Frugal Café Blog Zone

Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on February 25, 2010

I didn’t watch the Obama “I’m wearing my ‘sincere face’ to pretend I’m listening to those stupid Republicans” health care summit today… some of us have to work to keep Obama’s redistribution of the wealth afloat, right? Welfare entitlements, funding 9,000 congressional pet projects, and paying the health care costs for illegal aliens and Club Gitmo terrorists doesn’t happen all by itself, dontcha know.

So, overall, how did it go?

From what I’ve quickly perused from several online sources, the highly anticipated summit meeting at Blair House with Congress had some good moments, but was also a real snoozer… I love this evaluation from David Hinckley at NY Daily News:

Science of sleep: Health Care Summit is television’s version of anesthesia

David Hinckley | February 25, 2010

Since everyone else seems to have a suggestion on how to cut health care costs, here’s mine: Pipe full-length DVDs of Thursday’s Health Care Summit into every operating room in America, and we will eliminate the need for any other form of anesthesia.

That should save a bundle.

You really wanted this seven-hour drama to become engaging, since it dealt with reasonably important matters like life, death and a few trillion of our dollars.

Trouble is, a TV show can’t grab you if it can’t keep you awake, and the human body can take only so many exposures to phrases like “We use a high-risk pool until we get to the exchange” or “We aren’t incentivizing prevention” before it falls asleep.

Now no one went into Thursday’s Health Summit expecting “Jersey Shore South,” with Nancy Pelosi as Snooki.

But after a year of posturing, speeches, sound bites and jargon from some other galaxy, I had this crazy hope that maybe the major players could sit down and agree in simple sentences what we should or shouldn’t do next.

David, you’re one funny guy. I also liked this:

I was ready to nominate Rep. Louise Slaughter for an Emmy when she talked about the woman who wore her dead sister’s dentures because she couldn’t afford her own.

Okay, that didn’t exactly resolve the issue. But at least it felt like a legitimate human story, which is what good television is about.

Maybe good legislation, too, come to think of it. In one way, Thursday’s TV show did provide an accurate update on the current status of the health care debate. Democrats are scrambling to find some way to get something passed. Republicans just want to stop it.

Love the title of this one… From Vodkapundit at PajamasMedia, I Need Another Cup of Coffee — Irish:

The Health Care Summit is taking a recess, but the news rolls on. Here’s Politico, reporting on what happens next:

After a brief period of consultation following the White House health reform summit, congressional Democrats plan to begin making the case next week for a massive, Democrats-only health care plan, party strategists told POLITICO.

A Democratic official said the six-hour summit was expected to “give a face to gridlock, in the form of House and Senate Republicans.”

This bill is supported by a mere 25% of Americans. Making the Republicans the face of gridlock is the dumbest possible move out of dozens of possible dumb moves.

Teensy bit from Michelle Malkin’s excellent live updating that she called a “blowhard-a-thon” — LOL:

10:15am Eastern. In an opening statement/lecture, Obama drags his daughters into the health care reform debate. Rehashes questionable meningitis story. See background on that here: Leave Obama’s kids alone…except when POTUS & FLOTUS need them for Obamacare.

10:22am Eastern. Insert laugh track. Obama: “I hope this will not just be theater.” And if it is, Obama goes on, “I hope it’s an opportunity to clarify our positions.”

*****

Nancy Pelosi up next. Brags about bipartisan vote for empty gesture measure lifting antitrust exemption for health insurers. Several minutes of emoting and stammering conclude with multiple invocations of Teddy Kennedy and the left-wing mantra: “Health care is a right, not a privilege.”

Next up: Harry Reid’s Save My Backside speech.

Reid: “No one’s talking about reconciliation!” But, anyway, it’s been done before. Blah, blah, blah. Reid says Demcare bill has had “significant input from Republicans.”

Invokes a constituent named “Jesus” many times. “Jesus.” “Jesus.”

Additional recommended commentary provided by Malkin: CBO to White House: We can’t score your health care crap sandwich.

From Ace of Spades HQ:

I don’t trust myself to judge, really, because I thought McCain and Palin kicked ass in each of their debates with Captain Wonderful and Simple Joe; the public didn’t seem to disagree. But it does seem to me the Republicans are getting the best of it, since the Democratic talking points are old and busted (the media parrots them all the time) and the Republican ideas haven’t gotten nearly as much air time.

From Philip Klein at American Spectator:

Having watched every minute of the health care summit, I have to disagree with my co-bloggers. I think that Republicans have been, generally speaking, handling this very well. I’ve been very critical of the GOP throughout the health care debate, but Republicans have consistently made fact-based arguments on why President Obama’s plan will make our health care system’s problems worse, presented other ideas, and made the case for scrapping the current highly unpopular bill and taking a different approach. Paul Ryan just completely eviscerated the Democratic claims that the Senate health care bill would contain costs and reduce deficits, outlining the accounting gimmicks that Democrats used, as well as the actuarial study by the Department of Health and Human Services that found the Senate bill would actually increase health care spending. Chuck Grassley, while not the whiz kid that Ryan is, followed up by noting a CBO report that found Democrats cannot double-count the savings from the Medicare cuts to claim it will both reduce deficits and extend the solvency of the program both at the same time.

Conservatives need to chill out. The Democrats have lost this argument on the merits. A new CNN poll finds that just 25 percent of Americans want Congress to pass a bill along the lines of the House and Senate bills.

