SERVICES


Tuesday March 2, 2010

Missed Oportunities At The Healthcare Summit

By Alicia Colon

The Health Care Reform Summit was a snooze fest but could have been more exciting had the Republicans taken advantage of a few golden opportunities to expose this farce hosted by the Democrats and President Obama.

Mr. Obama became visibly testy at Senator McCain's comments on the bill's lack of transparency and the other sleazy attempts to buy votes for the bill and said, "Let me just make this point, John. We're not campaigning anymore. The election's over." Mr. McCain laughed and said, "I'm reminded of that every day."

What the former Vietnam POW and senior statesman should have done was pull a Barbara Boxer moment and responded with, "Call me senator. I worked hard for that title. For your information, we never discussed the sleazy buying of votes like what's been done in this health care bill during the campaign." Then Mr. McCain should have walked out.

After Mr. Obama scolded a Virginia Republican, Rep. Eric Cantor, for the stack of paper he brought with him, calling it a political stunt, Mr. Cantor should have stood up and said, "This is a copy of the 2,400+ page health bill we're supposed to be discussing. It's a bill you're trying to ram through and no one even knows what's in it." Then the Republicans should have walked out en masse declaring the entire summit a Democrat political stunt.

Sadly, Republicans are too polite and respect the office of the president more than its current occupant who dared to say, "I don't count my time because I'm the president." He showed disrespect to the senators and congressmen by dismissing their titles even though they always referred to him as "Mr. President."

While the White House claims that the Republicans were given equal time to state their positions, the truth is that the Democrats had nearly twice as many minutes to vent - and what did they say?

They mouthed the usual sob stories about the poor uninsured and unemployed who desperately need medical coverage. Rep. Louise Slaughter, a N.Y. Democrat, told about a woman using her dead sister's dentures because she couldn't afford any of her own. These are the same horror stories that the Democrats use during election campaigns or that Michael Moore used in his debunked movie "Sicko." For that faux documentary, he schlepped in a bunch of hapless uninsured Americans to Cuba to showcase the superior care that the Castro regime offered. Unfortunately for Mr. Moore, a Cuban dissident doctor, Darsi Ferrer Ramírez, videotaped the true health care that Cubans receive and smuggled it out to Cuban-exile George Utset, who runs The Real Cuba Web site therealcuba.com/Page10.htm. Dr. Ferrer is currently suffering in a maximum security Cuban prison. Does Mr. Moore care?

After hearing these tear-inducing tales, it would have been nice to hear a Republican ask if these stories represent the 30 million that Mr. Obama wants to add to the budget since it would "probably only cost 16 billion to cover them rather than the trillions proposed in the bill." It would also have been nice for a Republican to read this letter that was published in the August 23rd issue of the Jackson, Mississippi Clarion Ledger:

Dear Sirs:
"During my last night's shift in the ER, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient with a shiny new gold tooth, multiple elaborate tattoos, a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and a new cellular telephone equipped with her favorite R&B; tune for a ring tone.
Glancing over the chart, one could not help noticing her payer status: Medicaid. She smokes more than one costly pack of cigarettes every day and, somehow, still has money to buy beer. And our president expects me to pay for this woman's health care?
Our nation's health care crisis is not a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses. It is a crisis of culture - a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on vices while refusing to take care of one's self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance. A culture that thinks "I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me."
Life is really not that hard. Most of us reap what we sow.
Starner Jones, MD
Jackson, MS

It would even have been nicer if Republicans had pointed out the results of a recent independent inquiry into Britain's National Health Service, which Democrats insist we should turn our health system into. Patients were reported to have been routinely neglected or left "sobbing and humiliated" by staff at an NHS trust where at least 400 deaths have been linked to appalling care.

The inquiry determined that managers at Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust stopped providing safe care because they were preoccupied with government targets and cutting costs. But isn't that what bureaucrats are supposed to do?

What hospital in the United States is allowed to get away with such abysmal patient care? The simple fact, Mr. Obama, Senator Reid, Speaker Pelosi, is that there's no health care crisis in this country. There IS one in England and Canada, but our health care system remains the best and the proof of that is that the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, Danny Williams, traveled here for heart surgery. Unfortunately there were no "Ah ha!" or "That's telling 'em!" moments at the summit.

That's because there are no Republicans with the fortitude to stand up to the hypocrisy of the Democrats and their allies in the media. They're cowed by the prospect of being called mean-spirited, disrespectful or - even worse - racists.

Back in January 2008, I wrote about the GOP primary debates: "When the moderator of the Iowa debate asked for a show of hands for those who believe that global warming is serious and man-made, [Senator] Thompson immediately said, 'I'm not doing a show of hands today.' At least five of the other candidates had already raised their hands then lowered them when Thompson made his defiant stand against this juvenile request. It was clear who was a leader not a follower and isn't that whom we're supposed to be electing in November?"

Fred Thompson was my choice then because he demonstrated that he would not suffer fools gladly. Considering how many of them were at the Summit, it would have been a treat to have him there to show how a leader actually leads.

Alicia Colon lives in New York City and can be reached at aliciav.colon@gmail.com and at www.aliciacolon.com

Follow irishexaminerus on Twitter

CURRENT ISSUE


RECENT ISSUES


SYNDICATE


Subscribe to this blog's feed
[What is this?]

POWERED BY


HOSTED BY


Copyright ©2006-2013 The Irish Examiner USA
Terms of Service | Privacy Policy
Website Design By C3I