Home
In this issue
Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review August 4, 2009 / 14 Menachem-Av 5769

Peddling the Edsel when nobody's buying

By Wesley Pruden


Printer Friendly Version

Email this article

Share and bookmark this article



http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Congress is getting an earful about Barack Obama's health care "reform," but before August is out, nobody's ears will be big enough to hold it all. Not even the president's.


The congressional poodles, soon to be fanning out across the country to sample down-home sentiment, will hide out as much as they can. Nobody likes to be shouted down or risk receiving his daily serving of fruit and vegetables served on the fly. Some congressmen will handpick their crowds, hiring smaller auditoriums to keep the numbers down. One Web site dedicated to defeating Obamacare warns congressional constituents to give their congressmen a taste of cold anger, but be nice, if only to avoid inviting sympathy for the undeserving.


An aide to one Democratic congressman likens his boss' vacation to a hopeless campaign to "sell the Edsel." The Edsel, as only old-timers recall, was a new car introduced by Ford five decades ago. The car arrived with lots of weirdly shaped sheet metal and expensive bells and whistles, only to become th


e enduring metaphor for humiliating failure. The Republicans hold advantages as the monthlong congressional recess begins. The Democrats' only pitch is that Obamacare will "save" money - nobody believes that - and provide coverage for the 47 million Americans who have no insurance, all at the expense of Americans who do. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office calculates that Obamacare would cost far more than the president and his friends say it would. President Obama's famous promise to the middle class that "you will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime" will soon be gone with the wind. That was the word Monday from the Treasury secretary.


The president's scheme might survive the assault of the accountants; once the argument descends from billions to trillions, we're talking about the kind of money nobody really understands. That's the stuff of op-ed page wonkery. But everybody understands what the dead hand of government does to the living.


"In addition to being fiscally unsustainable," says Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, a Republican, "the health care reform plan emerging from Democrats in Congress raises disturbing questions for our nation's seniors. One particular provision in the Democratic bill has seniors worried, and rightly so. A new Center for Health Outcomes and Evaluation could ration access to medicines and treatments based on the government's assessment of the value of a human life and the 'cost-effectiveness' of treatment."


The bland, lifeless language of the legislation hides the eventual purpose of the authors, which is to authorize rationing of health care for the sick, the elderly and the hopelessly ill. The sponsors of the legislation insist that only paranoid geezers are dumb enough to believe stuff like this, but when Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming, a Republican, introduced an amendment specifically insuring that the Center for Health Outcomes and Evaluation (obviously named by the ghost of Orwell) could never put a value on a life by measuring it against bureaucratic "quality of life" and "cost-effectiveness" standards, it was rejected by a party-line vote. Such end-of-life measurements are routinely employed in European countries with socialized medicine, observes Sen. Brownback, where "elderly, disabled and medically dependent patients would be at greatest risk of being denied necessary care."


The prospect of defending provisions like this, which betray the true nature of the "reform," terrify Democrats and even melt the practiced cool of Barack Obama. The whole campaign to "reform" health care is built on lies, evasions and not-so-clever misrepresentations. Videos now circulating on the Internet betray in plain language the president's ultimate game. "I don't think we can eliminate employer coverage immediately," Mr. Obama tells a campaign audience. "[There will be] some transition process." In another video, Rep. Barney Frank is out of the closet and up on the rooftop: "I think if we can get a good public option," he says, "it would lead to single-payer - that's the way to get single payer."


So far, the campaign against health care "reform" is an unorganized movement from the grass roots, fueled by common sense. The insurance companies are playing "the inside game," spending a million dollars a day on lobbying and spreading money around. That's the kind of argument Congress finds persuasive, but more powerful stuff is on the way. Fear of the angry voter is the ultimate argument clincher on Capitol Hill.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.

Wesley Pruden Archives

© 2007 Wesley Pruden

Insight (Our Columnists)

 Arnold Ahlert
 Mitch Albom
 Michael Barone
  Dave Barry
 Tony Blankley
 Andy Borowitz
 David Broder
 Stratfor Briefing
 Mona Charen
 Linda Chavez
 Ann Coulter
 Greg Crosby
 Larry Elder
 Suzanne Fields
 John Fund
 Frank J. Gaffney
 Lloyd Garver
 Jonah Goldberg
 Julia Gorin
 Jonathan Gurwitz
 Paul Greenberg
 Lewis Grossberger
 Victor Davis Hanson
 Betsy Hart
 Nat Hentoff
 David Horowitz
 Laura Ingraham
 Cheri Jacobus
Jeff Jacoby
 Paul Johnson
 Jack Kelly
 Ed Koch
 Ch. Krauthammer
 Michael Ledeen
 John Leo
 David Limbaugh
 Kathryn Lopez
 Rich Lowry
 Michelle Malkin
 Jackie Mason
 Dick Morris
 Bill O'Reilly
 Jim Mullen
 Clarence Page
 Kathleen Parker
 Dennis Prager
 Wesley Pruden
 Tom Purcell
 Jonathan Rauch
 Celia Rivenbark
 Robert Robb
 Cokie & Steve Roberts
 Pat Sajak
 Debra J. Saunders
 Culture Shlock
 Roger Simon
 Michael Smerconish
 Thomas Sowell
 Mark Steyn
 John Stossel
 Cal Thomas
 Bob Tyrrell
 Diana West
 Dave Weinbaum
 George Will
 Walter Williams
 Byron York
 Mort Zuckerman

'Toons
 Robert Arial
 Chuck Asay
 Baloo
 Chip Bok
 Dry Bones
  Lisa Benson
 John Branch
 Gary Brookins
 John Cole
 J. D. Crowe
 John Deering
 Brian Duffy
 Everything's Relative
 Mallard Fillmore
 Jake Fuller
 Bob Gorrel
 Joe Heller
 David Hitch
 Jerry Holber
 Steve Kelley
 Jeff Koterba
 Dick Locher
 Chan Lowe
 Ranan R. Lurie
 Jimmy Margulies
 Rick McKee
 Michael Ramirez
 Kevin Siers
 Jeff Stahler
 Ed Stein
 Danna Summers
 John Trever
 Gary Varvel
 Kirk Walters

Lifestyles
 How 2
 Lori Borgman
 The Savvy Consumer
 Elder matters
 Fixit
 Dr. Peter Gott
 GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
 Richard Lederer
 Tech Maven
 Every Monday Matters
 Nutrition Myths
 Bookmark These
 Bruce Williams
 How Stuff Works