Obama pulls another trick out of his Chicago Bully's Bag. Its time to play a little hardball with the Novice Marxist in our White House.

Obama to Convene Summit on Health Care — President Obama said Sunday that he will convene a half-day, bipartisan health care summit at the White House on Feb. 25 to be broadcast on television, so Americans can see Democrats and Republicans try to break the deadlock on health care legislation.
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Editor's thoughts: two things -- first, why didn't Obama do this sort of thing a year ago? The fact that this should have been the legislative approach from the beginning tells us that Obama's appeal to "bi-partisanship" is less than sincere, something in fact one should view with skepticism. Secondly, with his confrontational performance at the GOP Caucus in mind, in the presence of cameras no less, Obama clearly believes that he can manage a repeat performance. Republicans need to be prepared for Mr. Obama to lecture their caucus as he did at the Conference. The GOP cannot refuse his offer, of course, but its leaders need to be prepared to fight fire with fire, all in the name of "respecting the office." After inviting him to their caucus, in the name of bipartisanship, Obama ambushed them with cameras and tried to turn the event into a political victory.

Understand that the "Conference" trick [of Obama's doing] gave him improving numbers for about three days. He did not improve his standing in the eyes of those who have abandoned ship nor did he change opinions about health care. If there is anyone out there in Lala Land who thinks that this is not another "ambush" in the making, well, you probably are still buying Happy Meals at McDonald's and looking to Mommy to solve many of your life's problems.

How should this transparently opportunistic event be handled?

First, "respecting the office of the President" is extremely important, especially if Obama decides to take a community organizer's approach to the meeting. He alone should appear to be argumentative and confrontational.

Secondly, when we speak of "fighting fire with fire," we have in mind a GOP contribution that is grounded in what they have been advising over the course of the past year. People need to know that the GOP alternatives have been "on the table" from the very beginning of the 2009 legislative season; their ideas are nothing new (as in "recently thought up"), they (the GOP) are appreciative of the opportunity of being included in the process after a year of being told to "sit down and shut up" and that the differences between Obama's plan and the GOP's approach has to do with philosophical issues as well as the much maligned specifics we the people have rejected.

Currently, the GOP is more representative of the people of America on health care reform than is the Marxist oriented Democrat Party. They (the GOP) need to stand on that fact. To wit:

Obama told Network News over the weekend that he has invited the GOP to come to White House and lay their proposals on the table.
If Obama were sincere in this "change of heart," all he has to do is go to GOP.gov and read what has been entered at that site. If he had bothered to read their suggestions at any time over the course of the past year, he would have found these suggestions:

• Empowering Patients First Act (Republican Study Committee Health Care Reform Bill, introduced July 30, 2009)
• Improving Health Care for All Americans Act (Shadegg Health Care Reform Bill, introduced July 14, 2009)
• Medical Rights & Reform Act (Kirk-Dent Health Care Reform Bill, introduced June 16, 2009)
• Help Efficient, Accessible, Low-cost, Timely Healthcare (HEALTH) Act (Gingrey medical liability reform bill, introduced June 6, 2009)
• Small Business Health Fairness Act of 2009 (Johnson small business health plans bill, introduced May 21, 2009)
• Promoting Health and Preventing Chronic Disease through Prevention and Wellness Programs for Employees, Communities, and Individuals Act of 2009 (Castle Wellness & Prevention Bill, introduced July 31, 2009)
• Improved Employee Access to Health Insurance Act of 2009 (Deal auto-enrollment bill, introduced October 15, 2009)
• Health Insurance Access for Young Workers and College Students Act of 2009 (Blunt bill to improve health insurance coverage of dependents, introduced October 21, 2009)

As you read each of these "bullets," note the parenthetical comments. Each point is an actual legislative submission that was rejected by the Ruling Class, Obama as its Chief Officer. Additional suggestions include the following:

Why wait to cut waste and fraud from Medicare, especially if you need that money to pay for your program?
The people would prefer the cuts to Medicare be made now, rather than later. If there is $500 billion in Medicare waste and fraud, why not make the necessary adjustments first? The Dems alternative? They have argued that a) they must have these Medicare savings to pay for their version of health care reform and b), they intend to wait to make these cuts until after the bill is past into law. The American people are saying, "if you need the money from these cuts, why not make the cuts first?" Midknight Review believes there is no convincing rebuttal to this question.

Why not take down the barriers to inter-state "shopping." Increased competition will bring prices down and put pressure on insurance providers to slow the rate of premium increases.
While inter-state barriers have been addressed in one of the current bills, we the people are NOT truly free to shop through the 180 companies presenting plans and coverage. Health care reform needs to insure that we have the advantage of shopping for our own insurance plans rather than ordering our participation and prescribing solution that we, then, must pay for. We need the government to open the door to the solution, not take over the business of health insurance.

Why not include tort reform as we proceed through to some sort of national health insurance solution?
A number of states including California, have legislative tort limits in place as we speak. Trial lawyers argue that tort reform does nothing to reduce premium costs. In California, many court judgments effecting malpractice are limited to $250,000. Knowing that these same judgments could be 3 and 4 million dollars without tort limits, one wonders how trial lawyers get away with thinking these reforms do not effect insurance costs ?

Midknight Review suggests that the GOP leadership press the need to begin from the beginning as regards health care reform. The current bill is so convoluted in nature and anecdotal in terms of content, that the proposal [and who knows which proposal we are talking about] needs to be "taken down" and a bipartisan proposal installed in its place. The GOP needs to stand on this single idea and pursue it without compromise -- jds.