Health Debate Turns Nasty: Quotes from Right and Left

FROM THE RIGHT ON THE LEFT

That is the final and perhaps most compelling reason to kill this bill: the sheer arrogance of the whole enterprise. It is the arrogance of stampeding an unwilling public toward a monstrous 2,000-page piece of legislation while admitting that it still has huge problems, but promising that it will all somehow be fixed later on. It's the arrogance of selling us a bill that expands government spending by hundreds of billions of dollars while telling us that it will reduce the deficit. It is the sheer unmitigated gall of appointing a bureaucrat to run a government-controlled insurance market that takes away all of our health choices-and then calling this bureaucrat the Health Choices Commissioner.

Robert Tracinski, Real Clear Politics

It is hard to believe we are even considering such a Rube Goldberg approach to health insurance. But since we are , what are the most likely consequences? Here are the first ten that come to mind.

1. Millions of jobs lost
2. Major industrial restructuring
3. Emergence of niche markets
4. Very high marginal tax rates
5. Higher insurance premiums
6. Fewer insurance choices
7. Higher than anticipate taxpayer costs
8. Fewer than anticipated people insured
9. New unfunded liabilities
10. Exacerbating problems of cost, quality and access

Worst of all, not only will “reform” not solve any of the problems it is supposed to solve, it will almost certainly undermine the ability of entrepreneurs in the private sector to solve the

John Goodman, The Senate Bill, National Center for Policy Analysis


If Democrats pass health-care legislation — and the most recent CNN poll shows that only 36 percent favor the Senate bill, while 61 percent oppose it (79 percent said the bill would increase the deficit, and 85 percent said the bill would increase their taxes) — it will make that outcome more, not less, likely.

Peter Wehmer, "Doomed if They Do, Doomed if They Don't," Contentions

FROM THE LEFT ON THE RIGHT

“Immoral villains” Nancy Pelosi

“Evil mongers” Harry Reid

“If you misrepresent what’s in the plan, we will call you out.” President Obama

“The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers are so misleading, so disingenuous, that they can only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan advantage. They’ve become political terrorists.”

Steven Perlstein, Washington Post columnist

“You hate the people enough you want them to die. You are Un-American. Get out of the country. You’d rather heave our people die than provide them with health care that doesn’t bankrupt them.”

Daily Kos Blogger.

So there. Take that, you lefties and righties.

Dr. Richard Reece is author, blogger, speaker, and innovation and reform commentator. Dr. Reece’s latest book, Obama, Doctors, and Health Reform (IUniverse.com) is available at Iuniverse.com and other book websites. For information on speaking fees and arrangements, call 860-395-1501.