Beware Obama's Bipartisan Compromise Strategy for Health Care Reform
A Deceptive Compromise in Store for Us?


Larry Greenley | John Birch Society
15 August 2009


Back on July 29 when I posted, "Reject Health Care Cooperatives -- Trojan Horse for the Public Option," I was warning about a possible betrayal by Senate Republicans through their drafting of a bipartisan compromise bill in the Senate Finance Committee. This bipartisan compromise bill is still under construction by a six-member working group of three Democrats (led by Chairman Max Baucus) and three Republicans (led by Sen. Chuck Grassley). Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has given this committee a deadline of September 15 for reporting their bill out of committee.

Nonetheless, based on Thursday's New York Times article, "Obama Is Taking an Active Role in Talks on Health Care Plan," we now know that President Obama has been very much involved in the construction of this bipartisan compromise bill for many months. From this article it appears that the President and his advisors have devised a clever strategy for bringing about a government takeover of the health care industry which includes a Plan A and a Plan B. Plan A would be the passage of health care reform as embodied in the Democrats' House bill, H.R. 3200. Plan B would be the passage of health care reform as embodied in a bipartisan health care compromise bill as is being drafted by the Senate Finance Committee.

Plan A would involve a fairly direct government takeover of health care through the "public option," which would set up a government insurance entity in "competition" with private insurers. I don't think I have to connect the dots for how this would provide a transition to a completely government-run health care system. Plan B would involve a more indirect government takeover of health care through establishing some seemingly non-governmental entity, such as "health care cooperatives," which would be in "competition" with private insurers. There would be more dots to connect in this scenario to explain how it could proceed to a completely government-run health care system; however, since these new health care cooperatives, or whatever they end up being called, would be highly regulated and almost certainly heavily subsidized by the government, an eventual complete government takeover of health care would be a foregone conclusion. See my earlier article, "Reject Health Care Cooperatives -- Trojan Horse for the Public Option," for more details on this.

Here's a 44-second video clip from President Obama's Health Care Town Hall in New Hampshire on August 11 that shows just how much the bipartisan compromise bill being worked out by the Senate Finance Committee is on Obama's mind and how willing he is to acknowledge the Republicans involved, Grassley, Enzi, and Snowe:


YouTube - Obama Acknowledges Republicans Working on Bipartisan Health Care Compromise


Here's a three-minute video clip from an interview with Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) from July 24 in which he describes how substituting "health care cooperatives" for the "public option" would solve the government takeover objection to health care reform. Notice how confident he is that his six-member group is constructing the actual legislation that will ultimately be passed by Congress. He brags that only once in the last ten years has bipartisan legislation that he drafted in partnership with Senator Baucus failed to be passed by the Senate. He also says he's working ahead of the other Rebublicans in Congress on a bill that many of them will be able to vote for. Here's the Grassley video:


YouTube - Sen Grassley Re Bipartisan Health Care Compromise

So, you might ask, why has President Obama worked out a Plan B? Of course, we all know how Plan A has fared in town hall meetings all over the nation the past couple weeks. The American public is vigorously opposed to a government takeover of health care. The polls show this. The town halls show it. So, what if Americans could be presented with health care reform without the "public option," without an explicit threat of a "government takeover"? That's where Plan B would come in. The Senate Finance Committee's bipartisan compromise bill could be promoted as providing the health care reform desired by most without the government intrusion opposed by most. Brilliant!

A close reading of the New York Times article linked to above leads one to think that Plan B has been the Obama administration's preferred health care reform legislative strategy all along. The promises made to hospital industry officials and lobbyists in exchange for their concessions of $155 billion were predicated on having no public option in the final health care bill. I'm not the only one that reads the article that way. Here's an interesting take on this same New York Times article by a liberal webcast, The Young Turks. The title of this video is "Has Obama Sold Out Already?" The host starts out by saying, "If they've got the story right, it's all over. There isn't gonna be a public option." If you happen to view this video all the way to the end, you'll notice that one of the host's biggest blind spots is that he doesn't understand how the "health care cooperatives" option, or whatever else they name it, can be transformed into the "public option" over time. Here's the video:

YouTube - Has Obama Sold Out Already?

Nonetheless, whether Obama favored Plan A or Plan B as of a few months ago, it now seems clear that public pressure will force the administration to go with Plan B in September. However, from the perspective of those of us opposed to a government takeover of health care, we need to urge the American public to oppose Plan B, the bipartisan compromise, just as vigorously as they now oppose Plan A. We need to warn our fellow Americans against Plan B whether it's being sold by Obama or Republicans. Since 1994 when they became the majority party in Congress, the Republicans have shown themselves more than capable of maintaining and building big government. A government takeover of health care is bad whether it happens quickly as the Democrats would have it, or slowly as many Republicans would have it.

Given the high degree of deception involved in the selling of health care reform by President Obama, most of the Democrats, and many Republicans, the best outcome would be for Congress to abandon health care reform for 2009 and 2010. A continuation of the widespread grassroots opposition to health care reform can accomplish this. This would provide time for constitutionalists and others who oppose a government takeover of health care to get many candidates, who respect the Constitution and a free market economy, nominated and elected to Congress.

Our health care system is already plagued by too much government regulation. We need representatives and senators who will give us more health care freedom in accordance with the U.S. Constitution!

Click here to send a message to your representative and senators in opposition to any form of government takeover of health care.


SOURCE:
http://www.jbs.org/freedom-campaign/5230