a squatter in the White House has been about increasing federal power while taking money from those who worked for it and giving it to those who didn't. Obama is such a control freak, he even found it necessary to inject himself in a local police matter involving the now infamous arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Gates by Cambridge, MA Police. Not only did he rush to judgment and comment on a local issue, in his own words: "admittedly without knowing all of the facts", he has thus far failed to apologize; instead, opting to blame his idiocy on a "calibration error". This insatiable narcissist travels the world apologizing for America, but apparently isn't man enough to apologize for his own verbal clumsiness, only to "clarify his remarks". Despite Barack Obama's belligerent doomsday rhetoric, the vast majority of Americans are happy with their current health care. The uninsured represent a tiny fraction of all Americans. The answer to health care reform is to fix the cost problems in our current system, not to completely dismantle it and replace it with some bastardized form of socialized medicine that history proves is far worse than what we have today.