The Real Reason for ‘Obamacare’
In an address to Congress on Health Care (September 9, 2009) Barack Obama stated, “There are now more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage. In just a 2-year period, one in every three Americans goes without health care coverage at some point. And every day, 14,000 Americans lose their coverage. In other words, it can happen to anyone.”
This is the mantra the democrats used in 2009 to try to convince the American People and themselves of the necessity of a Federal Government takeover and management of Health Care in the United States. Subsequently the democrat controlled Congress (both House and Senate) passed The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and President Obama signed it into law. Finally, the democrats said, those 30 million (some said 48 million) uninsured will have access to affordable Health Insurance.
The implementation of the Health Insurance exchanges and government website to sign up for Health Insurance should have then resulted in an influx of 30 to 48 million uninsured Americans jumping at the opportunity to avail themselves of affordable Health Insurance. (Not Health Care as is commonly quoted. Actual Health Care cost inflation continues unabated.) Ezra Klein in a January 6th article in the Washington Post asks the question in its title , Has Obamacare really signed up 10 million people? He writes, “2.1 million people have signed up for private insurance through the exchanges. About 4.4 million people have signed up for Medicaid coverage. And about 3.1 million young adults got coverage through Obamacare’s rule forcing insurers to cover dependents up to age 26.”
Assuming his figures are correct and the President and the democrats were correct in their assumptions then there are still some 20 million to 38 million uninsured in this Nation and Obamacare has not addressed the fundamental issue it was meant to address.
Neither do these figures take into account the millions of Americans that were forced out of perfectly adequate, (for them) insurance policies that did not meet Obamacare minimum standards and were subsequently forced into the exchanges.
Considering that there are are over 500 billion dollars of new tax hikes embedded in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and the defining reason for its passage has not been addressed then a reasonable person might conclude that the real purpose of the bill was more to raise taxes than to provide affordable Health Insurance and Health Care to the People.
We as Americans must remember that the only power government officials have is the power to exact funds (taxes) by force (tax laws) and distribute those funds according to their will and philosophy and that power under Our Constitution is delegated to them by Us. Perhaps Thomas Jefferson said it best: “To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”