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Who Will Pick Up The Pieces When ObamaCare Crashes and Burns?
Townhall.com ^ | April 2, 2014 | Bob Barr

Posted on 04/02/2014 11:40:21 AM PDT by Kaslin

Despite all the hoopla from the Administration and its media shills about how wonderful it is that a certain, arbitrary number of American citizens have “signed up” for ObamaCare by particular benchmark dates, the fact remains this federal law is rotten from start to finish. It remains one of those rare pieces of legislation that contains on balance not one positive provision; not a single worthwhile crossed “t” or dotted “i.”

Still, we taxpayers continue to pay billions for ObamaCare’s implementation, even as it forces millions of citizens into healthcare plans that do not meet their needs and into relationships with doctors not of their choice. As the finest healthcare system on the planet unravels and burns because of ObamaCare, our generation’s Nero fiddles and bloviates about how great it is, and how “easy-peasey” it is to become an ObamaCare member, in the childish phraseology of Valerie Jarrett, one of the President’s key advisers.

In the 2013 edition of his annual Wastebook, Republican Sen. Tom Coburn lists the year’s most wasteful government programs, all funded by taxpayer dollars. Some of these programs range from tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars -- such as $390,000 spent by NASA to dress a man in a green costume to teach kids about global warming on YouTube. Others -- like the $65 million in federal relief funds for Hurricane Sandy spent by state and local politicians on tourism-related television ads -- reach nine figures and beyond. The point of the Wastebook is to illustrate by concrete examples the amount of federal waste occurring every day, all across America.

Yet, there is one government program that needs no special attention, and ranks as the most wasteful, ineffectual attempt at federal micromanagement since Prohibition: ObamaCare. The damage wrought by ObamaCare can be measured in many ways: its astronomical economic costs, its negative impact on personal freedom, or the irreparable damage visited on America’s healthcare system. By whatever yardstick one uses, the law is and will be a disaster.

Often, wasteful government programs are limited in their impact to economic loss, such as funding irrelevant scientific studies with no real-world application. Other examples, like the $1.7-billion NSA data center under construction in Utah that cannot keep its equipment from melting down, have serious civil liberties implications that spread the damage far beyond economic costs.

In a class by itself is ObamaCare, which not only hands taxpayers another $17 trillion in long-term unfunded liabilities, and forces employers to choose between religious freedom and crippling IRS fines, but also directly affects the health and well being of every single American. This nightmare scenario hits doctors, patients and hospitals even as the healthcare industry struggles to meet an ever-changing flood of regulatory requirements that already were making healthcare more expensive and less efficient, not better.

The cognitive dissonance displayed by top Obama Administration officials -- seeing the reality of ObamaCare, yet denying any problem is more than just a temporary “glitch” -- only exacerbates this devastation. Rather than hit the brakes and find a viable, long-term solution to close the Pandora’s Box they have opened, Democrats have turned a blind-eye to Obama’s illegal “work-arounds” that defy the rule of law and jeopardize the balance of power between the White House and Congress. Some of these “fixes” were passed in a matter of seconds, without even so much as a heads-up to members of Congress that a vote was occurring. Each change, delay, or “Executive decision” has only served as warning to Americans that the trouble we see now is just the tip of the iceberg; a small glimpse of things to come.

Clearly, electoral politics are more important to Democrats than the general welfare of the American public, as revealed right off the bat in the rush to launch ObamaCare even before its $379 million website was functional (and it still is not working correctly). Winning elections and achieving legislative “victories” was the true motivation for this shoddily constructed model of healthcare “reform.” Now, as we say in the South, many of these Democrats who supported ObamaCare as legislation, are being hoisted on their own petard – staring at defeat this November.

There are legislative and appropriations measures Republicans in the House, and even the Senate, can take in the interim to slow down parts of ObamaCare; as well as to stop the President’s unlawful steps to delay certain provisions to make his Administration look better, or at least not look so bad. It is to be hoped that between now and the 2016 national election, those steps will be taken.

