Hello Daydreamer,
Why is the Frum article crap? He suggested the Republicans should have been there to insure that the bill was much more Conservative and so did you. Only you say the Republicans wanted to cooperate and Frum says they didn't. The fact is your are mistaken. The Republican Conservatives unequivocally made it clear they refused to be part of the bill process. When Republican Moderates suggested the possibility of getting involved they were excoriated by the Conservatives. I heard Sean Hannity live on the radio say essentially that one Republican who suggested getting involved in the process was lost and should be replaced. Hannity's attitude toward cooperation was 100% consistent with just about every Conservative I read or heard speak about the bill. Anyone who said otherwise was basically warned not to cooperate with the Democrats.
Frum is exactly right about the Republican Party since about 1981 when Reagan took office. The party has a spectrum of members from Moderate to Conservative, but the Conservatives are in control by their power to motivate voters in the party and the Moderates are stuck with having placate them to keep them happy, motivated Republicans, and that is the tragedy Frum cited correctly. And your own impulse to call a bonifide Conservative Republican a "fake" is typical of the Conservative dictum that all must think and act only as Rove/Gingrich/Limbaugh Conservatives see it. That is obviously not conducive to cooperation with Democrats on anything.
Cheers,
Merlot
Merlot,
Re-read my post. Frum's comparisons in the article that he last wrote and someone quoted from are dishonest. He compared 2010 with 1994. He reasoned that Clinton only won with 44 percent of the vote and Obama with 53 percent of the vote. And he used this comparison as the basis that Republicans should toe the line and why voting against the healthcare in unison was not the way to go, which is nonesense.
There is one major problem with his comparison. Clinton ran when Ross Perot got 18 percent of the popular vote. To compare 2008 with 1992 and say that Obama victory was more decisive and therefore, more people are on board with him is nonesense and dishonest. Obama won by 7 percent over McCain; Clinton won by 6 percent over Bush I. Not much difference, but Frum based his whole analysis over the election results - that Obama had some kind of mandate, which he did not.
The Republicans were cooperative but were not allowed in the process of writing the bill. Did you listen or watch the 8 hour healthcare seminar that Obama had with the Republicans? I listened to most of it on the web and watched a little bit of it. The Republicans attending the meeting said that the bill had a few ideas that they liked like eliminating pre-existing conditions, but they wanted to other areas in the bill like tort reform, which you in Canada have, tax credits and deductions., buying insurance across state lines. They stated that they were worried about the power that the HHS Department would have. Obama and the democrats shot them down at most every suggesting. The Democrats did not deny that the bill was written behind closed doors and Repubicans had no input into the present bill.
So if the Republicans had no input and were not allowed any input (and the bill is complex, 2,700 pages) would you as a Republican vote for it?
Frum is not painting an honest picture. He says nothing about the bill's merits or lack of merits, just that we need healthcare reform. If you read the bill or a summary of the bill, I do not know how you can come to the conclusion that the legislation has reached its objectives, which is more affordable insurance. Insurance will become more expensive for many, if not the majority.
This bill gives the government total control and regulation of the healthcare system. The regulations have not been written yet. But this bill gives the Health and Human Services Department the power to overlook every doctor / patient relationship. Medicine is difficult enough, with new procedures and medicines being constantly developed. Do you think a doctor has the time to read thousands of pages of Regulations that he or she will now have to read?
As for Hannity, I don't know what he said; I don't care what he says. I do not listen to him no longer because he is very repetitive and he is not a good debater. As for the moderate Republicans, they are losing traction with the root of the problem, which is the United States has a very serious problem with the deficit. We cannot afford for another bad piece of legislation that will add to the deficit. Both Republicans and Democrats have created this problem. We are increasingly reaching the point of no return. A bad piece of legislation like this one can put us under. Did you read that our Social Security now takes in less money than it pays out? This was not supposed to happen until 2019. Many of our larger states, like NY, CA, have huge deficits. Our unemployment rate is way to high at 9.8 percent, and we lose private sector jobs by the month. It is not a pretty picture.
The Democrats are not the party of fiscal responsibility. They want to grow government at every level. The Republicans have to tow the line for the survival of the Republic. So cooperation is not the answer unless Democrats change their mode of operation.
Daydreamer