My View

Random ruminations from your resident curmudgeon...

I think it is clear to most people who have an I.Q. above that of a rutabaga (which may exclude many on the Left) that Obamacare has been one monstrous lie from day one. Actually, that is not accurate. It is a lie wrapped in prevarications surrounded by falsehoods and scams on the American public. The Liar in Chief famously uttered these words in a June 15th, 2009 town hall meeting,

"No matter how we reform healthcare, we will keep this promise, if you like your healthcare plan, you will be able to keep your healthcare plan. period. No one will take it away. No matter what."

Well, the guts of the Obamacare law indicate that Obama and the Democrats NEVER intended to keep this promise. Section 1251(a)(1)says that no one can be required to give up a plan that was in place prior to March 23, 2010, but the law attaches numerous onerous and costly condition imposed by the IRS and Health and Human Services on insurance companies, making it unprofitable to keep those existing plans in place. This is why we are seeing a number of insurance companies drop policies; it is no longer cost effective to keep the in place. And this is why the major labor unions in this country have asked for and received waivers from Obamacare. They were going to lose their "Cadillac" plans. The government knew that socialized medicine would cause many people to lose their health plans. According to the Federal Register (June 2010), the Department of Health and Human Services estimated that 69% of the individual plans and 89% of the small group plans would be cancelled by the end of 2013 when Obamacare was fully implemented. