Mary Katharine Ham notes that President Obama tells ABC:

“Let’s just clarify. I didn’t make a bunch of deals [on health care]. … There is a legislative process that is taking place in Congress and I am happy to own up to the fact that I have not changed Congress and how it operates the way I would have liked.”

But the Washington Post reported on December 20 that Obama’s top aides were involved in the negotiations with Nelson:

Schumer, who spent more than 13 hours in Reid’s office Friday, said the Medicaid issue was settled around lunchtime, and the final eight hours of the talks focused on the abortion language. Boxer estimated she spent seven hours in Reid’s offices — without ever once sitting in the same room, even though they were all of 25 steps apart.

Reid and Schumer kept up the “shuttle negotiation” between the leader’s conference room and his top aide’s office, Boxer said. Keenly aware how tense the talks were, the White House dispatched two aides who together have decades of experience in the Senate — Jim Messina and Peter Rouse — to work with Nelson. They relayed their intelligence to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who monitored the talks from a dinner in Georgetown.

Perhaps Messina and Rouse just showed up to provide the “Christmas cookies” that Reid and Schumer chowed down to sustain themselves during the tense negotiations, but it’s hard to believe that Obama’s aides didn’t sign off on both the abortion and Medicaid backroom deals.

Michelle Malkin sums it up:

The unmitigated chutzpah here is so blinding that I don’t just need sunglasses to protect my eyes. I need blackout curtains. Watch President Obama blame Congress for Demcare bribery and sabotage of transparency. As if Rahm and all the senior goons in the White House weren’t twisting arms and cracking heads to ensure that the deal met their boss’s timeline. As if the Cadillac tax break for unions hadn’t been hashed out at 1600 Pennsylvania.

For more on this story:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Obama-pretends-he-didnt-sign-off-on-the-shady-health-care-deals-82699357.html

“Let’s just clarify. I didn’t make a bunch of deals [on health care]. … There is a legislative process that is taking place in Congress and I am happy to own up to the fact that I have not changed Congress and how it operates the way I would have liked.”  But the Washington Post reported on December 20 that Obama’s top aides were involved in the negotiations with Nelson.

Now that the House and Senate have both passed separate health care reform bills, the legislative process shifts to ironing out the differences. This typically involves having a formal conference committee containing members of both the House and the Senate. The goal is to reconcile the two bills, creating a final bill that both chambers will vote on. In a surprise turn, according to Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic, Democrats intend to employ an obscure tactic, informally known as “ping-pong,” to shut Republicans out of the final negotiations and speed the bills toward completion. In “ping-pong” the legislation is bounced back and forth between the House and the Senate, controlled by just the Democratic leadership in each chamber and the White House, until a final agreement can be reached.

It’s “almost certain,” according to a pair of senior congressional staffers Cohn spoke to, that the Democratic leadership will seek to avoid a formal conference committee and its procedural steps. The formal process and additional votes would have offered multiple additional opportunities for the Republicans to slow or obstruct the bill’s process, as they did throughout the fall.

As one might expect, Republicans in Congress are aghast over the move. Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Minority leader John Boehner, told Yahoo! News that such a tactic would break President Obama’s campaign promise of health care debate transparency. He labeled the strategy a “disgrace”.

For more on this subject read the following:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1044

http://www.californiahealthline.org/articles/2010/1/5/democrats-in-congress-aim-to-bypass-formal-conference-committee.aspx

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2010/01/04/congress-ping-pong-partisanship.aspx

http://www.redstate.com/brian_d/2010/01/05/obamacare-ping-pong/

Face Forward Comments:

Of course they are going to shut conservatives out of the negotiations.  Did anyone really expect the progressives to give any part of their march to wealth redistribution back?

There is fundamentally something wrong with any government that thinks of themselves as Robin Hood.   Do you really think that this government represents all of the people when they keep sending the message that they are robing from the rich to give to the poor?

To you liberals, let’s get something straight.  Robin Hood was a fictional character. Unfortunately, in this reality, the robbing from the poor tax payers is all too real.  Secondly, the thief (Robin) took from the government (Royal Politicians) to give back to the people that produced the goods and services (workers).  This time, the thief (Politicians) are taking from the producers (poor tax Payers)  to give to the non producers.  Sadly, the political Robin Hoods in government don’t have the same good (but misguided)  intentions as our fictional hero.  These thieves are not concerned about helping the poor but are concerned about keeping them impoverished so that they can keep themselves in power.  Robin Hood helped no one and this government is not helping either.

Consider this from Ayn Rands Book, “Atlas Shrugged”

 [Robin Hood] is not remembered as a champion of property, but as a champion of need, not as a defender of the robbed, but as a provider of the poor. He is held to be the first man who assumed a halo of virtue by practicing charity with wealth which he did not own, by giving away goods which he had not produced, by making others pay for the luxury of his pity. He is the man who became a symbol of the idea that need, not achievement, is the source of rights, that we don’t have to produce, only to want, that the earned does not belong to us, but the unearned does. He became a justification for every mediocrity who, unable to make his own living, had demanded the power to dispose of the property of his betters, by proclaiming his willingness to devote his life to his inferiors at the price of robbing his superiors. It is this foulest of creatures – the double-parasite who lives on the sores of the poor and the blood of the rich – whom men have come to regard as the moral idea.” “. . . Do you wonder why the world is collapsing around us? That is what I am fighting, Mr. Rearden. Until men learn that of all human symbols, Robin Hood is the most immoral and the most contemptible, there will be no justice on earth and no way for mankind to survive.”

