Michelle Malkin » Undercover at an Obama health care meet-up

Undercover at an Obama health care meet-up

By Michelle Malkin • June 8, 2009 10:41 PM

Conservative blogger Dan J. at Falling Panda reports on what’s going on at those Obama health care meet-ups.

Check out his account here.

Bottom line: Hope for defeating the Obamacare behemoth lives:

I came away from this meeting with a renewed confidence that Obama would not be able to rely on his loyal activist army to sell nationalized health care. While these individuals are passionate and are perfectly capable of handing out flyers and talking about “hope” and “change” during an election cycle, they were clearly grossly under prepared to answer questions about an issue as complex as health care from concerned citizens.

Perhaps I’m wrong. I’ll find out on June 27 when the Obama army takes to the streets and we see the results of the brainstorming sessions in action. However the entire time I was at the meeting, for all of the talk of “Health care for all” and how “meaningful reform can’t wait” there was not a single question or mention of the programs potential costs to the taxpayer. If these well meaning activists are under the impression that they won’t be confronted by individuals who are already incensed with Obama’s proclivity to spend large sums of money and his failure to propose any realistic way of paying for it all, then they have another thing coming.

Concerned citizens have a good chance of killing this ill conceived health care overhaul. I’m convinced of this after seeing first hand those who Obama has fighting for him on the ground.

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#715685

On June 8th, 2009 at 10:58 pm, Freddy said:

That ‘fat head’ Obama is gonna give me nightmares! Well, even more nightmares!
#715686

On June 8th, 2009 at 10:59 pm, Ron said:

I guess I ought to be somewhat encouraged. However, I’m not at all sure public support or opposition will mean squat to Congress. They don’t seem overly tuned in to the body politic.
#715690

On June 8th, 2009 at 11:08 pm, Flyoverman said:

Obama’s whole strategic campaign is starting to unravel. His whole strategy reminds me of the German approach to the Battle of the Bulge.

Like the Germans he does not have the political logistics for a sustained effort. That is why he is constantly claiming the need to act NOW. After TARP and the bailouts, individual Congressman and Senators up in 2010 are starting to feel the heat.

When this thing unravels, it’s going to do so BIG TIME. The reversal could be stunning. We saw today a Today Show satire of the TOTUS. That is an attention getter.
#715693

On June 8th, 2009 at 11:20 pm, Jet Jaguar said:

Maybe it’ll be a Jimmy Carter’esque “throw the bum out of office” fever sweeping the nation again… just like in 1980, but this time only after a year in office. I just hope most of Congress is swept out with him.
#715698

On June 8th, 2009 at 11:25 pm, Sanddog said:

Have you ever noticed the people who claim they have to eat cat food to make ends meet all have computers and internet connections?
#715718

On June 8th, 2009 at 11:53 pm, ITookTheRedPill said:

Maybe Obama should name his Health Care plan the same as his dog:

Amigo’s New Hope

It would certainly help market it to the illegal immigrants.

Of course, to the legal citizens of this country, “Amigo’s New Hope” is more likely to remind them of when Obama said this.
#715763

On June 9th, 2009 at 1:46 am, Republicanvet said:

Any of these nitwits in this little meeting should be required to volunteer at their local VA for two weeks prior to espousing any views on nationalized health care…including visits with family members of those hospitalized.

Until then, they have zero perspective to speak on this issue.
#715776

On June 9th, 2009 at 3:00 am, RetFireman said:

Well, that’s all well and fine, but he is talking as if Obama actually listens to anyone but himself.

Seriously, is anyone under any delusion that these people are going to report back to him on anything that happens out there and thinking that Obama will take what they say into consideration?

this is nothing but fluff. It is Obama pretending that people have a voice. The reality is that he has already decided what he is going to do, or rather has been told what he will do by his handlers, and is merely playing up the part.

The man is a dangerous narcissist and megalomaniac who just plain doesn’t care what people think, especially people who actually know what they are doing or talking about. He is a Socialist and he will not stop until the ultimate goal of Socialism is reached here in this nation.
#715795

On June 9th, 2009 at 6:04 am, Thunderbird 1 said:

If Dan Joseph was able to infiltrate one such meeting with a name tag that said “Al,” then I think we should adopt “You Can Call Me Al” as the theme song to the resistance effort. To wit, “What if I die here / Who’ll be my role-model / Now that my role-model is gone…”

Dying under Obamacare sounds torturous, but may be preferable to living under it.
#715797

On June 9th, 2009 at 6:28 am, timbudd said:

Proposed Obama Health Plan Breaks 250k Tax Increase Promise

The second highest tax bracket – which the healthcare proposal starts the tax at to pay for national healthcare – begins at 208k for married status and 170k for single.

If this plan is enacted the President will break his promise not to raise taxes on anyone making less than 250k.

One more broken promise to add to the list.

- proposed Obama tax plan to pay for national healthcare.

- 2009 tax brackets.
#715815

On June 9th, 2009 at 7:49 am, wingleader said:

On June 8th, 2009 at 11:25 pm, Sanddog said:
Have you ever noticed the people who claim they have to eat cat food to make ends meet all have computers and internet connections?

It’s all about priorities Sanddog. You can’t give up your internet or your cable TV
#715828

On June 9th, 2009 at 8:12 am, jsr said:

In keeping with the community organizer code, we eventually broke into groups where we were to “brainstorm” and think of events we could hold that would raise awareness of Obamacare.

In my group we sat in a circle and each read one of the talking points as listed in the Obama health care packet. This practice struck me as being similar to grammar school, where we would go around the classroom and each student would read a certain portion of a given text. Why one person couldn’t have read the entire paragraph I have no idea. We were then each asked to share our ideas for raising awareness and gaining support for the Obama plan.

This sounds eerily similar to the endless “training” sessions I had when I was in Peace Corps (an organization completely filled with liberals.) A particular topic was briefly covered by a moderator (say water system design) which was followed by breaking into smaller groups for discussion and ideas then presenting the various ideas and variations to the whole group with further discussion, comments, stories and jokes While quite entertaining, no serious learning is accomplished (such a learning how to calculate static and dynamic pressures, flow rates, pipe sizes etc…) However everybody feels really good about the learning and there is plenty of bonding and friendship. Problem is, nobody actually learns anything of value and is completely unprepared for the task at hand.

Just like the Peace Corps volunteers were completely incompetent at building water systems, theses volunteers will be ill-prepared to sell a health care plan they know nothing about. I’m going to prepare a list of detailed questions in case I run into any of them. Should be fun watching them wither under sustained questioning.
#715843

On June 9th, 2009 at 8:30 am, jangar said:

I came away from this meeting with a renewed confidence that Obama would not be able to rely on his loyal activist army to sell nationalized health care. While these individuals are passionate and are perfectly capable of handing out flyers and talking about “hope” and “change” during an election cycle, they were clearly grossly under prepared to answer questions about an issue as complex as health care from concerned citizens.

I didn’t realize lgm was a part of this…
#715844

On June 9th, 2009 at 8:33 am, jangar said:

On June 9th, 2009 at 8:12 am, jsr said:

Isn’t this basically how things are run in communist countries? Everything broken down into bitesized pieces, and few are the ones who really know and see the big picture?
#715847

On June 9th, 2009 at 8:44 am, CrazyFool said:

they were clearly grossly under prepared to answer questions about an issue as complex as health care from concerned citizens.

Who said they would answer questions from citizens? They didn’t during the campaign – why start now?
#715852

On June 9th, 2009 at 8:52 am, NJ-Aviator said:

This sounds eerily similar to the endless “training” sessions I had when I was in Peace Corps (an organization completely filled with liberals.) A particular topic was briefly covered by a moderator (say water system design) which was followed by breaking into smaller groups for discussion and ideas then presenting the various ideas and variations to the whole group with further discussion, comments, stories and jokes While quite entertaining, no serious learning is accomplished (such a learning how to calculate static and dynamic pressures, flow rates, pipe sizes etc…) However everybody feels really good about the learning and there is plenty of bonding and friendship. Problem is, nobody actually learns anything of value and is completely unprepared for the task at hand.

I’m surprised they weren’t all holding hands.

And no, these community organizing sessions for ObamaCare, as RetFireman noted, aren’t going be reporting back to the White House. All they are doing is attempting to garner some public support. Or…”awareness”… as they call it. Of course they will be using deception to do this, which is not surprising.

I was speaking to a Teamster last night. Most of his fellow teamsters do not like the idea of ObamaCare. They like the plan they have now. He seems to think this plan will toss them into the same medicare-like plan that illegals and welfare recipients will be on. That’s apparently a scary prospect to union members. Not a good sign for ObamaCare. Let’s hope that line of thought is prevalent in many union members.
#715857

On June 9th, 2009 at 9:04 am, jangar said:

All they are doing is attempting to garner some public support. Or…”awareness”… as they call it. Of course they will be using deception to do this, which is not surprising.

And spoon-feed it to Republican congressmen to support it.
#715864

On June 9th, 2009 at 9:15 am, katablog said:

Dan J. at Falling Panda has too much confidence in Obamaites. Of course they don’t ask questions about costs! All of them will fit neatly into the plan to give free health care to those under 150% of poverty rate.

When have these people ever been interested in costs? Never! They aren’t the ones that will pay. For them, every thing is free, free, free.
#715873

On June 9th, 2009 at 9:36 am, vinny said:

I don’t know of a single doctor who suports obamacare. Yet there are asses out there promoting the idea that doctors are behind this. It wouldn’t surprise me to see some political types in the various medical organizations trying to pay homage to organizer-pretender.
#715876

On June 9th, 2009 at 9:39 am, happy2behere said:

The article begs the questions, how much will it cost and where will the money come from? Don’t you think we out to know the answers ourselves before we ask the “brainstormers?”
#715881

On June 9th, 2009 at 9:55 am, happyscrapper said:

I especially like it when I am reassured that Obama “will not raise taxes for 95% of the people”. Isn’t he amazing? To be able to accomplish such great things without raising taxes for most of the citizens! How does he do that? He must certainly be The One we have been praying for! Now, everyone in the country will have health insurance. No one need ever do without again. All those illegal aliens who have been turned away at the emergency room doors will now get treatment. Well, not exactly turned away, but, you know, they weren’t allowed at the head of the line, but now they will be!

/sarc off
#716014

On June 9th, 2009 at 11:56 am, irving said:

While these individuals are passionate and are perfectly capable of handing out flyers and talking about “hope” and “change” during an election cycle, they were clearly grossly under prepared to answer questions about an issue

I had a discussion with an Obama supporter not long ago who would have fit into this group just fine. Not surprisingly, he’s a professional student, currently working on a PhD and being supported by his wife. He had no contact with or even interest in the real world.
#716105

On June 9th, 2009 at 1:41 pm, dan708 said:

Concerned citizens have a good chance of killing this ill conceived health care overhaul. I’m convinced of this after seeing first hand those who Obama has fighting for him on the ground.

No doubt these are the same folks who wanted the Gitmo prisoners freed until it came time to decide what to do with them. They just don’t use their fool heads!
#716503

On June 9th, 2009 at 7:42 pm, dadinseattle said:

I am fairly certain that Obama expects his handy dandy Congress, to pass this with little or no real debate, and the big PR campaign was supposed to handle that for him.

They successfully duped people to fall for “the debate is over” once with Global Warming, so they probably think this will be a snap too!

Well, the Health Care Debate Must Occur and from all the activity on all the teaparty sites, this battle will be huge and one Obama is ill prepared for.
We are the prescription to stop his insane reform of America into the Obamunism Union!
#716602

On June 10th, 2009 at 12:11 am, Bruce said:

I appreciate the effort, but there is no hope that Obama’s health agenda will be stopped.The only “concerned citizens” we have are unwilling to do anything but talk about the evils that Obama and his Democrat cohorts are doing. The few “concerned citizens” who are willing to act are labeled as loners and wingnuts, and left to be hauled off to jail.

No, there is no hope as long as those who are supposed to care do nothing.
#716776

On June 10th, 2009 at 10:46 am, Dimsdale said:

You know, if they half mirrored the teleprompters, the narcissistic Obamateur could pretend that he is the one spouting off, not his handlers.

And he could also check to make sure there was no arugula in his teeth…
#717441

On June 10th, 2009 at 6:10 pm, T-Bone said:

But he won the election. Doesn’t that mean he is right about all things?
#718516

On June 11th, 2009 at 6:14 pm, cabrerski said:

Obama (The One) is a god…heard it on MSNBC from a respected journalist and was seconded by Chris Matthews. Must be true…

So let us turn to the Book of Obamacare, second chapter, versus 2 through 7…

Tort reform, a tool of Satan, will not be included in this or any discussion. Those who continue to bring this up shall be stoned and/or made fun of on the Daily Show.

Yea verily, all people (citizens or not) residing or visiting within the borders of the United States and its territories will have access to the same level of health care and no one will have to pay for it. No one (except those noted below) may seek additional or outside services from Obamacare.

Doctors and other providers will have no income for five years as they pay back to the people the obscene profits they made in the last few years.

Insurance companies will also have to contribute to the DNC in an amount equal to their national health care donation. AIG and others will allow their important executives large bonuses after the donations are in place.

All members of Congress, the Executive Branch, and the Supreme Court, past, current and future, shall be exempt from health care regualtions. In fact, they will be reimbursed any fees at the taxpayers’ expense. Serving one term will ensure these benefits for life as well as spouses and children under 75.

It shall come to pass that Congress shall include all funding for their dachas in the first two bills.

Amen!!!

- Seriously, read the fine print and watch how the Congressional rats will exempt themselves just like they did with Social Security and their sweet retirement dream.