Spinning Health Care

I can't recall the show now, but someone was asking about the Obama Administration, "Why are they so willing to accept such a bad bill?" He added, "Do they think they can finesse anything?"

The answer is, yes, they think they can finesse anything; they did during the campaign. Nothing stuck to them. The "clinging to guns and religion" remark, Jeremiah Wright, the race issue, all of it. Everything that popped up, Obama finessed it to a non-issue or to his advantage.

They did it with the stimulus bill. It was clear from the start that the actual contents of the bill was a matter of supreme indifference to the White House; they just wanted a bill out of Congress that was as large as possible and which could be called a “stimulus bill.” It wound up being far too small and contained more tax cuts and social policy than actual simulative spending, but the White house was happy; they spun it, and spun it, and spun it. They claimed it would "create or save" 3.5 million jobs, and are now bragging about 640,000 rather dubious jobs to date, and telling the public how their stimulus bill saved us from a deep depression.

They figure that no matter how bad the “health care reform” bill is, that as long as they get a major bill that can even halfway plausibly carry the label they can finesse it to their advantage. They can spin it into such a great reform of health care that it dwarfs the creation of Medicare.