ObamaCare is not just singular legislation. It is the herald of heralds of an overreaching, over controlling federal government. Allowed, it cannot be.

Tweet

Sometimes a writer captures, with relatively few words, an understanding that humbles those of us who merely try.

Such is the case with Michael Gerson, writing of ObamaCare in The Washington Post:  “Whatever the legislative fate of health reform – now in the hands of a few besieged House Democrats – the reformers have failed in their argument.  Their proposal has divided Democrats while uniting Republicans, returned American politics to well-worn ideological ruts, employed legislative tactics that smack of corruption, squandered the president’s public standing, lowered public regard for Congress to French revolutionary levels, sucked the oxygen from other agenda items, reengaged the abortion battle, produced freaks and prodigies of nature such as a Republican senator from Massachusetts, raised questions about the continued governability of America and caused the White House chief of staff to distance himself from the president’s ambitions.

“It is quite an accomplishment.  For the president, it must also be quite a shock...”

Yes, quite.  But not enough, obviously, to deter the obsessive "ambitions" that now portend the wanton self-destruction of a President and the formidable majority standing of his party, which now seems destined to follow the leader off the cliff.  That is despite, in the words of pollsters Scott Rasmussen and Doug Schoen, the public view that "the current plan will harm the economy, cost more than projected, raise the cost of care, and lead to higher middle-class taxes."

The politicos, of both parties, are naturally obsessed with the politics, producing enough daily schemes for passage or defeat to ensure whiplash among all who are trying to pay attention.  There’s the "let’s throw the government takeover of student loans into the bill so it will be ‘for the kids’ ploy," that being germane only to the stink emanating from under the Capitol dome.  There is the "well, we really don’t have to, you know, vote on the Senate bill if we don’t want to rule" being bandied about the House, oblivious to the general availability of pitchforks to the populace.

The media is valiantly trying to count votes, some up for sale or, if that doesn’t work, equally susceptible to blackmail, as Democrats in tight re-election circumstances stare into the boiling cauldron that is their future.

ObamaCare is a stuffed turkey, long past any reality-based public consumption date.  As Rasmussen and Schoen point out, public disapproval of the bill has held steady for four months, across 15 consecutive Rasmussen polls.  The intensity of opposition has remained constant:  “For every person who strongly favors it, two are strongly opposed.”

Recalcitrant House Democrats, who have already felt the sting of that strong constituent opposition, are being woodshedded daily by the White House and Democratic Leadership.  Every possible effort is being made to whip them and handle them into their vote, with deadlines, now as before, to prevent the massive constituent contact, and visceral constituent anger, that will be forced by Easter break and amplified by tax day protests.

ObamaCare is not just singular legislation.  It is the herald of heralds of an overreaching, over controlling federal government.  Allowed, it cannot be.

One factor and only one factor has stopped passage of ObamaCare thus far:  public opposition.  Not the public opposition reflected in polls, but the up close and personal and activist opposition that in its depth and intensity and duration has far surpassed anything resembling normal political protest.

One factor and only one factor will stop the ultimate passage of ObamaCare.  That same opposition, doubled, tripled, quadrupled.  The noise of Washington must be ignored, the noise of the people heard, because the pre-existing condition at greatest threat by ObamaCare is representative government.