The Death of Obama Care?

Is it possible? Obama Care in it's current form, is truly faltering? Yes, I know something will have to be passed for Obama to save face - though "talking out of both sides of his...." could make that challenging. Three basic pieces of evidence, as possible microcosms of a much bigger picture that will not be completed in Obama's image (just had a flashback to the great book and movie "The Picture of Dorian Gray" but in this case, Obama will still be idolized and still represent that "ideal" to his loyal subjects, while the overall picture is becoming something rather ugly indeed):

1. The liberal columnists and bloggers are starting to look at this plan, and ignoring the Whitehouse's suggestion, to look "at the big picture," they are finding much fault with the plan, even to the point of, "gasp," believing that the critics "may be right."

Examples such as some of the dirt being dug up by those "conservative - re: just kidding, really leftest websites" such as the Daily Kos and Huffington Post - excellent examples of how some species do eat their young. Case in point, from the Daily Beast, an interesting post by Lee Siegel, titled "Obama's Euthanasia Mistake," which takes to task Obama's nearly non-emotional tenor of bill and tack of campaigning over areas that could be quite emotional to the participants who actually have to make the decisions over life-and-death, particularly that all life is precious and cannot be rationalized... a couple key sections in the piece to consider - the "life-sustaining committees," though the term "death panels," seems to be getting more mileage in the press:

"...One of the key ideas under consideration—which can be read as expressing sympathy for limitations on end-of-life care—is morally revolting. And it’s helping to kill the plan itself.

Make no mistake about it. Determining which treatments are “cost effective” at the end of a person’s life and which are not is one of Obama’s priorities. It’s one of the principal ways he counts on saving money and making universal healthcare affordable.

This is the Big Brother nightmare of oppressive government that the shrewd propagandists on the right are always blathering on about. Except that this time, they could not be more right.

Obama told Diane Sawyer in June that government should “study and figure out what works and what doesn’t. And let’s encourage doctors and patients to get what works. Let’s discourage what doesn’t.”

Sawyer then asked him: “Will it just be encouragement? Or will there be a board making Solomonic decisions?”

Obama replied, “What I’ve suggested is—is that we have a—a commission that helps—made up of doctors, made up of experts, that helps set best—best practices.”

When Sawyer pressed him to say whether those practices would be enforced by law, he evaded the question.

This reeks of the Big Brother nightmare of oppressive government that the shrewd propagandists on the right are always blathering on about. Except that this time, they could not be more right.

Leave aside the argument for ending life when its prospects for continuing seem too painful or too hopeless. Leave it aside because this is one case where Kant’s beautiful categorical imperative—act as though your particular deeds should be a universal law—will never apply. We know that theft and murder are wrong because if they were universally committed, the world would explode in chaos. But the decision to end your life before nature wrenches it away is as rational and humane as the decision to prolong your life by whatever means necessary. Life is too specifically precious to turn its final phase into any type of universal practice, whether it’s enforced by custom or by law.

As for the argument that fruitless tests and “senseless” procedures are bankrupting the health-care system, that is an insult to the intelligence. No one knows which tests and procedures will be effective beforehand. No amount of “study” and research is going to address the particular case and the particular condition, let alone the particular, desperate, irrational will to live—which, in animal terms, is pragmatic and rational...."

Unfortunately, Obama is not getting it, though I believe while he considers himself pragmatic and rational, with such an emotional issue of life-and-death (and many others listed in the plan), that just doesn't cut it.

2. The polls are in the tank

Is it possible that the reason Obama and the Democratic leadership wanted to push this program through, without even reading it, while attacking anyone who had any questions on it at all, is that they knew once people started reading the bill, they wouldn't like what they see??? (Health Care? sounds good, wait a minute, this isn't health care, it's....screams fill the air, the screen turns black, film credits roll - left to your imagination, like a dream, though it's a nightmare, that you will not soon wake up from)... and so the numbers continue to drop, particularly independents...

"The Marist Poll found 45% of registered voters nationwide disapprove of how Obama is handling health care, while 43% approve and 12% are unsure.

A full 52% of independent voters, the critical voting bloc that propelled Obama to the White House last fall, gave the President’s handling of health care the thumbs down, while just 34% approve." (From the New York Daily News, August 14th)

3. Ah, and finally, cable news, what would we do without you?

Though sometimes, I'll admit it, I like to turn the TV and computer off to find out. Amazing how shrill some of these liberal experts are - by shouting down the opponent, seems to give them the impression that they've won [i.e., Chris Matthews, Keith Olberman, Rachel Maddow, and the entire MSNBC crew - it must be like NASCAR (though they wouldn't lower themselves to watch), where all the participants are constantly turning to the left] - such as the following exchange on MSNBC (again, from Daily Beast) - it's pure poetry: