The first half came to an end. The President called for a break and all went away. The President was very good in thwarting away the Republicans’ point after point, like a good keeper guarding his post. But it was bound to crumble and it nearly did, till a Republican made a serious blunder…

There were a slight delay because there was a vote in the House of Representatives. When it began, everything seemed to go back to normal. The Republicans carried on pounding. After the break they concentrated on the mandate. Surprisingly, later on, the unelected leader of the progressives, Governor Howard Dean said that this is okay with the Republicans!

There was a hint of a Democratic fight when one of the politicians (sorry I cannot remember the name) came up with the idea of a rope. He said that cutting the bill in parts was as good as throwing a 10-yard rope to a shipwreck victim 50 yards away.

But he was immediately followed by Senator Chuck Grassley, who was vicious. Man, he tore the Democrats apart. He went through some grievances of his constituents. This was almost like an art as he did it without really crossing the line. Here I thought the Democrats were done. Even the President seemed to be going to crack at anytime.

Then came House Minority leader John Boehner. If he saw the exchange between Dylan Ratigan and Representative Joe Wilson, he would have know never to make the claim that the US has the best health-care in the world. He would never have said that the US healthcare system just needs tweaking and not overhaul. He would have not cooked up that the bill is going to fund abortion, nor exaggerate the effects of tort reform. After him, it was downhill all the way. The Republican body language would tell you that.

After a light slap on Leader Boehner’s ridiculous comments, Senator Dick Durban became of the first in line to tear the Republicans apart. He slammed the point of tort reform, saying that it would save $55 billion in 10 years, considered minimal savings in a system that costs $2.5 trillion yearly. He ridiculed the ridiculed the plan for having a plan that only covers 3 million people. He also made the pint about the need of a mandate, as it would increase the pool of people which would drive healthcare costs down.

It was very clear that a comeback was in sight. Even Senator McCain, who made one of the best points in the first half, made an error when it comes to reconciliation. He claimed that the public was not in favor. I felt that that was weak-sauce as people really do not care how you get it done as long as it is beneficial.

Senator John Barosso then had a touching story to tell. He said that all doctors were given a stethoscope. It was to listen for medical matters, but also used to listen. However, he too was one of the bumbling Republicans when he claimed that there should only be catastrophic only plans. He even said that Congress should have that plan and that people should eat less, not smoke or drink.

After being slammed by the President, Senator Henry Waxman ran him down. Amongst the Democrats, he was the toughest Senator. He slammed Senator Barosso by asking him what made him think that people would be able to afford for catastrophic only healthcare. He also rebutted Republicans claim that very little people wanted the Democratic healthcare by saying less people wanted their plan.

The next prominent moment happened when Senator Roskam delivered a very frank exchange with the President. I do agree with him that the session was was out to get the Republicans’ votes rather than work with them. He also made the defense of the fact that the Republican plan only covers 3 million by saying that covering 3 million people well was better than covering 30 million more expensively.

Senator Chris Dodd too put on strong points after this. He was nonsensical in the first “half.” I do agree with him that coverage of Americans were crucial, not having so many people being left uninsured.

The most mean person in the room had to be Leader Nancy Pelosi. The Republicans met their tough match! She was the most damning. She tore apart all the fallacies of the Republican but even this partisan wing-nut still paid homage to Senator Tom Coburn’s ideas.

What is sad though was that it took 7 ½ hours for the public option to be mentioned. No one else dared to mention it. And did it have to be Leader Pelosi to mention it? Come on.

President Obama then delivered the closing arguments, after which he shook the hands of Leaders McConnell and Boehner. Leader Boehner was visibly down, he could tell he was beat. Overall, I think the Democrats looked better on television and President Obama really showed his brilliance and mettle, but the “Man of the Match” was Senator Coburn.

Former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich highlighted the biggest problem in what is probably the most damning speech in the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC). The problem is though he is getting it all wrong!

“I believe we are now in a struggle over whether or not we are going to save America,” Gingrich said. “I believe the radical left is a secular, socialist machine so dedicated to values destructive of America that if it is allowed to remain in power…that machine is antithetical to the survival of America as a prosperous healthy country. ”

It is because of people like this that we are proud to be Independent. It is full of venomous hate and is a huge reason that the Senate is such a big failure last year. This is the reason that America is becoming an ideological divide between Libraland and Conservatistan; and the UNITED States of AMERICA is forgotten! That is the problem Speaker Gingrich, not the “antithetical left”.

Firstly, while it is one thing to label the Left in America as Socialist, it is another to damn them as secular. We are supposed to be secular, you dumb piece of bull crap! Do you see a Cross on our flag? Do you see anything in our constitution that claims that we are a Christian nation? No! So what is wrong with being secular, doing what is best for America rather than what is best according to a religion!

Next, what is the dedicated values of America? I dare you Speaker Gingrich that we stick to some of our values, I dare you. Having a freedom of religion and a freedom of speech is a dedicated American value, not forcing children to study religious belief over science. Being against torture is a dedicated American value, not renaming it and carrying it out.

Why are the two big parties embroiled in this junk of hatred? Why is it that these people hate each other so much that they forget what is it they were elected, or should we say “employed” by the Americans to do? It is one thing to debate ideological values, it is another to reject all but for of the nominations of the President! I mean come on!

The Democratic party is not to be free of blame. It is their lack of a political spine that is really the crux of a matter here. President Bush rammed in Reconciliation to pass tax cuts that did nothing but add debt to our country, but President Obama cannot do that for an issue like healthcare. Have a bit of protest from the right and the Democrats would change. Had the President had the guts of Governor Jesse Ventura, a lot of legislation would be passed by now.

This is why I am Independent. I can support reasonable Republicans like Meg Whiteman, and tear apart rubbish like Governor Sarah Palin. I can support Democrats like Governor Howard Dean, but slam characters like Speaker Nancy Pelosi. I am not tied down to any side at all. I can be for the Death Penalty and be pro-choice at the same time. I can be against the legalization of marijuana and can demand for stricter gun control at the same time!

Lastly, when can we see America electing Independent into the mainstream. A classic example was in the last New Jersey Gubernatorial elections, where Chris Daggett was by far the best candidate but he was not given a chance at all. It was the same as the last Minnesota Senate race where Dean Barkley was overlooked by voters despite being the obvious choice…

We have not talked about health care for a while on this site. But this I cannot ignore. We have said it for a long time and this time I am being echoed by Governor (Dr.) Howard Dean months later : No public option; Kill the Bill!

In a segment with the ever so boring Dylan Ratigan, Governor Howard Dean basically threatened to stop sending in money to the respective Democratic committees in Congress if they do not have a bill in it that has a public option.

Looking back, we know that not nominating him is the biggest mistake that the Democrats ever made. They overlooked a governor that is a proven success and a person that is well informed in 2004, and they picked a long-jaw douche-bag named Senator John Kerry. So not only are the politicians pathetic, their far left voting base in the primaries are pathetic too.

Coming back to health care, I stress that this is the most important part of health care reform : the public option. The biggest problem with the health care cost in our country is cost. That should be the primary objective. And yet, our politicians came up with just one solution to curb costs : public option. (For Republican readers, I would explain in paragraphs below why their idea of buying across state lines would not work.)

Without the public option, there would be a mandate for the public to have health insurance to drive up demand and there is no other counter measure to keep the cost down. Therefore, we are literally throwing our money to the insurance companies with the Bill.

With the public option, there would be pressure to keep the price of the insurance down. If the insurance companies charge us too much, people would switch their plans to the public option which is non profit. It is not very difficult to understand the public option actually.

The Republican proposal of allowing customers to buy across state lines would not work. For it to work, there need to be national rules and guidelines. For example, in football, the rules in Saint Louis is the same as that in Dallas. If you cannot spit at the referee in Dallas, you cannot do it anywhere else.
The rules need to be the same, else you would have all the companies flocking to the state with the lowest amount of regulation. That is the case for the Credit Card companies.

So why can’t there be a national rule: The tenth amendment which guarantees states rights. With that, the federal government cannot force local governments to conform with other states on these issues. Even if our politicians want it, it would be very tricky. I also do not want it to go down that path as I think states rights are very important in our country.

A way around the Republican proposal is the idea that we in ST put up months ago. Allow the foreigners to flood the market. If the Japanese can make cars here, they can also sell their insurance, which is much more cheaper than ours, here. If Indian companies can create for us computer programs, they should also sell their insurances over here. Then let the competition begin!

Though, I hate it when politicians make threats when they can, in this case I am with Governor Dean. The Democrats should not receive any party donations if they cannot fulfill what the people want. A health care bill without the public option would wreck our country and make our lives much tougher than it already is.

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We waited till all the commentary and the polling came about to do this article, hence the wait. Over all, the speech was great for the Democrats, Independents and moderates think it is okay and the Republicans thought it was terrible.

The moment the First Lady walked in, you could see nerves written all over her face. You knew how importance of this speech for them. It was crunch time. From the first 5 minutes, you knew his targeted audience were the viewers watching at home. He was not talking or trying to make a deal with the Republicans in the room. He wanted the opinion swing from the public. Expect a President that is going to campaign trail again in the next few days.

When he started his speech on health-care, he began with a very powerful rhetoric : That he may not be the first President to try to get health-care reform; but he wants to be then last. From here, you get that he is not going to break up the bill. One disappointing observation we made were that only 2 people in the Republican area of Congress stood up to this; That showed how much of a partisan thing that this has been.

A lot of the speech, he was saying things that we had said in the articles way back. (see article Health-care 101). For example, why weren’t the Democrats selling this idea of indexing? That would have been a good selling point of the plan. He explained about why everyone who have the money to do so should buy insurance and the reasons businesses need to provide for employees too.

His hit back on the nonsense was impressive; But why now? Why did the President hit Sarah Palin back today about death panels and not when she first spoke about it? Is it President Obama vs the Republicans or Democrats vs the Republicans? Is the President super-slow to react or are the Democrats really that incapable of doing politics that they cannot hold the argument on their own? Why didn’t they get subject matter experts like Howard Dean out more often? That is why they lose elections.

I think that he also tried to pacify the liberals when he said that he did not want insurance companies to go down, but he wanted them to be held accountable. But on the one major bone for them, he sent a very vague message. On one hand, he said that he would not back down on his belief on the public option, but on the other he did said that it is just a small part of health-care reform.

I liked the way he used universities to show that you can have public and private universities side by side to highlight how you can have public insurance and private insurance side by side. It something that some of us (all Independents) gave him the benefit of the doubt for.

And you could see that he understood that we Independents are the game-changers here. We are the ones that would make or break this bill or any politician in America during elections. I love that feeling. Usually we are forgotten and dismissed after elections. He was taking ideas for ex-Senator John Edwards, Secretary Clinton and Senator McCain and he talked about malpractice reforms and so on and so forth and I loved it that he was taking ideas from his past rivals.

Judging by this, I wonder if the President is going to have the public option. As I said, it is still up in the air. The thing is, if he takes it out and has no suitable substitute for it, I would vehemently oppose the bill. I do not support the public option as it is way too close to universal health-care but lets face, it there are no alternatives to it out.

My reason is that the bill has mandates in it. Like you must have a health insurance if you can afford it. You must give health care to your employees. They cannot be rejected because preexisting conditions. When this happens, your health insurance premiums would sky rocket.

I hope that they can find a way to tear open the private insurance industry. Encourage “trade wars” like, Google vs. Microsoft, Reebok vs. Nike, Coke vs. Pepsi, and so on. If nobody got anything which could dramatically increase competition, then public option is a necessity.

Though the President was forceful and tough with his words, I think the behavior of the Republicans were pathetic. They were waving what I think was the bill with their jeering and one lawmaker, Representative Joe Wilson even shouted at the President. That is a very sad thing to see in politics. I wonder what is going to be the reaction should the President carry out his threat to call them out on their “lies”.

Overall, President Obama may have just gotten the wheel turning. And we could see a fight happening out there. But should he do nothing, I think that the Republicans would be able to shoot it down.

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