Editorial -- Barry MacDonald

Americans should ask themselves why Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid wanted to pass a massive healthcare bill before the August recess. The plan would not have taken effect until 2013. Why the rush?

If there is real urgency, individuals and families going bankrupt, businesses closing because of spiraling healthcare costs, why postpone the relief until after the next Presidential elections in 2012 or the congressional elections in 2010?

It's almost as if the Democrats had something to hide. Why isn't there time to go through the normal process of debate, listening to pros and cons in committees?

There is a pattern to be discerned. The President said just after his inauguration that if we didn't pass the $878 billion stimulus bill instantly (within days, as did happen) that the nation would fall into an economic calamity from which we might never recover. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that it will be September 2010 before three-quarters of the stimulus money will be spent. Likewise the massive, climate change bill was passed by the House before members could even read the bill (there was no text of the bill at the time of the vote) and it likewise is not scheduled to take effect for several years.

Americans should watch the deeds of the administration and its supporters, and be wary of the words they use.

But there are words to note, words spoken to friendly listeners before the fierce controversy occurred, before ordinary people were paying attention. (Thank you to the Heritage Foundation for collecting these quotes. If you would like to see and hear the following quotes made please use the following link: spreading-disinformation-about-obamacare).

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) at a Health Care for America Now rally said:

And next to me was a guy from the insurance company who argued against the public health insurance option, saying it wouldn't let private insurance compete. That a public option will put the private insurance industry out of business and lead to single-payer. My single-payer friends, he was right. The man was right.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) said to Single Payer Action, a national nonprofit organization:

I think that if we get a good public option it could lead to single-payer and that is the best way to reach single-payer. Saying you'll do nothing till you get single-payer is a sure way never to get it. . . . I think the best way we're going to get single-payer, the only way, is to have a pubic option and demonstrate the strength of its power.

Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein reported from the Democratic National Convention before the Presidential election last year that:

They have a sneaky strategy, the point of which is to put in place something that over time the natural incentives within its own market will move it to single-payer.

Liberal New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote:

The only reason not to do [single-payer] is that politically it's hard to do in one step . . . . You'd have to convince people completely to give up the insurance they have, whereas something that lets people keep the insurance they have but then offers the option of a public plan that may evolve into single-payer.

And finally there are the words of the President speaking before the American Medical Association on June 15th:

What are not legitimate concerns are those being put forward claiming a public option is somehow a Trojan horse for a single-payer system. . . . So, when you hear the naysayers claim that I'm trying to bring about government-run health care, know this -- they are not telling the truth.

The President and liberal Democrats are up to no good. *

"This is the sixth book I've written, which isn't bad for a guy who's only read two." --George Burns

These quotes are from website Quotations by Author at http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/George_Burns.