What is the rationale behind allowing the government to take control of the health-insurance industry? We are told that health insurance is a “human right” that cannot be left to the tender mercies of the free market - a brutal jungle ruled by greed and selfishness, where ruthless insurance company executives stalk helpless consumers. We were instructed to ignore the previous role of the government in distorting the insurance market, through measures such as the prohibition against selling insurance over state lines. All of the problems with health care are due to the failures of capitalism, and the only possible solution was a vast expansion of federal power.
Presumably, Obama supporters believe the State will use this enhanced power to improve access to health care, as well as its quality. In other words, central planning and control would distribute medical resources more efficiently than competition and free choice. ObamaCare forces insurance companies to offer certain benefits, compels individuals to purchase health care, penalizes insurance plans which offer too many benefits, and obliges everyone to submit a blizzard of paperwork to prove their compliance. Provisions of the 2,000-page bill reach into virtually every area of our lives.
ObamaCare’s defenders insist everyone has to pay for everyone else’s health care anyway. People who make poor lifestyle choices, or who lack insurance, place a burden on everyone else. Socialists just want to impose some order on things. Our brilliant President and his top-shelf team of advisors designed a comprehensive plan, conjuring social justice out of the boiling stew of corporate greed and individual irresponsibility. Of course it’s two thousand pages long. Brilliant plans are always complicated! If the simpletons who make up the bulk of our population were capable of producing such a grand design spontaneously, we wouldn’t need maternal governance from the valedictorians of the very best Ivy League universities.
If you think ObamaCare is any kind of comprehensive plan, let alone a brilliant one, you are an utter fool.
This is not an intricate design, thoughtfully assembled by brilliant and selfless minds, with all the care of Tony Stark putting together the latest version of his Iron Man suit. It’s a messy pile of ugly back-room deals, hashed out by politicians with all the greed and selfishness of the worst corporate fat cats, plus triple the hypocrisy. To drag it out of the legislative womb, the President and his cronies had to purchase the support of congressional midwives, using “earmarks” like the Cornhusker Kickback that amount to nothing less than bribes from the public treasury.
Every aspect of this design was sold with despicable lies, from politicians who should have been standing trial for fraud, rather than standing for re-election. The supposed impact of this plan on our federal deficit was a fantasy, constructed with imaginary billions from Medicare cuts that will never happen, and increased taxes that will be avoided, to the detriment of our overall wealth.
If you still harbor any illusions that ObamaCare is a carefully constructed solution to a complex problem, just open your eyes and look at how many people are winning exemptions from it.
At least 111 waivers have been granted from ObamaCare thus far, covering over a million Americans. A list of approved applications for waivers can be found here. Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin decided to get in touch with a few of these applicants, and received this comment from the financial vice president of the Local 802 Musicians Health Fund in New York: “We got grandfathered in, because things were moving so fast, and we need time now to prepare for the law.” Does that sound like the work of a responsible design team, spending over a trillion of our dollars with the greatest of care?
Remember when I mentioned penalties for health insurance plans that are too generous? Well, not everyone pays those penalties. Rob Waterson at The War On Socialism reminds us that labor unions won an eight-year exemption from the “Cadillac Tax,” and no one can seriously believe they will allow it to expire after eight years. This “brilliant plan” applies its provisions based on raw political power, not logic.
Instead of increasing access to health care, ObamaCare is causing people to lose their coverage, from coast to coast… particularly the low-income and entry-level workers ObamaCare was supposedly designed to help. The latest example is the Service Employees International Union. The Wall Street Journal reports they are dropping health care coverage for the children of more than 30,000 low-wage workers. One of the reasons cited by their benefit managers was the bizarre ObamaCare requirement for extending coverage for dependents up to age 26.
ObamaCare is the greatest theft of liberty from a protesting American population in generations. The result was a twisted beast already bleeding from hundreds of exemptions and waivers. The very same Congress that passed it is scrambling to perform emergency surgery on its most hideous tumors during the lame-duck session… and failing. It can barely hold a shape coherent enough to fool even the most devoted Obama worshippers.
