Anthony Weiner is too honest a leftist politician.

"Neither my plan (Weiner's single-payer version) or the Obama plan have 218 House votes or 50 Senate votes."

These are Representative Anthony Weiner's (D-NY) words, in the middle of his Town Hall question and answer session Wednesday night at Local Union #3, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers hall.
 
If this is true, then the Democrats don't have the votes for reconciliation or to stop a filibuster. Quite an admission. I hope it is the case.
 
Representative Weiner, who also stated that he believes the version of the healthcare bill that President Obama prefers doesn't go far enough, seemed to be separating himself from the coattails of the President. When asked if he would "sign the Obama plan" of the bill, he answered, "I, no, I probably wouldn't." This was followed by New York Tea Party co-founder Kellen Giuda saying, "Yes you will" and a number of other conservatives in the hall loudly voicing the same sentiments.

Mr. Giuda's previous exchange with Representative Weiner was one of the more thoughtful ones of the evening. Giuda had asked, why doesn't the medical insurance bill focus on cost control; he cited his work as an architect, saying he could never inflate his estimated bill the way it is done in the medical professon. Mr. Weiner answered that the government wasn't flexible enough, that the Congressional Budget Office wouldn't approve some home partial care or preventive care but was willing to pay for hospital stays when the treatment became more expensive. It is convenient to be able to blame the CBO for a bill's shortcomings.

This exchange was followed by another of Mr. Weiner's more memorable quotes of the evening, namely his saying, "I happen to think the Obama bill is too timid." I have to give him credit for candor; I would describe the Obama bill as too sneaky and deceptive, but that reflects the difference in worldview between a conservative and a liberal.
 
The meeting was boisterous and Weiner arrived a half-hour late, staying for 90 minutes, but both Weiner and the union people were pretty decent. Everyone who filled out a question sheet – and whose question wasn't answered previously – got a chance to talk. Weiner handled differences of opinion with much more grace than Arlen Specter and the union members only got around one Tea Party guy who kept interrupting and wouldn't let Weiner or the other formal questioners talk. A union official restored a level of order by taking the microphone and saying, "You want to scream, I'll pull the plug" (shut the meeting down).
 
The most dramatic questioner from the public was an electrical union member who told Representative Weiner that the high medical insurance costs of the union plan were costing his employer to lose out on contracts every day, being constantly underbid. He said that he works a lot downtown and hears the corporate types talk. They say when the Goldman Sachs job he is on ends, that's it. No new work is planned. He then went on to say "the biggest problem is trust," that he doesn't trust Obama to keep his promises and doesn't want to be under an expanded government health plan. 
 
Anthony Weiner matched the electrician in frankness, saying, "I'm trying to keep my own head above water" and "I'm not gonna carry water for him," meaning Obama. For a few minutes, the two of them had talked frankly about survival, not politics.
 
Two questions later, Mr. Weiner called my name and allowed me to rephrase my question orally. My original question was very general: how could ObamaCare service the needs of seniors and retiring baby boomers, many whom voted Democrat all their lives? But taking the floor, I repeated the electrical union man's concern about trust and mentioned that a private insurance company, however imperfect – and they are – has an adversary in government regulatory agencies. What happens when the government is a total monopoly and is "judge, jury and executioner" of health insurance? I don't recall Mr. Weiner's reply as much as the insight I got from his reply to my follow up question/statement.
 
I stated that I had learned in school in New York about the Standard Oil monopoly and that all monopolies, once they drove their competitors out, are free to raise prices to the sky, even though Standard Oil lowered oil prices in those years. What would stop a government health monopoly from lording it over the public, doing what they wanted? Weiner's reply was that if the government was the only provider, we – the citizens – can control them [sic].
 
Now how a bunch of average people with a mortgage, a family and a dog are going to control a government monopoly that has wiped out all other health insurance providers and also controls the courts, the legislature and the police was not something that Weiner cared to explain in further detail. He just stated his sentence, which I consider a statement of political faith. In my first question, I had given the example of the old Bell Telephone company monopoly, in the person of Lily Tomlin's Ernestine the Operator, but neither the Bell Company, the Chrysler Corporation's ability to renege on Lemon Law statutes nor GM's paying only ten cents on a dollar to bondholders, many of them GM retirees, came to Mr. Weiner's mind or voice in replying. He just assumed we citizens can easily control a monolithic government monopoly.
 
