Obamacare and the "Dead Parrot" analogy

JIM MCTAGUE at Barrons is declaring Obamacare is deader than the "Dead Parrot" from the Monty Python sketch.

From Barrons:

OBAMACARE HAS KICKED THE BUCKET. IT IS pushing up daisies; has shuffled off this mortal coil. The proposal is deader than Monty Python's famed dead parrot.

ObamaCare was put to sleep by a death panel: The American public. It has carefully read the three House bills and one Senate bill on the Internet and consequently is shaken. Numerous polls show a majority of persons desire Congress to scrap the plan and begin anew. A recent Rasmussen Report survey found that 54% of Americans don't want Congress to vote on the measure this year.

It's not merely the loud-mouths at the town brawl meetings who are opposed to the current bills; so are many open-minded people who have read the legislation cover to cover. They find it vague and confusing and consequently, very worrisome. They cannot decide whether they are reading boilerplate with a foundation of sound case law or the hasty concoction of exhausted aides whose ideological bosses want to railroad the plan through both houses by the fall.

AS IN THE MONTY PYTHON SKETCH, in which a pet-shop owner repeatedly denies that a certain dead parrot is dead, the purveyors of Obama's health-care turkey claim it is merely stunned. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says the public has "misconceptions" and that our President soon will set them straight. (For the sake of comparison, I urge you to view the parrot sketch on YouTube.)

Monty Python - Dead Parrot (video)

Misconceptions? Clearly, people are revolted by the plan, a fact that hasn't been lost on many lawmakers up for re-election next year. Americans, it turns out, retain a preference for private-market solutions and not big-government solutions. Senators talk of slicing and dicing ObamaCare like a turkey so they can digest it one piece at a time.

Divisions within the Democratic-controlled Congress are as much the cause of ObamaCare's cardiac arrest as is any quackery from right-wing radio hosts and preposterously venomous protesters. The party's liberals won't vote for any bill that doesn't include a government-run insurer. Party moderates and conservatives won't vote for a plan that does include it. Liberals want a bill at almost any price tag. Party conservatives and moderates fret about the budgetary impacts, which could exceed $1 trillion over 10 years.