Posted on 12/26/2009 9:54:33 AM PST by goldstategop
Last week, during a bit of banter on Fox News, my colleague Jonah Goldberg reminded me of something I’d all but forgotten. Last September, during his address to Congress on health care, Barack Obama declared: “I am not the first President to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last.”
Dream on. The monstrous mountain of toxic pustules sprouting from greasy boils metastasizing from malign carbuncles that passed the Senate on Christmas Eve is not the last word in “health” “care,” but the first. It ensures that this is all we’ll be talking about, now and forever.
Government can’t just annex “one-sixth of the U.S. economy” (i.e., the equivalent of annexing the entire British or French economy, or annexing the entire Indian economy twice over) and then just say: “Okay, what’s next? On to cap-and-trade . . . ” Nations that governmentalize health care soon find themselves talking about little else.
In Canada, once the wait times for MRIs and hip surgery start creeping up over two years, the government distracts the citizenry with a Royal Commission appointed to study possible “reforms” which reports back a couple of years later usually with recommendations to “strengthen” the government’s “commitment” to every Canadian’s “right” to health care by renaming the Department of Health the Department of Health Services and abolishing the Agency of Health Administration and replacing it with a new Agency of Administrative Health Operations which would report to a reformed Council of Health Policy Administrative Coordination to be supervised by a streamlined Public Health Operations & Administration Assessment Bureau. This package of “reforms” would cost a mere 12.3 gazillion dollars and usually keeps the lid on the pot until the wait times for MRIs start creeping up over three years.
The other alternative is what the British did earlier this year: They created an exciting new “Patient’s Bill of Rights,” promising every Briton the “right” to hospital treatment within 18 weeks. Believe it or not, that distant deadline shimmering woozily in the languid desert haze can be oddly reassuring if you’ve ever visited a Scottish emergency room on a holiday weekend. And, if the four-and-a-half months go by and you still haven’t been treated, you get your (tax) money back? Ah, no. But there is a free helpline you can call which will give you continuously updated estimates on which month your operation has been rescheduled for. I mention these not as a preview of the horrors to come, but because I’ve come to the bleak conclusion that U.S.-style “health” “reform” is going to be far worse.
We were told we had to do it because of the however many millions of uninsured, yet this bill will leave some 25 million Americans uninsured. On the other hand, millions of young fit healthy Americans in their first jobs who currently take the entirely reasonable view that they do not require health insurance at this stage in their lives will be forced to pay for coverage they neither want nor need. On the other other hand, those Americans who’ve done the boring responsible grown-up thing and have health plans Harry Reid determines to be excessively “generous” will be subject to punitive taxes up to 40 percent. On the other other other hand, if you’re the member of a union which enjoys privileged relations with Commissar Reid you’ll be exempt from that 40 percent shakedown. On the other other other other hand, if you’re already enjoying government health care, well, you’re 83 years old and, let’s face it, it’s hardly worth us giving you that surgery for the minimal contribution you make to society, so in the cause of extending government health care to millions of people who don’t currently get it we’re going to ration it for those currently entitled to it.
Looking at the millions of Americans it leaves uninsured, and the millions it leaves with worse treatment and reduced access, and the millions it makes pay significantly more for their current health care, one can only marvel at Harry Reid’s genius: government health care turns out to be all government and no health care. Adding up the zillions of new taxes and bureaucracies and regulations it imposes on the citizenry, one might almost think that was the only point of the exercise.
That’s why I believe America’s belated embrace of government health care is going to be far more expensive and disastrous than the Euro-Canadian models. Whatever one’s philosophical objection to the Canadian health system, it is, broadly, fair: Unless you’re a cabinet minister or a bigtime hockey player, you’ll enjoy the same equality of crappiness and universal lack of access that everybody else does. But, even before it’s up-and-running, Pelosi-Reid-Obamacare is an impenetrable thicket of contradictory boondoggles, shameless payoffs, and arbitrary shakedowns.
That’s why Nebraska’s grotesque zombie senator Ben Nelson is the perfect poster boy for the new arrangements, and not just another so-called Blue Dog Democrat spayed into compliance by a massive cash injection. There is no reason on earth why Nebraska should be the only state in this Union to have every dime of its increased Medicare tab picked up by the 49 others. So either that privilege will be extended to all, or to favored others, or its asymmetry will be balanced by other precisely targeted lollipops hither and yon. Whatever happens, it’s a dagger at the heart of American federalism, just as the bill’s magisterial proclamation that the Independent Medicare Advisory Board can only be abolished by a two-thirds vote of the Senate strikes at one of the most basic principles of a free society — that no parliament can bind its successors.
These details are obnoxious not merely in and of themselves but because they tell us the truth about where we’re headed: Think of the way almost every Big Government project bursts its bodice and winds up bigger and more bloated than its creators allegedly foresaw. In this instance, the stays come pre-loosened, and studded with loopholes. Because the Democrat operators — the Nancy Pelosis and Barney Franks — know that what matters is to get something, anything across the river, and then burn the bridge behind you.
My Republican friends often seem to miss the point in this debate: The so-called “public option” is not Page 3,079, Section (f), Clause VII. The entire bill is a public option — because that’s where it leads, remorselessly. The so-called “death panel” is not Page 2,721, Paragraph 19, Sub-section (d), but again the entire bill — because it inserts the power of the state between you and your doctor, and in effect assumes jurisdiction over your body. As the savvier Dems have always known, once you’ve crossed the Rubicon, you can endlessly re-reform your health reform until the end of time, and all the stuff you didn’t get this go-round will fall into place, and very quickly.
