The Patriot Post® · The So-Called 'Affordable Care Act'
“We must make our election between economy and Liberty, or profusion and servitude.” –Thomas Jefferson (1816)
“If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what.” –Barack Obama
According to Barack Obama, his signature legislation, the so-called “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” which accomplished neither patient protection nor cost reductions, is a success, and the debate is over. “The bottom line is this law is working and will work into the future. We’re not repealing it as long as I’m president.” Maybe not “repeal,” but he has unilaterally and extra-constitutionally amended the legislation by executive diktat more than 20 times for political expedience.
Obama also insists that Senate and House Democrats should be centering their 2014 midterm election campaigns on this behemoth boondoggle, now ubiquitously called “ObamaCare,” rather than running from it. (2014 Election Results)
Though Obama repeated that bald-faced lie more than 70 times in campaign venues across the nation, Senate and House Demos know that the emerging cost and consequence liabilities of O'Care’s mandates would ensure that this “ever-evolving law” will become a lightning rod for every medical service or delivery complaint nationwide. By extension any Democrat who supported it will be a ground wire for that lightning rod! Indeed, when nationalized healthcare was first floated under Bill Clinton by Hillary, behind the closed, there were plenty of Democrats pulling the plug on her plan for similar reasons then.
Indeed, having supported this catastrophic behemoth, Democrats now hope that their refusal to utter the word “ObamaCare” will provide them a measure of political protection in the 2014 midterm elections. They can run, but they can’t hide. They are now irrevocably linked to Obama’s repeated bald-faced lies. Apparently South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson had it right back in 2009, when he interrupted Obama’s introduction of his nationalized health care scheme to a joint session of Congress: “You Lie! You LIE!” yelled Wilson.
Subsequently, the ObamaCare deception has been inadvertently affirmed, repeatedly, by its key architect, MIT economics professor Jonathan Gruber. He is on record stating that passing ObamaCare depended on “lack of transparency” and “the stupidity of the American voter.”
As a place marker on ObamaCare’s threat to Liberty and free enterprise, and the inevitable liability it will create for Democrats, what follows is a brief analysis of the Left’s endeavor to nationalize health care.
The original stated rationale for the legislation was to “control health care costs” and “provide insurance coverage for the uninsured.” Approximately 15% of Americans have no medical coverage – which is not to say no medical care.
Of course, the real rationale for ObamaCare is to create subsidies in order to create dependencies in order to create constituencies, the Left’s template for political perpetuation. O'Care accomplishes this by implementing a scheme that will ultimately give the central government authoritarian regulatory control over more than 20% of the U.S. economy. This is in keeping with the philosophy of Obama and his NeoCom cadres of statists on the Left who have effectively hijacked the once-noble Democrat Party and converted it into their own socialist party tool in their ongoing effort to pull the plug on our Constitution.
Ultimately, the objective of ObamaCare is to implement a massive single-payer system, in effect, placing the management and rationing of health care services under the thumb of a bloated and inefficient central government, with the objective of using that “achievement” as a major political stepping stone to implement a much broader socialist agenda in the coming years.
Our nation is about to take a great leap in that direction, with devastating consequences. Ronald Reagan, in a now-famous 1961 radio address, warned, “One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It is very easy to describe a medical program as a humanitarian project… Most people are reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people.”
As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid surmised earlier this summer, “What we’ve done with ObamaCare is a step in the right direction, but we’re far from having something that’s going to work forever. … We had a real good run at the public option … don’t think we didn’t have a tremendous number of people who wanted a single-payer system.” When asked if he really meant to say “single payer,” Reid responded, “Yes, yes. Absolutely, yes!”
Indeed, Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the grossly misnamed “Health and Human Services” bureaucracy, infamously proclaimed during Obama’s first presidential campaign, “I’m all for a single-payer system eventually.”
For his part, Obama was clear in his objective to nationalize health care: “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14% of its gross national product on health care, cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody.”
In other words, Obama’s objective is to convert the U.S. into a Euro-style socialist state. Were he to look across The Pond, however, he would notice that the UK is now moving to privatize its National Health Service in order to avoid the fate of other EuroUnion states teetering on the verge of bankruptcy.
As you recall, ObamaCare was rushed through the Democrat-controlled House and Senate before anyone knew what was in the 2,700 page bill – which has now grown to require more than seven feet of shelf space. (“We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” –then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi) The measure passed in the Demo-controlled Senate on a party-line vote in 2009, while passing in the Demo-controlled House by a narrow vote – 219–212 with 34 Democrats and all 178 Republicans voting against it. It was ceremonially signed into law by its namesake immediately after the House vote in March 2010.
