DeMint fights the health care control freaks

Washington Post:

On the second floor of the Lexington Medical Center here, Burrell Best, 37, an electrical engineer, and his wife celebrated the birth of their second daughter and voiced fear about the government-run health-care plan being pushed by leading congressional Democrats: "I've just never been a government-takeover kind of guy."

Five floors above him, J.B. Barker, 85, a retired truck driver, sat in a bed recovering from heart and lung congestion problems. Lunching on pepperoni pizza and Pepsi with his wife, Ellen, sitting at his side, Barker said that he does not want Washington meddling with his medical care and that he doubts Congress can craft a better system: "What we have is about as good as we can do."

As anxiety about health-care reform was being expressed Monday on the medical center's campus in this conservative suburb of South Carolina's capital, Sen. Jim DeMint (S.C.) was sharpening his opposition to President Obama's attempt to overhaul the health-care industry.

The Republican has used fiery rhetoric to create a sense of urgency on the matter, making himself a champion of conservatives in the process.

"I'm swinging on this issue," DeMint said in an interview. "If I can stop a government takeover, I will. . . . It's not personal. It's not political. It's about stopping a bad policy."

At the Heritage Foundation in Washington on Monday night, the senator signed copies of his new book, "Saving Freedom: We Can Stop America's Slide into Socialism," and received a hero's welcome. Edwin J. Feulner, president of the conservative think tank, introduced him by saying: "DeMint may be the junior senator from South Carolina, but here we call him the senior senator from the Heritage Foundation."

Last week, DeMint became a target for Obama allies after he likened the president's health-care fight to Napoleon Bonaparte's final defeat. "If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo," he said in a conference call with GOP activists. "It will break him."

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"What will it cost South Carolina families to do nothing?" Rep. James E. Clyburn said in an interview Monday. "This plan would help make things better. Doing nothing, things will get worse."

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Democrats have tried to use DeMint's statement against him but what they are really doing is trying to demonize DeMint to rally their rebelling base. Clyburn's statement is one for which there is no proof and there is considerable evidence that the Democrats' plan will make things worse cutting off care for some elderly and reducing available procedures, It could cut innovation and drive us further into debt with its costs. But, then Clyburn is probably one of those Demcorats who have never read the bill. When people like Sen. DeMint read it and point out its deficiencies it has to be troubling.

As for the attacks I did a tweet last week where I quoted Obama as saying that "the health care bill was not about him. It is about Jim DeMint." Their reaction to his comments certainly suggest as much. It is interesting that at the same time they were attacking DeMint they were telling the Blue Dogs they were in the process of destroying his presidency. That sounds like they agree with DeMint about at least one thing.