Rep. Paul Ryan tells Fox’s Greta exactly why the President and Democrats in Congress – despite clear warning signs in ugly polls and ominous election defeats like the one in Massachusetts – are still forcing a flawed health care bill on the American people: 

…really what this is more about is ideology than health care policy. Because if this was about health care policy we could get a bi-partisan agreement tomorrow. It’s not about health care policy. They are trying to ram it through as fast as they can before their power slips away from them and that’s why they’re trying to create this brand new entitlement which really does have the government takeover 17% of our economy…

View the entire transcript at Fox News.  

"You've got to break out of what I call the - sort of - 50-plus-one pattern of presidential politics, which is you have nasty primaries where everybody's disheartened, then you divide the country… and then you can't govern…" Those were candidate Obama’s words during the 2008 campaign. How times have changed.

In 2008, candidate Obama delivered a series of impassioned speeches in key battleground states.  He galvanized the electorate with anti-Washington rhetoric and instilled in voters the belief that America can overcome its challenges if we put aside politics and transcend our differences for the greater good.  America believed that he could help turn their hope into real action.  It was this rhetorical ability that helped push his candidacy across the finish line.

But this week President Obama began a series of speeches designed to promote his much-maligned health care bill.  He’s employing the same strategy as in ’08, casting his version of health care as a matter of ... more

Standby. An impending Chernobyl-like disaster is on the way: Obama has decided to launch the nuclear option on health care – reconciliation.

With no hope of reaching the 60-vote threshold necessary for a Senate victory and the American public growing increasingly against the Obama’s government-run takeover of health care bill, the President has decided that reconciliation is the only way he can get ObamaCare across the finish line and onto his desk.

Forget that 57% of Americans want him to start over on this bill. Forget that he doesn’t even have the 60 necessary “yes” votes from his own Party to pass this bill. The President is willing to do anything possible to force this bill through Congress – because instead of worrying about what the American people want, he’s more concerned with his imposing his own agenda.

What President Obama fails to recognize is that while reconciliation has been used before, in the last 19 reconciliation bills enacted into law, 12 of them were ... more

Last night on Larry King Live, I reminded Democrats why another speech on health care “reform” is not going to reverse the American people’s opposition to a flawed bill and a flawed process.

The American people know that this bill is a 2700-page monstrosity, and no matter what you add to it or how it is tweaked, it doesn’t change the ultimate effect of the bill, which is to diminish the relationship between doctors and patient while increasing governmental control over your health care.  That is not the model the American people want.  

The bottom line is that this debate isn’t about whether the President and Congressional Democrats can fit a couple GOP ideas into their liberal plan – it’s about two fundamentally different approaches to governing and different notions of what is best for America.  The Democrats trust government bureaucrats in Washington - bureaucrats who want to spend trillions of dollars we don’t have - to “reform” health care.  Republicans trust the ... more

Should I take one for the team or take one home for the district?

In the debate over health care reform, this is the question that Democrats are forced to ask themselves.  To date, it has been moderate Democrats in politically vulnerable districts who disagreed with the bill.  Most of these disagreements hinged on the fact that the bill spent too much without achieving the intended goal: bringing down health care costs for all Americans.  Most of these members swallowed their pride, "took one for the team" and voted to advance the President's signature domestic initiative.  Others that held out longer were able to force Democratic Leaders to cut "deals" for their votes, like the "Louisiana Purchase" and the "Cornhusker Kickback," when Sens. Landrieu and Nelson "took one home for the district."    

For Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi, it wasn’t good policy that advanced the health care debate.  It was a series of decisions where Democrats compromised their principles.  They ... more