myerstownherald.com

The strength of the town hall protesters was shown by the resulting confusion from the Obama administration over whether his health-care plan would include a government health insurance company. Obama previously had said such an entity must be included in any so-called health reform bill. Now Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius appeared to back off on the public option, at least temporarily.
The town hall protesters are the reason Obama does not know how to handle the possibility of government run insurance. The protesters vehemently opposed any such government takeover of the health-care system. Some of the most strident opposition happened right here in Lebanon, and Obama is taking notice.
The anger on the left shows how effective the protests are. Attempts to demonize the protesters have backfired. They are ordinary people who are concerned about the government spending trillions of dollars that it does not have. Their concern is not difficult to understand.
The Obama administration has not been able to combat the force of the protests. Obama made one attempt to counter the opposition by criticizing health-care “myths.”
But this spin should be ignored. The fact is that neither Obama nor anyone else knows exactly what this health-care bill will do. It is 1,000 pages, and contains provisions expanding government’s role in people’s lives in new ways. It is not a myth that this bill is a giant expansion of government, and it is not a myth that the Congressional Budget Office said it would cost $1 trillion. The protesters should not be dissuaded by Obama’s argument.
Even though they have been effective so far, the work of the protesters is not over. Since seeming to back away from the public option, Obama administration officials then appeared to reverse course when angry liberals said the public option must be included. Talk then surfaced that Democrats would try to pass a health-care bill without any Republican votes.
To prevent the re-introduction of the public option, protesters must stay after so-called moderate and conservative Democrats. These Democrats are from swing districts and try to play both sides of the fence by voting against big spending measures when their votes are not necessary to pass them, but not really trying to forestall them either. If these Democrats are really conservative, they must stop any public option from being introduced. To make sure these Democrats actually stick to their conservative principles, their voters must make their voices heard.
People also should not be fooled by talk of putting insurance co-ops in the bill as opposed to a public option. No one really knows how these co-ops would work at this point, and they could be just another way for the government to create a quasi-public insurance company. The Democrats might try to sneak co-ops into the final bill as a way to appease liberals and conservative Democrats. Voters should remind their elected representatives that they do not want these co-ops in the bill, either.
Overall, the protesters have changed the course of the health-care debate. The government during the last several decades has been spending an increasing amount of money. The Obama administration, though, has taken this level of spending to new heights. The voters have stood up and said they have had enough.