Another factor that was present in Mr. Weiner's level of political faith and trust is that he appeared as a New York guy who had an emotional connection with people from the neighborhoods of his Congressional district. Despite my strong differences with his politics, I believe he would do what he considered best for his constituents. The problem is, the ObamaCare plan is designed by a political carpetbagger, Barack Obama. Obama may have been born in the US, but his whole cultural experience growing up is one of not bonding with the people in any American neighborhood for long periods of time like Mr. Weiner.

Mr. Weiner is definitely not an outsider in Brooklyn and Queens. When a company wants to do a bunch of layoffs, they often bring in a hatchet man from either an out of town office or a consulting firm, who doesn't know the people in that office. This may be a financial necessity for a company to stay in business – or not. Either way, an outsider often has less concern for the local situation and people. When Obama talks of not giving a very senior woman a pacemaker or not deeming it a good choice to give his own grandmother a hip replacement, or laughs at Special Olympics athletes, one questions whether he feels anything for anyone. As one wag in Washington put it, whereas Clinton "felt your pain," Obama "sees your pain."

Someone asked Congressman Weiner why they have to buy health insurance and don't they have the right in America to be foolish and not buy any. Weiner replied by talking about the social cost for all of the hospital treatment, mentioning the problem of that person getting older and needing an operation or being in a car accident. Someone from the audience yelled out that we require everyone to buy auto insurance. I wish the questioner would have mentioned the provisions of the ObamaCare bill that cover illegal aliens at virtually no cost to them. And that also goes for illegal aliens not buying auto insurance.

In other words, if Weiner considers a working American not buying insurance irresponsible, a social freerider that is bleeding the medical system, why doesn't he consider an illegal alien not buying health or auto insurance also a social freerider? Hillary Clinton famously said during the 2008 primary campaign that "no woman is an illegal," but the cost of those non-documented illegals to our hospitals and roads drive up the price of health insurance for all the paying citizens. Sorry, Hillary, but they are illegal and hospital care carpetbaggers.

The subect of tort reform was mentioned in rapid fire speech by protesting Tea Party members and others. Mr. Weiner did not go into any discussion of how he would reform the legal system to protect doctors from greedy lawyers like John Edwards. Texas, for example, has a cap on how much someone can get for unquantifiable pain and suffering in a medical malpractice suit. Nor did Weiner take on the issue of being able to buy health insurance across state lines or medical savings accounts.

An interesting thing happened before Representative Weiner arrived, when two old time liberals sat next to me and started to talk politics, saying the protesters outside were "crazies" and asking if I was one of them. After the husband denounced the profit motive in insurance companies, I told him about Rahm Emanuel's father leaving the socialist Kupat Holim system in Israel to make more money in America. He said, "Good for him." In other words, who cares that the poor refugees in Israel years ago lost a doctor, as far as he was concerned. When asked why profit was acceptable for this doctor but not a drug company executive (even Representative Weiner stated he wanted the drug companies to make some profit), the senior replied that doctors make less than drug company executives. Maybe in his socialist cartoon version of reality, but there are doctors that run large practices and invent medical devices creating corporations who make the same kind of money as a top insurance company executive.

It appears my retiree companion thought people would be willing to work for 12-hour days or longer for a salary that meets his approval or that of a Salary Czar. He must be very happy with Obama – until he gets turned down for a pacemaker under an ObamaCare program – or as columnist Bert Prelutsky calls it, "Obama-I-Don't-Care" – because of his advanced age.

The evening ended with Anthony Weiner staying to answer questions. I took the bus home and spoke to a retiree who looked like a union guy who didn't trust the government to manage all of healthcare. We were joined by a teacher, an immigrant from New Zealand, who said his views were the opposite of mine, but thought he could have a civil and informative conversation with me. He asked when the next Tea Party would be and I told them August 22nd, outside Congressman Weiner's Kew Gardens, Queens, office. This participatory democracy is a catching thing.