It worked for President Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election, when he took tax cuts - a conservative issue - and made it his own. Now, liberals are employing a similar tactic in promoting their health care agenda.
But Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., isn't having it. He called out Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of the left wing The Nation magazine and MSNBC guest co-host, for attempting it in questioning him in a MSNBC segment on July 29. vanden Heuvel asked Ryan why he was against a so-called public health insurance option. His opposition, she reasoned, would deny consumers the choice of a public option in the marketplace.
"Rep. Ryan, that sounds like an anti-competitive vote," vanden Heuvel said. "Competition is at the heart of America and to deny Americans competition by denying them an option of a public plan seems to me un-American."
But, the Wisconsin congressman observed that her paean to competition as an American ideal was antithetical to what she actually advocated - which is a single-payer government plan, as she as written about before.
"You know what's weird about that line right there, Katrina, is I know you and others are very much in a favor of a single-payer plan, which is obviously to deny competition and have the government run it all," Ryan said. "What's concerning about this debate with me is you're using capitalist rhetoric to try and move a plan that is inherently anti-market."
Ryan explained once the government becomes a competitor in the health insurance, it has the ability to run other competitors out of the market because it makes the rules and has unlimited resources.
"The problem is the facts tell us this - the public plan option quickly becomes a government-run monopoly," Ryan explained. "The reason is, the public plan has so many inherent advantages against the private sector that the private sector can't fairly compete, and what the actuaries are telling us is in a few short years the public plan option displaces the private sector. Employers dump employees on the public plan and they have no choices but the public plan."
That hardly sounds like the free competition vanden Heuvel had talked about.
"And so, let's not try and sell a government-run plan using free market rhetoric," Ryan said. "Let's have an honest debate about what this bill is all about."
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Jeff, I think you mean her
July 29, 2009 - 16:27 ET by motherbeltJeff, I think you mean her "paean" to competition, not "peon"....but Ryan has her dead to rights.
Liberals love to switch arguments, and nothing makes them angrier than having their own words and positions quoted accurately.
Vanden Hurl
July 29, 2009 - 16:31 ET by Tim GrahamI never heard the MSNBC folks suggesting that liberals are afraid of competition when the idea was health savings accounts or private accounts in Social Security. "If the government's so great at providing for people, why are they afraid of a little competition?"
Belly laugh time...
July 29, 2009 - 16:33 ET by acumen"Let's have an honest debate about what this bill is all about."
On MSLSD? Might as well ask ducks to quit crapping in the pond.
Do they not get it
July 29, 2009 - 16:35 ET by Joe CamelDo these people not understand that they as well will be funneled into the same thing as everyone else? Do they somehow believe that won't happen to them, or buy into the drivel being scooped out by the white house does not pertain? I am absolutely amazed at the ignorance of "so called" educated people anymore.
Re funneled
July 29, 2009 - 18:07 ET by slickwillie2001I'm not so sure that they will be funneled into Obamacare with the rest of us peons. Those advising the Bamster on healthcare, like Ezekial Emanuel, Tom Daschle and others, have written a great deal on their theories of rationing. They don't intend to do it based on age alone. They also believe in the concept of 'communitarian value', -the value of a person to the community. So who would they see as more valuable to the community than the editor of 'el Nacion'? Or someone like Teddie Kennedy? Or any old federal employee?
The Congressional plan flowchart also has an 'Office of Minority Health'. I assume that is intended to apportion healthcare resources on the basis of Affirmative Action. Everyone knows that blacks for example, have a lower life expectancy than whites. A race huckster will naturally blame that on racism, suggesting any other reason would be evidence of racism! Helping to compensate for the sins of the past of course.
But in any case, Katrina vanden Hoover is fabulously wealthy and can buy her healthcare with cash. Her family started the recording company MCA, among other things. She is the original limousine liberal.
She sure is. Doubling
July 29, 2009 - 18:19 ET by bigtimerShe sure is.
Doubling down on stupid is not a particularly good idea. ~Andrew Breitbart
I've listened to her for
July 29, 2009 - 16:40 ET by bigtimerI've listened to her for more years than I can count or stand...
Katrina is the only critter here Un-American....it runs in her bloodline.
Doubling down on stupid is not a particularly good idea. ~Andrew Breitbart
She's unbearable to watch.
July 29, 2009 - 19:01 ET by ApodicticYou'd think that she could at least spring for some orthodontia. I call her "Jaws."
Oh, but Katrina can never
July 29, 2009 - 17:00 ET by Andrew H.Oh, but Katrina can never be wrong about anything you see--she is a collectivist of the highest order of control and confuse, theft and envy, and above all, her own idea of self importance.
The Nation--a rag founded by communists and still communist after all these years and all the evidence that communism fails.
What is a Katrina? A fool.
Liberalism is a convenient lie.
SOP emergency room practice for priapism
July 29, 2009 - 17:01 ET by SickofLibsSOP emergency room practice for priapism is for the nurse to first show the patient a photo of vanden Heuvel.
For very acute cases, a recording of her voice is also played.
Never fails.
I don't care who you are
July 29, 2009 - 19:04 ET by obageegee"SOP emergency room practice for priapism is for the nurse to first show the patient a photo of vanden Heuvel.
For very acute cases, a recording of her voice is also played.
Never fails. "
Now that's pretty funny right there
It's good to hear of a
July 29, 2009 - 17:45 ET by Radical1979It's good to hear of a Republican not afraid to take on the truth, and do it so well. We need more of that.
Straight from central casting...
July 29, 2009 - 19:16 ET by CTKatrina vanden Heuvel the hideous shriveled communist apparatchik scheming to subvert the free will of undeserving bourgeoisie fat cats
Isn't it interesting that the Left have bashed Wal-Mart for many
July 30, 2009 - 01:59 ET by Rush Fanyears for supposedly stifling competition because of its size. Yet they are perfectly willing to have big government stifle the competition when it comes to a single-payer government plan.
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“Understand something about liberalism. They never stop until they get what they want, and when they get what they want, it's never enough. That's why it's a constant thing to have to oppose them. You can't join forces with them, you can't moderate them, you can't slow them down by joining them, you can't make them like you and have them change their agenda. They have to be stopped.” ~ Rush Limbaugh
July 30, 2009 - 09:19 ET by jessieHRyan is right. It would be a monopoly. A monopoly is illegal in this country...