They think your're too stupid to make health care decisions

Because they are losing the health care debate on the merits, Democrats have turned toward attacking the public, or at least that part of it who dares to question the annointed's vision of universal health care reform.

In yesterday's USA Today, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer wrote:

However, it is now evident that an ugly campaign is underway not merely to misrepresent the health insurance reform legislation, but to disrupt public meetings and prevent members of Congress and constituents from conducting a civil dialogue.

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These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views — but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American. Drowning out the facts is how we failed at this task for decades.

Health care is complex. It touches every American life. It drives our economy. People must be allowed to learn the facts.

And, as I wrote on here on August 6 (below), White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs claimed that the anger being displayed by people at town hall meetings toward Democratic legislators was "manufactured" by Republicans and special interest groups.


So we've gone from "dissent being the highest form of patriotism," (remember the Iraq War protests?) to dissent being "un-American," and repeatedly dismissed by the White House and the leadership in Congress as manufactured and inauthentic.

But who's really afraid of facts? Pelosi's concerns would ring less hollow if it were really true that she wanted Americans to "learn the facts." Pelosi and Hoyer also write:

The first fact is that health insurance reform will mean more patient choice. It will allow every American who likes his or her current plan to keep it. And it will free doctors and patients to make the health decisions that make the most sense, not the most profits for insurance companies.

Reform will mean affordable coverage for all Americans. Our plan's cost-lowering measures include a public health insurance option to bring competitive pressure to bear on rapidly consolidating private insurers . . . .

But while this mantra is regurgitated ad nauseum by Obama and Congressional leaders, not even the liberals believe it. Just scan yesterday's blogs and op ed pieces and you will find that honest liberals understand that patient choice will be limited in that private insurance will ultimately be destroyed by the public option (as was its embarrassingly stated purpose caught on video by Barney Frank and President Obama himself). They also understand that costs savings will be obtained through rationing. Further, liberals also appear to understand that adding an additional 50 million patients, without increasing the number of health care professionals, will cause costs to increase.

But according to some, honesty is not a luxury we can afford if were going to get universal healthcare. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a left-wing Democrat and chief deputy whip from the north side of Chicago cited an insurance an insurance company spokesman as saying, "A public option will put the private insurance industry out of business and lead to single-payer." to this she added:

My single-payer friends . . . he was right . . . This is not a principled fight. This is a fight about strategy for getting there, and I believe we will.

Clearly another who thinks the ends justify the means.

But there is also an element of elitist snobbery in the statements of Obama, Pelosi and Hoyer. Obama stated: "In don't want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of the talking." (Sorry, LBJ is dead). Pelosi and Hoyer also state: "Health care is complex." In other words: "You're too stupid to be trusted to make your own decisions. Just relax and enjoy it."

This condescending attitude of "we know better than you" is not limited to politicians. In Friday's Huffington Post Bill Maher wrote:

I'm the bad guy for saying it's a stupid country, yet polls show that a majority of Americans cannot name a single branch of government, or explain what the Bill of Rights is. 24% could not name the country America fought in the Revolutionary War. More than two-thirds of Americans don't know what's in Roe v. Wade. Two-thirds don't know what the Food and Drug Administration does. Some of this stuff you should be able to pick up simply by being alive.

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Nearly half of Americans don't know that states have two senators and more than half can't name their congressman. And among Republican governors, only 30% got their wife's name right on the first try.

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And these are the idiots we want to weigh in on the minutia of health care policy? Please, this country is like a college chick after two Long Island Iced Teas: we can be talked into anything, like wars, and we can be talked out of anything, like health care. We should forget town halls, and replace them with study halls.

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"Inside the beltway" thinking may be wrong, but at least it's thinking, which is more than you can say for what's going on outside the beltway. And if you want to call me an elitist for this, I say thank you. Yes, I want decisions made by an elite group of people who know what they're talking about. That means Obama budget director Peter Orszag, not Sarah Palin.

I'll take whatever test Bill Maher wants to give me (before or after a few Long Island Iced Teas), but I doubt that he'll allow me to make any health care policy decisions because they're not the right ones. Now, as a card-carrying misanthrope, I too share the opinion that most people are stupid. But unlike Maher, I would not specifically single out Americans. St. Augustine, in an early 5th Century version of Jay-walking, would ask priests in the Roman Empire to cite 1 of the 10 commandments (which many could not do).

But ultimately, freedom is about making your own choices, be they right or wrong. Save Maher, most people would be happier making their own choices than having them foisted on them by the government.

The paramount objections to health care reform are not costs, but control. Whether each of us will retain the freedom to get an MRI or cervical cancer screening even if a doctor or government bureaucrat says it's unnecessary. It's not their body (where've I heard that before?).

The Democrats seem genuinely surprised (to the point of disbelief) that Americans would become so passionate about such small concerns as personal freedom. But they should be warned. Some Americans will always fight to preserve freedom. No matter what the cost.