The overarching goal, however, must be to ensure that the Republican nominee for President two years hence defeats Hillary Clinton or whoever the Democrats nominate. This is essential because ObamaCare will crash and burn; it will fail. And we must do everything in our power to make certain no supporter of this legislative monstrosity is residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to pick up the pieces when the downfall comes.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: 0bamaadmin; 0bamacare; democratcare; donkeycare; jackasscare; obama; obamacare; obamalies; wastefulspending
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1 posted on 04/02/2014 11:40:21 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin
Nobody.

It doesn't matter if any of the peasants have health care.

All that matters is that the feral government is in charge.

2 posted on 04/02/2014 11:41:35 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum ("A man who damns money obtained it dishonorably; a man who respects it has earned it." --Ayn Rand)
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To: Kaslin

The Republicans come to the rescue and fix things then take the blame for breaking it.


3 posted on 04/02/2014 11:42:50 AM PDT by mountainlion
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To: Kaslin

So we’re allowing them to “celebrate” a sign-up of 7 million after bludgeoning us mightily about “40 million without healthcare” forever??? Feckless GOPe...


4 posted on 04/02/2014 11:43:41 AM PDT by T-Bird45 (It feels like the seventies, and it shouldn't.)
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To: Kaslin

I’ll take “The Taxpayer” for 1000 Alex


5 posted on 04/02/2014 11:46:10 AM PDT by 12th_Monkey (One man one vote is a big fail, when the "one" man is an idiot.)
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To: Kaslin

Russia


6 posted on 04/02/2014 11:54:40 AM PDT by VTenigma (The Democratic party is the party of the mathematically challenged)
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To: Kaslin
"Who Will Pick Up The Pieces When ObamaCare Crashes and Burns?"

This is the guy.


7 posted on 04/02/2014 11:54:44 AM PDT by Iron Munro (The future ain't what it use to be -- Yogi Berra)
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To: Kaslin
The truth is our deductibles have went up (ours is $10,000) while we are paying for other people's free birth control.

What that really means is that if you need a procedure that is $5,000 you gotta scrap up all that money yourself. You no longer can pay a $1500 deductible and your insurance would kick in for the rest.

Which means that we are being denied health care coverage because Obamacare is pulling so much money out of us in the form of free crap for everybody else.

My son recently had to have an MRI that he was going to be charged $2,000. We shopped around and found a place that did an MRI for $350.

Obama and his cohorts are doing everything they can to subvert the free market, but it just keeps popping its head up.

8 posted on 04/02/2014 11:54:57 AM PDT by Slyfox (When Jesus sees a momma holding her little baby, it reminds him of his own momma.)
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To: Kaslin
Lets assume for a moment we take back the Senate this year and win the presidency in 2016.

Lets also assume that both houses of congress and the new president support repeal of Obamacare and have the votes.

...

what is to be done with those who now have insurance who were previously denied it because of pre-existing conditions?

Will a repeal of Obamacare allow the insurance companies to then cancel those peoples policies? And if not... wont repeal just make things worse than they are now? Because if insurance companies are not allowed to kick off those who signed up only because they were sick with a pre-existing condition... and without the mandate ... insurance rates would rocket higher.

So either we are willing to take insurance away from millions of sick people who now have insurance ... or we cause rates to skyrocket.

Am I missing something here?

9 posted on 04/02/2014 11:56:09 AM PDT by TexasFreeper2009 (Obama lied .. the economy died.)
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To: Kaslin

Taxpayers.


10 posted on 04/02/2014 11:56:27 AM PDT by WayneS (Respect the 2nd Amendment; Repeal the 16th (and 17th))
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To: Kaslin
Revise it:

1. Take the mandate off that it MUST be a "standard government written policy."

2. Take the mandate off that you must reveal your insurance on some tax form.

3. Screw the penalty. You simply can't get penalized (taxed) for purchasing "nothing". 0x0 = 0.

11 posted on 04/02/2014 11:57:13 AM PDT by Sacajaweau
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To: Kaslin

Who will pick up the pieces?