As I’ve been saying for over a year now, “health care” is the fast-track to a permanent left-of-center political culture. The unlovely Democrats on public display in the week before Christmas may seem like just a bunch of jelly-spined opportunists, grubby wardheelers and rapacious kleptocrats, but the smarter ones are showing great strategic clarity. Alas for the rest of us, Euro-style government on a Harry Reid/Chris Dodd/Ben Nelson scale will lead to ruin.
And this is what we're going to get if the Dems have their way. And the DU and Kos types are upset that Barack and Nancy and Harry aren't getting us there fast enough.
“Repeal to Teddy”
Posted yesterday as well. See replies to that post.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2415195/posts
Sometimes, you can’t put the genie back into the bottle, no matter how much you want to.
RE: “Yes. And the Republican Party has drawn a line in the sand. We believe that it is unconstitutional for the government to force people to buy insurance. The Democrats disagree.
That should be THE defining issue of 2010. That and the economy. Americans don’t like being told what they can and cannot do.
Even Snowe and Collins voted the right way when push came to shove. We need to get as many Republicans elected as we can.”
*****************
AGREE — this should be THE defining issue for 2010. We cannot let up on our extreme objections to all of it!
“Repeal to Teddy”
So, since they’ve prohibited future Congresses changing this usurpation of power, the only alternative left is revolution.
But wait. Hundreds of Americans dying in battle, maybe thousands - that would not upset the NWO folks behind this power grab at all - in fact, they would like millions to die. They’ve already said so. I think they call it “sustainability”.
Exactly. The next mid term and presidential elections will be primarily on the Constiution. Yes, health care, energy, taxes will be discussed, but limited government vs totalitarian government will be the primary theme running through these issues.
The DIMS want to mutate the Constitution into a tool for repression. They invoke the commerce clause as their chief cudgel to mandate that citizens purchase federally qualified health insurance. According to the DIMS logic, not engaging or engaging in commerce has a substantial effect on commerce. So the DIMS will tax you for doing something or force you to do something if you not doing what the DIMS want you to do.
SICK TOTALITARIAN BASTARDS! DEFEAT THE DIMS NOW AND FOREVER!
Let’s get all the Republican 2012 presidential candidates to take a position on constitutionality now! And they must tell us that they will not enforce an unconstitutional health care law. Work at the state level for nullification of unconstitutional health care laws.
We are citizens not subjects.
That is the dangerous part of this situation the democrats are blind to it because it does not fit into their worldview.
We are about to spend ourselves into oblivion on a scale that Europe could only dream of. To top it off, North Korea, Iran, and a dozen other rogue states are sensing the blood in the water.
And while the democrats are a suicidal maniac driving over the cliff with the accelerator to the floorboard, the GOP is a doddering old fool who will eventually get around to wandering over the edge anyway.
And we are just screwed. I really believe that within the next 500 or so years, the world will slip back into a new dark ages.
This administration continues to go down the path of Marxism and socialism with obamacare, cap and trade, excessive spending, etc. When we reach the boiling point with massive opposition to this administration, let’s remember that we’re only two states away from a constitutional convention. I hope it never comes to this but, we can reverse this poser’s leftwing agenda by eliminating most of the centralized government including healthcare and excessive taxing while returning power to the states as the constitution provides. We will have the alinsky math to step on this cancerous growth restoring power to the states. It’s time to eliminate a 67% vote to reverse obamacare along. It’s time to be specific in the enumerated powers given Washington.
Tea Partiers need to stage a 500,000 person protest at Obeyme’s so-called “State of The Union Address” in January.
We need to drown out the M.F’er’s predictably self-congratulatory speech with chants: “No Socialism” “Freedom of choice” SPREAD THIS IDEA AROUND!
He is no longer worthy of our respect (actually never was) as a president. In a civil society, even when we disagree with our President, we accord them some level of respect, but this President is NOT OUR PRESIDENT because he’s downright evil and anti-American.
There is actually a section of the Senate bill that states it can NEVER be amended, changed, repealed, altered, etc.
The epitome of never having a ‘sunset clause’ in an entitlement program.
And all those people thought we were crazy for pushing for a real birth certificate from the imposter in the Oval Office!!!
How do you like us now???
I don’t just want it de-funded or repealed, I want 60 people prosecuted.”
That is only the Senate.
Don’t forget about the members of the House that voted for their version of the Health bill...they need prosecution, also.
As I’ve said, I only hope he’s still around to keep me (at least) laughing as we’re led off to the rice fields”
WHAT RICE FIELDS???
The environazis won’t let the farmers have that water, either!!
Yes. elections of 2010 are THE key which is why the monstrosity will not be killed. If everything breaks the conservatives way in 2010, they *might* take a majority in the House but not in the Senate, and Obeyme will still be in the White House. That says gridlock until 2012. By then the public’s discontent will have fizzled because the end of the world has not happened. If Obeyme can keep the chainsaws in the air and the economy is not perceived as being in the toilet (likely, given the public’s obeisance to the MSM) then the constituency for free medical goodies will have formed. No entitlement program with a motivated constituency can ever be defeated in an election driven system. Never.
You forget that they WILL pass amnesty next year before the 2010 elections.
It takes 60 votes in the Senate to repeal it — not easy to get.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus
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