Health Care Summit

Image by ~C4Chaos via Flickr

I thought this summit thing with the Republicans, Democrats and the President was going to be a farce and it pretty much was, but I was also pleasantly surprised. The one good thing about it was Obama’s performance. He was strong, decisive and in charge, it was clear he had - finally - taken over health care and was going to get it done, no more nonsense. We’ve only been waiting for a year for him to do that, with a lot of people saying he needed to grow a pair.

Well, today he did. He dominated the debate, clearly pushing the Republicans around. He called them all only by their first names, that was absolutely brilliant, McCain really didn't care for that at all. He let them know they were in the White House and he was the president and he trumps all of them. I’ve never seen him be so forceful and commanding before, good show.

And he would not let the Republicans get away with their usual talking points (lies). Every time they told their lies he corrected them, strongly. He was so strong he was barely being polite and made sure he got his point across that the Republican talking point was completely wrong. And he did it over and over again. I’ve been wanting the Democrats in general to do that for years, instead they always just let the Republicans win the propaganda war.

One part that really stood out was when one idiot Republican kept saying how Congress should have high deductible insurance plans along with Health Savings Accounts, that way they would have skin in the game and be more responsible in their health care choices, implying that it would work well for America, too. Obama said that’s easy for him to say because he makes $160,000 a year, but that idea just isn’t viable to the farmer making $40,000 a year. The IR (Idiot Republican) came back and tried to make the point again and Obama slapped him down again and did it several times. The IR came across as this rich guy completely out of touch with 95% of the American public (because he was) while, for the first time since his Inauguration, I saw Obama acting as a true, and impassioned, advocate for the working man, for the struggling middle class. Instead of a supporter of the corporations.

At the end Obama gave a little speech to the press, the gist of which was he appeared to realize that the Republicans were never going to support the health bill, that it wasn’t in their political self-interest to do so. It’s about time he gave up on his idea of bi-partisanship. I’m feeling more hopeful in regards to both Obama and health care reform than I have at any point up until now. It finally looked like he understood the situation and knew what he had to do to get things done.

Hope I’m right this time.

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