Some Democrats wary of Obamacare

With public support for his socialized medicine scheme slipping, President Obama is applying the screws at a time when an "off-year" Congress would normally be slowing down in preparation for its summer recess.

"Now is not the time to slow down," the president intoned last Friday, urging Democratic lawmakers to get his thousand-page, trillion-dollar boondoggle through committee and enacted right away, even if it means abandoning any appearance of "bipartisanship."

Why? Because slowing down would allow Americans time to read the bill and ask more questions, starting with: "If the president insists his 'reform' must reduce health care costs, yet the Congressional Budget Office says the current plan will increase costs, isn't it time to tear this one up and start again?"

As a corollary, if the plan is supposed to "save money," why must it be "paid for" with billions of dollars worth of new taxes on households earning more than $250,000 -- precisely the kind of Americans who traditionally open small businesses and otherwise invest in job creation, helping the nation claw its way out of recession?

In fact, what President Obama and leading Democrats want is a "single-payer" socialized medicine system, run entirely by the government, with "cost savings" accrued through telling sick people to wait months for treatment, since everyone knows treatment costs drop enormously if the patient dies before you get around to him -- or her.

But polls tell them Americans won't stand for European-style "single payer" socialized rationing enacted all at once. So they came up with this scheme, which supposedly allows private insurance companies to "compete" with the very government that orders them to add more and more stuff into their plans, making them more and more expensive, knowing full well this will lead to the eventual collapse of more and more private plans, until only one "insurer" remains -- Uncle Sam.

Republicans on Sen. Christopher Dodd's Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions voted unanimously against the measure. But there are not enough Republicans to stop Obamacare. What are needed are a few Democrats with enough independence to stand up and say, "Whoa."

Last Friday, although the House Committee on Education and Labor OK'd the legislation before them on a 26-22 vote, three Democrats found the courage to stand up and vote for their constituents, instead of for the machine.

They are Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania, Jared Polis of Colorado, and Dina Titus of Nevada.

On Ways and Means, three more Democrats -- Ron Kind of Wisconsin, Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota, and John Tanner of Tennessee -- also stood up to their president and the ascendant socialist wing of their party.

President Obama's Friday remarks "amounted to a dressing-down to some legislators in both parties," just hours after the House committee vote, The Times reports. "Democrats who voted against the bill cited concerns like tax increases, the effect on small businesses and the possibility that a new government-run health insurance plan might underpay doctors and hospitals by using Medicare reimbursement rates."

We've had our disagreements with Dina Titus. We'll likely have more in the future. But she deserves lots of credit for finding the courage to stand up to her agenda-blinded leadership, speaking out for her constituents' legitimate fiscal concerns, digging in her heels as the Washington lemmings insist on racing us off the tax-and-inflation cliff in the midst of a deep recession.

Independence and fiscal restraint, in the modern Democratic Party? Write down their names. Courage and principle are rarely in surplus in Washington. Such virtues are welcome at all times, from either side of the aisle. Congratulations to Dina Titus.