They just don't get it

I'm cynically amused at calls by former President Clinton and former Vice-President Gore for the passage of health care reforms currently making their way through Congress.

Both Gore and Clinton urged the party faithful to back their congressmen to get health care reform passed this year.

“We need to pass a bill this year. Doing nothing is not only the worst thing we can do for the economy, it’s the worst thing we can do for the country. It’s also the worst thing we can do for the Democrats,” Clinton said, because Americans expect Democrats to deliver when they elect them.

“Democrats, you stay in there with your congressmen and you get this done,” he said.

Gore also emphasized health care reform.

“We have a lot of talk about liberal and conservative, and left and right, but when there are tens of millions of people in our country who can’t get access to health care, we need to pass health care reform this year. Build support for it. Let's give President Obama the victory our country needs,” he said to a standing ovation.

There's more at the link (if you can stomach the nausea).

Neither of these gentlemen get it. This isn't something that Congressional representatives should do 'for the Democrats'. A representative is precisely what his or her title implies: a representative of his or her constituents. His or her job is to vote according to their wishes, not what a political party may dictate. I'm sure that most constituents have by now made their feelings, wishes and desires known to their Congressional representatives - and the overwhelming emphasis seems to be negative in most parts of the country. Ordinary Americans don't want Obamacare in its present form, and don't trust the Government or any political party to deliver on the inflated, out-of-touch-with-reality promises that are being bandied about.

As the Wall Street Journal opined today:

At August's town-hall meetings, voters often started with complaints about health care, only to shift to frustrations about all the other things President Barack Obama and the Democrats have done or tried to do since January. The $787 billion economic-stimulus package, the government-led rescue of General Motors Corp. and climate-change legislation all came in for criticism.

"A lot of the anxiety we face here has less to do with health care and everything to do with the overall state of the economy and government," said Rep. Anthony Weiner, a New York Democrat.

"I have seen a level of dissatisfaction and even anger that I haven't experienced in the years that I've been a member of Congress," Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, told an audience at a health-care meeting in Kansas City on Monday.

. . .

Anger over financial bailouts, including the Troubled Asset Relief Program begun under the administration of former President George W. Bush, has been especially strong. At a meeting in Wheeling, W.Va., Democratic Rep. Alan B. Mollohan said a health-care bill was needed to help "folks in terrible situations." A member of the audience yelled out: "Use TARP funds!"

In South Sioux City, Neb., last week, Van Phillips took the microphone to ask Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson how America can pay for a health overhaul with all the other programs going on.

"We've got a pretty good chunk out there already in the stimulus. We just came back with the cash for clunkers," said Mr. Phillips, a retired superintendent of schools. "I guess I'm concerned -- how do we make all of this flow?"

. . .

"What we're seeing here is this larger debate about what the role of government is," said William McInturff, a Republican pollster who conducts The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. "The health-care debate is at that fault line.

Again, there's more at the link.

I'm not the only one to have recognized Obamacare for the massive boondoggle that it is. The ordinary man and woman in the street is well aware of what's going on, and they're doing a good job of letting representatives and Senators know how they feel about it. For Clinton and Gore to urge representatives to ignore this reality, and 'do it for the Party' instead of listening to their constituents, smacks of elitism and a gross insensitivity to what the people of this country really want.

Peter