ObamaCare endorsements: What the bribe was

 Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

As the suicidal Democratic congressmen proceed to rubber-stamp the Obama healthcare reform despite the drubbing their party took in the ’09 elections, the president trotted out the endorsements of the AMA and the AARP to stimulate support. But these — and the other endorsements — his package has received are all bought and paid for. Here are the deals:

· The American Medical Association (AMA) was facing a 21 percent cut in physicians’ reimbursements under the current law. Obama promised to kill the cut if they backed his bill. The cuts are the fruit of a law requiring annual 5-6 percent reductions in doctor reimbursements for treating Medicare patients. Bravely, each year Congress has rolled the cuts over, suspending them but not repealing them. So each year, the accumulated cuts threaten doctors. By now, they have risen to 21 percent. With this blackmail leverage, Obama compelled the AMA to support his bill … or else!

· The AARP got a financial windfall in return for its support of the healthcare bill. Over the past decade, the AARP has morphed from an advocacy group to an insurance company (through its subsidiary company). It is one of the main suppliers of Medi-gap insurance, a high-cost, privately purchased coverage that picks up where Medicare leaves off. But President Bush-43 passed the Medicare Advantage program, which offered a subsidized, lower-cost alternative to Medi-gap. Under Medicare Advantage, the elderly get all the extra coverage they need plus coordinated, well-managed care, usually by the same physician. So more than 10 million seniors went with Medicare Advantage, cutting into AARP Medi-gap revenues.

Rahm and Barack the right and left hand of political intimidation

Presto! Obama solved their problem. He eliminates subsidies for Medicare Advantage. The elderly will have to pay more for coverage under Medigap, but the AARP — which supposedly represents them — will make more money. (If this galls you, join the American Seniors Association, the alternative group; contact sbarton@americanseniors.org This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .)

· The drug industry backed ObamaCare and, in return, got a 10-year limit of $80 billion on cuts in prescription drug costs. (A drop in the bucket of their almost $3 trillion projected cost over the next decade.) They also got administration assurances that it will continue to bar lower-cost Canadian drugs from coming into the U.S. All it had to do was put its formidable advertising budget at the disposal of the administration.

· Insurance companies got access to 40 million potential new customers. But when the Senate Finance Committee lowered the fine that would be imposed on those who don’t buy insurance from $3,500 to $1,500, the insurance companies jumped ship and now oppose the bill, albeit for the worst of motives.

The only industry that refused to knuckle under was the medical device makers. They stood for principle and wouldn’t go along with Obama’s blackmail. So the Senate Finance Committee retaliated by imposing a tax on medical devices such as automated wheelchairs, pacemakers, arterial stents, prosthetic limbs, artificial knees and hips and other necessary accoutrements of healthcare.

So these endorsements are not freely given, but bought and paid for by an administration that is intent on passing its program at any cost.

Article taken From:

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/healthcare/66717-obamacare-endorsements-what-the-bribe-was

Face Forward Comments:

I am an AARP member along with several people that I work with and know.  Except for me none are political and NONE are in favor of the bill.  It was so obvious that money did (or will exchnage hands).

WASHINGTON — President Obama yesterday rolled out the red carpet — and handed out doctors’ white coats as well, just so nobody missed his hard-sell health-care message.

In a heavy-handed attempt at reviving support for health-care reform, the White House orchestrated a massive photo op to buttress its claim that front-line physicians support Obama.

A sea of 150 white-coated doctors, all enthusiastically supportive of the president and representing all 50 states, looked as if they were at a costume party as they posed in the Rose Garden before hearing Obama’s pitch for the Democratic overhaul bills moving through Congress.

But some docs apparently forgot, failing to meet the White House dress code by showing up in business suits or dresses. So the White House rustled up white coats for them and handed them to the suited physicians who had taken seats in the sun-splashed lawn area.  All this to provide a visual counter to complaints from other doctors that pending legislation is bad news for the medical profession.

“Nobody has more credibility with the American people on this issue than you do,” Obama told his guests.

The president was flanked by four white-coated doctors at a podium as he delivered his pep talk.

“When you cut through all the noise and all the distractions that are out there, I think what’s most telling is that some of the people who are most supportive of reform are the very medical professionals who know the health-care system best,” the president said.

For the rest of this article:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/tricky_doctored_photo_kTVWHZ3vEeRQbxCC0TNZHN

Face Fwd Comments:

Manipulation has come to a new level at the White House.  They used a cheap publicity stunt to try to get you to believe that the proposed government owned health care is doctor approved.  Not only is it a cheap stunt but it is a copy of an old Nathans Hot Dog stunt.  Read this story.

In 1916 Handwerker and his wife, Idastarted Nathans.   With a savings of $300, the Handwerkers bought an 8-foot by 25-foot space at the corner of Surf and Stillwell Avenues.  Nathan installed walk-up counters in the building and hung up big red signs that advertised his five-cent hot dogs. The Handwerkers added roast beef sandwiches, hamburgers, and french fries to the menu, and “Nathan’s Famous Frankfurter & Soft Drink Stand” was launched.

Things did not go exactly as planned, however. Rather than the new stand’s lower price drawing customers away from Feltman’s, it instead made them suspicious about the quality of Nathan’s food. Because his price was so much lower, many assumed that he must be using inferior meat.  Handwerker, however, believed in the quality of his product–and he came up with an ingenious way to convince others of it. He hired people to dress up as doctors, complete with lab coats and stethoscopes, and stand in front of his restaurant, eating hot dogs. Handwerker reasoned that the sight of medical professionals munching on Nathan’s hot dogs would allay customers’ health fears and give his restaurant the stamp of approval. To drive the point home, he posted a new sign reading, “If doctors eat our hot dogs, you know they’re good!”

Congratulations America, Obama has just once again proven that he thinks so little of you, that you would fall for a cheap stunt.  But then again, the people that voted for him the first time did.