Too Early To Celebrate

Posted by Larry Miller on August 18, 2009 under How | 2 Comments to Read

The Public Option is off the table, we are told. The President is responding to the public outcry we are told. We have won a major victor we are told. We can relax now we are told. But… not so fast. Have we won over Barack Hussein Obama? As the man on TV says… watch what they do, not what they say.

Many are breathing a sigh of relief that a health co-op will replace the evil Public Option. Hmmmm! Let’s think about how wonderful this new plan is. We now have plans for a federal government financed plan where the people running the program are put into place by the federal government. The Public Option is to be put into place supposedly to keep the private insurers honest. While there certainly is some hanky panky going on, expecting the private insurers to have to compete against a government run entity – where the government make the rules does not sound very competitive. It doesn’t even sound like a scheme where the private insurers are expected to be around very long. This plan, financed and controlled by the federal government, under rules established by the federal government… sounds kind of like the Public Option to me.

They have us looking at the right hand while the left hand sticks a shiv in our ribs. We need to be careful what we get excited about. With the history of deception coming out of the White House, there is no way we should get too excited about the news that the Public Option is off the table. It simply is not true… even the White House is backing away from the statement.

With the more extreme members of the Democrat party demanding the Public Option stay in the plan, combined with the resolution process ironing out the differences between the House and Senate plans, there is no reason to believe the Public Option is dead and buried.

From the looks of this Tuesday morning blogosphere, no one is being fooled… at least among those who are paying attention. It is a sad state of affairs when the people can trust neither their government, that is supposed to be looking out for them, nor the press, who is supposed to be keeping and eye on the government, not acting as a PR flack.

This is, however, just one more instance of the public being misled by our “betters”… just as when we are told the “death panels” which didn’t exist have been removed from the plan. What can we believe?

We might want to believe the people – the citizens who pay the taxes that cover the bills for these grandiose schemes, and those who may have care denied because they do not fit the deserving profile. In spite of the fact that there are admittedly some issues with our health care system, according the a recent Rasmussen poll, 54% say no bill at all is better than the one working it’s way through congress. 35% think the current configuration (as best as they can see) is the way to go. That’s about the same percentage as hard core Democrats. So again, what can we believe?

We can believe that we cannot drop our guard. We can believe that we need to keep up the pressure. We can believe that the battle is not over… and we can believe that we will see a Public Option if we are not vigilant and if we blindly trust the words of of those in power inside the beltway.