More quips… Sister Toldjah weighs in:

Six hours of this? You’ve got to be kidding me. Frankly, I’d rather have watched the Beer Summit for six hours over this nonsense.

Check out Patterico’s Pontifications post, “Because I’m the President” — lots of links and some classic quotes from the Obama dog-and-pony show/summit.

From Hot Air:

Obama’s problem today was that he couldn’t fly solo; he tried to, speaking for more minutes at the meeting than either the Democrats or Republicans did, but surrounding him with sad sacks like Reid and Harkin was bound to dilute the effect. Lotttt of water mixed in with the Hopenchange whiskey today.

On a more serious note, here is Republican Minority Leader John Boehner’s post… Boehner pulls no punches:

For his part, President Obama comes to the table with the same massive government takeover of health care that the American people have already rejected. In effect, the president’s proposal actually takes the 2,733-page bill that the Senate passed on Christmas Eve and manages to make it worse. Even more Medicare cuts. Even more tax hikes. Plenty of special-interest deals still in place. A trillion-dollar price tag.

This latest Democrats-only backroom deal snuffed out any chance that this summit could serve as the starting point for a bipartisan consensus. Democrats are instead hoping that this media event can be the gateway to a final push that involves circumventing the will of the people and jamming a bill through using parliamentary tricks.

This is the same arrogance and overreaching that the American people are so fed up with. It’s why Massachusetts happened. It’s why Americans waited for hours in the August heat to get into town hall meetings and make sure their voices were heard.

Indeed, we’ve been here before. Shortly after Labor Day, the president gave an address to Congress designed to resuscitate his proposed government takeover of health care. That speech was followed by an all-out media blitz. It was described as a “last-ditch effort,” “an opportunity to take back the initiative.” Nearly six months later, still no health care bill has been signed into law, tens of thousands more have lost their jobs and unemployment is still near 10 percent.

All this uncertainty is hurting small businesses, the engine of job creation in our country, while Americans are rightly asking: “Where are the jobs?”

The president’s health care media blitz was based on the notion that the more the American people learn about his plan, the more they would come to like it. Now that just the opposite has occurred, the president has chosen to limit participation in the Thursday summit to administration officials and congressional leaders. America’s governors and state legislatures have been excluded. Their perspective from the front lines about the damage this massive government takeover of health care would do to cash-strapped states is apparently not welcome. That’s greatly disappointing, considering that measures have been introduced in at least 36 state legislatures opting out of a federal takeover of health care.

Also excluded from today’s summit is Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., co-author of a House-passed amendment barring federal funding of abortion. The Stupak-Pitts amendment — which reflects the will of the American people on the issue of federal funding of abortion — is supported by a bipartisan majority in the House, but was excluded from the president’s proposal. Pro-life Democrats in the House have already pledged to vote against this provision. Health care reform should be an opportunity to protect human life — not end it. This fundamental issue isn’t even listed as a topic for discussion at the summit.

The president can hold all the summits he wants, but the toothpaste is out of the tube: The American people don’t want this massive government takeover of health care. No summit or speech or sales pitch can fix a fundamentally flawed 2,000-plus-page health care bill that spends money we don’t have and kills the jobs we need to get our economy moving again.

Let’s listen to the American people and let’s start over.

Well said, Mr. Boehner… I especially liked that “toothpaste is out of the tube” phrase. Gotta steal that and use it myself sometime…

Even those “across the pond” shared their appraisals of the dog-and-pony show… from Times Online, Try to stay awake: the President has a healthcare Bill to pass:

Warning: watching American politicians argue about healthcare can be seriously damaging to your health. Symptoms may include migraines, extreme fatigue and sudden violent urges. In the event of exposure to competing statistics — regarding “donut holes”, “HMO deductibles”, “reconciliation devices” or suchlike — seek immediate medical help.

The public affairs television channel C-Span 3 might as well have put such a message at the bottom of its screen yesterday as it broadcast President Obama’s epic six-hour “bipartisan” debate on US medical reform.

Of course, by the usual standards of C-Span programming — which can induce sleep faster than an IV drip of propofol — the summit was the equivalent of a bikini mud wrestling contest. You half expected the picture to shake as the camera operator struggled to compose himself.

Obama Ends Bipartisan Summit By Threatening to Ram Obamacare Through Congress

And the “best” for last… from Gateway Pundit, Obama’s big “screw you” finale… let us not ever forget that “HE WON”:

The Chicago Way…

Barack Obama ended the bipartisan summit today at the Blair House by threatening Republicans to accept the democrat’s plan. (He will not start over.) Or, he will ram it through Congress without them.

“Elections have consequences.”

Barack Obama closed the bipartisan nationalized health care summit with a threat:

“I don’t think Tom we’re going to have another one of these because people don’t have 7-8 hours a day to work some of these things through.“

[...]

After all, the senators just don’t have the time to be dealing with little issues like nationalizing one-sixth of the economy.

Another perspective from CNN… GOP did a good job, Obama was for the most part “graceful” with the occasional edge…

David Gergen on CNN: Dems Didn’t Get “Breakthrough” They Wanted; GOP “Had Their Best Day in Years”

More:
Gateway Pundit: Gergen at CNN: Republicans Just Had Their Best Day in Years (Video)
Frank Ross, Big Journalism: ‘Health Care’ Summit/Photo Op Overnight Thread: So How’d He Do?

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