If it was good enough for the Soviets, it's good enough for us. Except that Congress and Obama have exempted themselves from this more advanced health care system consisting of death panels, rationing, long waiting lines, forced insurance, fines and prison sentences, all overseen by an expert medical team of health professionals at the IRS.
Without even a hint of bias, Calvin Woodward of the Associated Press noted that "rarely does the government, that big, clumsy, poorly regarded oaf, pull off anything short of war that touches all lives with one act, one stroke" of the pen. But enough about Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, Ortega, Chavez and Kim Jong-Il.
The New York Times chirped that Obama "was willing to fight for something that moved him to his core," the core-mover here being the noble idea of putting everybody on public assistance, and "willing to throw all his political capital onto the table" and win. All this with only a tiny 59-41 Senate majority and teensy-weensy 253 Democrats in the House to work with.
Armed with the knowledge of how smoothly efficient an army of government bureaucrats can't be, Congress tonight passed a "universal" "health care" bill that leaves only 24 million uninsured for $1 trillion. Last year, Congress passed a "stimulus" bill that left 30 million people unemployed or underemployed for $1 trillion. I don't see a pattern here.
A family of four making around $60-65k gets forced to pay $5,000 a year in premiums for the privilege of living under ObamaCare. The frugal plan bends the total health care cost curve upward, from around a little over 17 percent of GDP currently to 21 percent of GDP in just nine years.
The widely renown health insurance expert Barack Obama said that premiums will go down by around $2,500 per year under his government medicine. Without ObamaCare, annual premiums for an individual in the small group market a few years from now would total almost $8,000. Under ObamaCare, annual premiums will total almost $8,000. For a family in the small group market, it's about $19,000 without ObamaCare, but with ObamaCare it's only $19,000. Also, if you like your current health insurance, you'll get to lose it because of the excise tax.
While the Times seems impressed that Obama is "willing to fight for something that moved him to the core," the problem for the teleprompted, core-moved Obama is the notion that you can magically transform center-right America into Europe politically and culturally by hiring 16,500 IRS agents to snoop around in people's bank accounts monthly for compliance with ObamaCare's labyrinth of tortuous mandatory health insurance rules. It's going to have the opposite effect. It's hard being a "transformative" leader when the country won't transform.
Can't transform a country simply with legislative clauses and sections in a bill passed by the narrowest of margins and bipartisan opposition. Litigation-wise, ObamaCare's individual mandate is likely to get struck down, at any rate, since ObamaCare's 2,700 pages don't trump the Constitution.
The trillion-dollar stimulus racket didn't nudge the country leftward but set off the Tea Party movement instead, and handed Jon Corzine and Creigh Deeds their rear ends. The Christmas Eve ObamaCare Senate vote produced Scott Brown. Government takeovers at Chrysler and GM sent customers flooding to Ford showrooms. ObamaCare will send voters flooding to voting booths in about eight months.
Anyway, that's...
My Two Cents...
"JohnHuang2"
A triumvirate of power-mad leftists are attempting to increase and consolidate their stranglehold on government, expand the welfare state to cover those who dont need it and want no part of it, and to raise taxes on activities that have nothing to do with the delivery of medicine.
Despite this, a shocking number of Americans who apparently take freedom for granted every single day think the trio are taking this action out of the goodness of their hearts. They think its about health care and not political power and cold hard cash. And, bless their little hearts, they think that conservatives want to withhold medical care from certain people.
Do they not think there are more than a few conservative people at drug companies, medical technology companies (CAT scan, MRI, etc.), surgical technology companies, etc.? What about the people who sell, service and use their products? Are they inventing and utilizing this life-saving gear with the intention of restricting its use? Exactly how delusional and petty does one have to be to believe such nonsense? And how vindictive must one be to wreck fully 1/6 of the national economy all in the name of scoring cheap political points? Do the words Pyrrhic victory mean anything?
PFL
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes... But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future se
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
Jefferson
The people that I work with had a fit when our normal health care policy changed co-pays from $10 to $15. There was nearly an insurrection at work. They’re not going to be happy at work today.
The Tea Party Movement is about to transition to the Minutemen Movement.