Indeed, Obama’s plan to nationalize health care is near the top of the Left’s most coveted political prizes – second only to the “crown jewel” of socialism, the centralized control of worldview indoctrination through government “public education” institutions – and Demos have made great strides toward achieving that goal. (“Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.” –Vladimir Ilyich Lenin)
Obama said he will veto any bill which defunds or amends DemoCare, and that he will not negotiate anything as part of a debt ceiling agreement. Demo Majority Leader Harry Reid said, “We’re not going to bow to Tea Party anarchists who deny the mere fact that ObamaCare is the law. We will not bow to Tea Party anarchists who refuse to accept that the Supreme Court ruled that ObamaCare is constitutional.”
Despite all the leftist rhetoric about this massive socialist boondoggle being “the law which must now be funded,” it was wholly rejected by Republicans in the Senate and House, along with many House Democrats. Thus, proposals to defund it, delay it or amend it are exactly in line with what our Founders expected legislators to do in the interest of defending and sustaining Rule of Law.
At the March 2010 signing ceremony of Barack Obama’s lifetime legislative achievement, the so-called “Affordable Care Act,” Joe Biden was caught on an open mike whispering to Obama, “This is a big f—ing deal.” Three weeks into the failed launch of O'Care’s portal, Healthcare.gov, Obama proclaimed, “The Affordable Care Act is not just a website. It’s much more.”
Clearly, Biden, Obama, and all the Democrats who endorsed O'Care failed to fully comprehend the political implications of their “big f—ing deal.” The initial cascading website failures are but the proverbial tip of the iceberg, which may sink a growing number of Democrats in 2014, and well beyond.
Actually, the Bad Ship Demo is pinched between two icebergs.
The first is the fact that Obama turned his credibility capital and into an enormous credibility deficit. The entire nation now knows that he lied about O'Care just to pass it, assuring Americans they could keep their insurance and doctors if they wanted to. “Period.” Obama then repeated those lies often. Then it was discovered that Obama knew he was lying way back in 2010. Then he claimed that the 5.5 million cancelled policies were statistically insignificant. Then it was discovered that almost 100 million additional policies are subject to cancellation come January. Then he told new lies to cover up the old lies. Then he crowned those lies with another BIG lie.
Clearly, Obama has mastered the “Art of the Lie,” except the part about not getting caught.
Of course, Obama’s lied about health care all along. Remember these subterfuges: “I will sign a universal health care bill into law by the end of my first term as president that will cover every American.” “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits – either now or in the future.” “[W]hatever ideas exist in terms of bending the cost curve and starting to reduce costs for families, businesses, and government, those elements are in this bill.” “This law means more choice, more competition, lower costs for millions of Americans.” “We’ll lower premiums by up to $2,500 for a typical family per year.” “Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase.”
But these two – “If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan, period,” and, “No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period” – are the crown jewels of his deception.
Obama knew he was lying when he sold O'care to the public, period. Apparently this consummate pathological narcissist believes that if he says it that trumps the truth and reality. Or maybe he believes, as his sycophants do, that, “We can deal with the lies that President Obama tells us because we believe in his heart he has the best interest for the American people.”
Got that? Even Obama’s defenders now admit he’s a liar.
Reputable public opinion surveys indicate that Americans trust Obama, at this point in his presidency, less than even Richard Nixon. Democrats hope that their association with Obama’s deceptions will not bankrupt their political fortunes, suggesting that his precipitous 35-point collapse in public trust is due to recent revelations about his O'Care lies. However, Obama had already slid 30 points four months before the ObamaCare launch.
In 1785, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “[H]e who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him.” And that defines Obama’s pathetic legacy.
Obama once quipped, “I actually believe my own” BS. Apparently. Peggy Noonan sums up Obama’s admiration for his own words as follows: “[Obama] sort of lives in words. That’s been his whole professional life – books, speeches. Say something and it magically exists as something said, and if it’s been said and publicized it must be real. He never had to push a lever, see the machine not respond, puzzle it out and fix it. It’s all been pretty abstract for him, not concrete.”
Senate Democrats boldly repeated Obama’s lies to their constituents.
Sen. Mary Landrieu (LA) pledged, “If you like the insurance that you have, you’ll be able to keep it.” Sen. Mark Pryor (AR) said his constituents wanted to know “are we gonna be able to stick with our plan? The answer is yes.” Sen. Mark Warner (VA) proclaimed, “I’m not going to support a health care reform plan that’s going to take away the health care you’ve got right now or a health care plan that you like.” Sen. Kay Hagan (NC) repeated the mantra, “If you like your insurance and your doctors, you keep them.” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (NH) also said, “Everyone will have the freedom to keep their health plan if they like it.” Sen. Mark Begich (AK) told his constituents, “Alaskans who have health insurance now, and are happy with it, can keep it.”
