ObamaCare: McCain To The Rescue?

From Investor's Business Daily

McCain To Rescue Of ObamaCare?

Health Care: "First, do no harm" is never the maxim of Washington politicians. With a public uprising killing ObamaCare, Sen. John McCain wants "to sit down with the president" and resuscitate it.

At a town hall in Sun City, Ariz., on Tuesday, the defeated Republican presidential nominee displayed a chart featuring some good health care reform ideas. They included tort reform to reduce the $200 billion a year added to health costs thanks to medical malpractice awards; a sizable tax credit to pay for insurance; and allowing Americans to cross state lines to purchase the health insurance of their choice.

There seems to be a disconnect in McCain's head, however, between getting good reforms and what he knows the Democrats will do as the majority. McCain described himself as "very worried" about and "unalterably opposed" to using budget reconciliation rules to ram through reform. Such a ploy would take away Republican senators' right to filibuster.

McCain said he watched "every single meaningful" Republican amendment turned down by the Democrats in committee mark-up. He recited the Mayo Clinic's remarks opposing ObamaCare, making it obvious that the administration was misleading Americans into thinking that esteemed institution had endorsed liberal Democrats' radical approach.

So the senator knows that his Democratic colleagues always play dirty. Yet he told his skeptical audience of seniors that "to do nothing is not the answer either." Two days earlier, on ABC's "This Week," this was Sen. McCain's response to President Obama's accusations that the GOP preferred gridlock:

"I look at this as an opportunity right now . . . . Now, wouldn't it be a good idea for us Republicans and Democrats to sit down with the president? . . . There's so many areas that we are in agreement on."

The answer to that question is "No." McCain may insist that "one of the fundamentals for any agreement would be that the president abandon the government option," but things may not work out that way in a final package. McCain is echoing the president's erroneous contention that a radical transformation of the greatest health care system in the world is preferable to "gridlock."

But accepting the status quo, as the president disparagingly likes to put it, is far preferable to the health care revolution he and Democratic congressional leaders are hoping for this year.

Does Sen. McCain really think that with the Democrats enjoying a comfortable majority in both houses of Congress he can get the kind of freedom-oriented medical reforms that Republicans propose?

The American people, already spooked at this year's government spending spree, are rightly scared to death at the costs of Obama-Care — another matter on which the administration has been deceptive. Tuesday, new numbers showed that the federal budget deficit will be far higher than expected — nearly $1.6 trillion for the year, amounting to more debt than since the aftermath of World War II.

After a $787 billion politicized stimulus package, and unemployment still headed to double digits, the people are letting their representatives know in person that enough is enough. And their voices are being heard. Even liberal Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., a strong proponent of government-managed reform, pronounced Obama-Care dead for the year before a large Wisconsin crowd last week.

"Nobody is going to bring a bill before Christmas, and maybe not even then, if this ever happens," said Feingold. "The divisions are so deep," he added, and he has "never seen anything like that."

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the Democrat-turned-independent who is moderate-to-conservative on national security, but liberal on almost all else, told CNN last weekend it would be "a real mistake to try to jam through the total health insurance reform" at a time when "the public is either opposed to or of very, very passionate mixed minds about" it.

Key Democrats now admit that a popular uprising has succeeded in derailing the radical health care revolution that Democrats have in mind. Even left-wing politicians now see that Americans prefer standing pat to socialism. Why does Sen. McCain want to get us back on such a dangerous track?

I TOLD YOU!

DO NOT TRUST THIS GUY!

McCain IS NOT A CONSERVATIVE!

He is not a Republican!

McCain MUST GO!!!