Whom do you think?

The Dems and the GOPe will apply bandage after tourniquet after salve after ointment after patch until the amounts spent per person equal what three lifetimes of healthcare would cost. On our dimes.


12 posted on 04/02/2014 11:57:51 AM PDT by Attention Surplus Disorder (At no time was the Obama administration aware of what the Obama administration was doing)
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To: mountainlion
Just wait, that's exactly what's going to happen as November gets closer. "It would have worked BUT Republicans did (fill in the blank)_________ and ________ and ruined it, and now we have to fix it" and the media will repeat it a million times as fact no matter how insane it sounds, and the low info, low IQ voters will say "Oh those bastards!" And just to make sure, Obama phones will be handed out, and the LILIQ voters will vote for the Marxists again.


13 posted on 04/02/2014 11:59:46 AM PDT by GrandJediMasterYoda (Republican has "I can" at the end. Democrat has "rat". Any questions?)
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To: Kaslin
The government of course, who will use it as an excuse to completely commandeer the healthcare industry. That is the plan.

The only ones to stop it are those who understand that the voluntary free market is how WE should run our economy and our lives rather than having our lives run by coercive socialist government.

14 posted on 04/02/2014 12:02:29 PM PDT by PapaNew
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To: Slyfox

The insurance companies are going to make a bundle. They collect higher premiums but pay out less. That’s why they were all for it.


15 posted on 04/02/2014 12:07:18 PM PDT by VerySadAmerican
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To: Kaslin

Its going to cost a fortune to bail out the private healthcare industry when this monumental blunder is finally repealed.


16 posted on 04/02/2014 12:08:10 PM PDT by Georgia Girl 2 (The only purpose o f a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped.)
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To: Kaslin
"Who Will Pick Up The Pieces When ObamaCare Crashes and Burns?"

Oh, Oh, I know, I know. Pick me, pick me!

The taxpayers will!

17 posted on 04/02/2014 12:14:09 PM PDT by Bubba_Leroy (The Obamanation Continues)
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To: Kaslin

why do people think it will crash and burn?

We have a $17 trillion in debt, run a deficit of $630 billion and have a Central Bank printing money and controlling interest rates at the whim of politicians.

why do you think a few more $$ billions for another failed social-engineering program will matter?


18 posted on 04/02/2014 12:15:53 PM PDT by PGR88
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To: Slyfox
What that really means is that if you need a procedure that is $5,000 you gotta scrap up all that money yourself. You no longer can pay a $1500 deductible and your insurance would kick in for the rest.

Well yeah, but Sandra Fluke no longer has to come up with $12 to buy a package of 40 rubbers out of her own pocket. That makes it all worth it, right?

19 posted on 04/02/2014 12:20:39 PM PDT by Bubba_Leroy (The Obamanation Continues)
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To: TexasFreeper2009
Yes, you're missing the cost-effectiveness and availability the free market economy provides. You're missing the big picture and buying into the socialist argument of perfection. Nothing is perfect, especially socialist tyranny. Freedom isn't perfect but it's way ahead of anything else on the planet. Socialized medicine will take the best healthcare in the world and turn it into the DMV.

Socializing medicine will make healthcare, necessary and life threatening as well as every day and preventative healthcare, less available for everybody. Socialism says it's not fair to have the rich over here and the poor over there. So it makes everyone equally poor except the ruling elite, as here where the ruling elite are not bound by Obamacare. What good is that to Americans?

History has proven over and over again that Socialism is a bankrupt system, saved only by whatever free enterprise is allowed. The market free of government interference will provide the best healthcare at the best prices at the maximum availability, as it did prior to the 1970's when government began screwing it up.

History has shown time and again that the free market is the best anti-poverty system on the planet providing the greatest opportunity to the greatest number of people, while socialism creates misery and poverty for the masses. The poor are most benefited by the free market and least benefited by socialism.

20 posted on 04/02/2014 12:20:47 PM PDT by PapaNew
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