Lies, one and all. And each of these senators is up for re-election next year. What, did they not read the legislation before passing it?
In political analyst Jonah Goldberg’s assessment, Obama’s lie is “the biggest lie about domestic policy ever uttered by a U.S. president.” It dwarfs Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook” and Bill Clinton’s “I did not have sex with that woman.”
Of course, Obama did offer a faux apology for the “misunderstanding,” which opinion writer Bryan Preston paraphrased as follows: “I’m sorry you believed me when I told you things that I knew weren’t true the whole time. I’m sorry I hurt you but I have no plans to stop hurting you. Now get me a sammich!”
The collateral damage done by Obama’s credibility deficit is so severe that Democrats who still support the measure are discontinuing the reference to “ObamaCare” and are now referring to the legislation by its actual name, the Affordable Care Act.
Back to that second O'Care iceberg, which will strike Democrats in elections for years to come, it will be much more devastating than the strike from Obama’s lies. Obama, having himself even embraced the name “ObamaCare,” will himself, along with every member of the House and Senate with a “D” after their name, suffer a reversal of political fortunes after ObamaCare is implemented. O'Care is the Democrats’ biggest socialist legislative “achievement” since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society mischief of nearly a half-century ago, and its mandates over the coming years will reshape much of the nation’s perspective on the statist Democrat Party’s Big Government platform.
Obama’s former campaign manager and senior political adviser David Plouffe claims that in a few years Americans will “get on board” (read: will be forced to board) the O'Care train wreck: “I think it’s just a fact, and it may take until 2017 when this president leaves office. … And I think it’ll work really well then.”
But the ride is going to be painful for Democrats well beyond 2017.
As I previously outlined in “Silver Linings on the DemoCare Debacle,” if Republicans of conservative and moderate stripes will stop the infighting and unite in opposition to O'Care, the political rewards will be huge.
Why?
Extended cancellations, policy sticker shock from premium increases on top of deductible increases, insurance transmittal failures, Healthcare.gov security breaches and contracting service networks will generate substantial discontent among Republicans and Democrats alike in the next few years. However, that discontent will be a mere shadow in comparison to the outrage that is just over the horizon.
From January 2014 forward, with increasing frequency, Americans of every political stripe who have any issue with health care, whether a hangnail or heart transplant, a delay in a doctor’s office or in critical care for a loved one, will tie blame for their discontent like a noose around the necks of Obama and his Democrats, who are solely responsible for forcing this abomination upon the American people.
Dealing with the 20,000 government clerical minions in this new bloated bureaucracy will be no different than dealing with any other huge government bureaucracy – endless and infuriating. And then there is the question of IRS access to all those records – surely they won’t create any more “enemy lists.” No matter how Fab-Tastic ObamaCare may be for some Demo constituencies, Democrats are going to be the target of every health care complaint – and that includes Hillary Clinton, the Grande Dame of socialized medicine.
Demo National Committee chair, Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, can see that pitfall from her perspective in the House. She is insisting that Democrats “must not treat every minute provision in the law as sacred.” She added that Demos “should be open to suggestions for improving the law.”
Even the liberal editors of Obama’s hometown paper, the Chicago Tribune, opined, “Let’s delay and rewrite this ill-conceived law. Congress need not start from scratch. Lawmakers can build on what all of us have learned from three years of painful trial and error. Three years of attempting, but failing, to make this clumsy monstrosity work for the American people.”
And just wait for state protests over the explosion of Medicare and Medicaid liabilities. George Will notes, “171 million people [are insured by] their employers. If they start dumping people into Medicare and into Medicaid, and the doctors then say, ‘The burdens are too high, and the reimbursement is too low, we’re not seeing Medicaid patients,’ then all hell is going to break loose.”
I would add that, beyond the high ObamaCare negatives among consumers in general, the number of Obama’s previously loyal adherents who are tired of his incessant, arrogant and spiteful rhetoric, is growing.
If Republicans successfully channel the inevitable health care consumer dissatisfaction and anger in the direction of Democrats, the electoral rewards will be substantial in 2014, 2016 and beyond. Of course, given Republican performance in recent months, that’s a big “if.” When your adversary is self destructing, don’t interfere!
Obama is now attempting a political pivot to the staple of all Leftist NeoComs – the tried and true “politics of disparity” – income disparity, gender disparity, race disparity, ad nauseam. But no Democrat will escape the ObamaCare snare.
(For Your Information or Edification: Listen to Ronal Reagan on Socialized Medicine and then listen to Barack Obama on Keeping Your Healthcare Plan.)
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