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Pelosi: Obama Backs Down on Charging Combat Wounded for Health Care

But does his TelePrompTer agree?

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  March 18th, 2009 at 04:09 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

At a meeting with veterans’ groups on Capitol Hill, Speaker Pelosi (D-CA) said:

President Obama listened to the genuine concerns expressed by the veteran service organizations regarding the option of billing service-connected injuries to veterans’ insurance companies

Based on the respect President Obama has for veterans and the principle concerns of our veteran leaders, the president made the decision that combat wounds should not be billed through their insurance policies.

Of course, if President Obama really had all that “respect…for veterans” and for “the principle concerns of our veteran leaders,” wouldn’t he have realized (or had one of those “veteran leaders” tell him) what an outrageously boneheaded idea charging veterans for treatment of wounds suffered in combat was?

I mean, seriously — just say that out loud: “We’re going to try to make $500 million for the government by charging combat wounded for their treatment.” Okay, now think about what you just said — if you even need to. Yep — ridickeless stupid, isn’t it?

And you’re telling me the president loves and has the utmost respect for our troops, but that he couldn’t tell what a stupid move that would be before he proposed it (let alone right after first floating it out there)?

If he couldn’t figure that out on his own, and nobody in his inner circle of The Most Brilliant and Indispensable People Never to Pay Taxes could tell him how stupid that proposal was, then — well, I don’t even want to consider what it says about the level of competence currently working in and around 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

All I can really say is that it’s become an increasingly positive thing that every single position and proposal President Obama comes out with really does have an expiration date. Maybe now we can get a bit of a respite before Obama and his TelePrompTer launch their next harebrained scheme to somehow lower health care costs by raising a group of patients’ health care costs.

We’ll see. We all know they (Obama and the TelePrompTer, that is) are deep in conversation at this moment (a conversation which could be interesting to observe, as anything coherent Obama says he is obviously being fed by his conversation partner — and the rest of the incoherent “ummm, uhhh, inhalator, uhhh, ummmm”-ing is just the president trying to carry on his own end of the conversation with That Which Gives Him The Words without, well, being given the words.

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COMMENTS

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  • bobojake

    I don’t understand how obama you could even make such a suggestion about Veterans Heath Care and our outrage isn’t directed at AIG. Our outrage is at you and your adminstration for taking our children and children” childrens future for granted. You for taking our Veterans for granted. You obama for putting ACORN who has a mission of destroying the United States before our Veterans. obama you don’t care about the working American. Now your off on a high flying circus ride to the West Coast.
    How about obama you trying to complete you first job of building an Adminstaration that believes in America not specials interests. How about obama taking back your foney budget and submitting a realistic on. WE HAVE NO MORE MONEY.

  • janis

    but I trust nothing these people say, like everybody else here I assume. What I am wondering is just how much screaming at local politicians’ offices occurred to make these unscrupulous idiots back away from this? And oh how dearly I would love to have heard the remarks from retired military personnel in those phone calls and emails!

  • restofva

    Jeez, I have some pretty good ideas in the shower as well but wouldn’t announce them to the country without playing them out a bit.
    He certainly is lowering the bar for future presidents. That’s really scary.

  • johnCV

    Obama did not do this from stupidity but from a postion of comtempt for our military and privat ehealth care. It’s a win-win for him however it falls out. If somehow he is able to push this through, it will demoralize and outrage the military, efffectively cause an insurmountable tear in the fabric of private healthcare and drive down (re-)enlistment to unsustainalble levels.
    If he does not prevail with his plan, he will only get the demoralization and lack of (re-)enlistment.
    Neitrher the military or the health care system could endure this policy (which I have heard is actually in his budget plans for the out years – not substantiated yet, but shows it’s more than a ‘trial ballon’).

    In one fell swoop he will destroy the foundational bond of a nation and its warriors and the trust between a privately insured nation and it’s providers.

    Not stupid – evil.

  • IJB

    The Democrat party is all based on constituency group politics.

    Well, the truth is, a large majority of those currently-serving in the military, and likely veterans too, are *NOT* Democrats.

    That means, to the D’s, they’re the “enemy”.

    And as Saul baby once said – you have to destroy the enemy.

    Somehow, someway, Obama and the Dems will try to bring this back. They’ll probably try to do it in the dark of night.

    Now, whether they can actually *pull it off* is another question.
    But I’m convinced they’re not done trying on this one.

  • redneck_hippie

    This proposal, like “shamnesty,” is so toxic politically that we need to be much more sneaky in the way we write the legislation. Let’s wait til the next crisis and emergency stimulus bill to slip this one in.

    This idea needs to be tied around The One’s neck.

    It is frightening to contemplate what is going on in the capital. They are writing things into law (example: allowing bonus millions to be paid to employees of AIG), then feigning outrage that the bonuses are being paid.

  • red4ever

    They will find a way to do this anyway. Claim the wounds are not combat related or some such. Anything to cut their benefits and make it unpalatable to join the military.

  • exiledconservative

    I am completely disgusted that suggestion was even considered an option. I sure hope, for the sake of our brave soldiers, that this plan is completely off the table now.

  • fiery

    I for one was outraged after hearing this. In fact, I spent yesterday sending
    letters to all my representatives in Alabama urging them to vote against any
    such program. I am 58 years old and have never been a political person. But the thought that we would be asking our military who have suffered some
    debilitating injuries to seek coverage through the private insurance companies to me was insulting and unpatriotic. The Dems. want to throw that “patriotic”
    word around. However, when it comes to caring for our military they want someone else to care for them to save the country some money. Money that they then turn around to give to organizations like ACORN/La Raza.How patriotic is this? I doubt that this ideas is dead. Mr. Obama has a tendency to put out an idea to get feedback. Then he comes back at a later time and reintroduces the same idea. I am prepared to go to Washington to show support for our Veterans. They have fought hard for us and I am going to do the same for them!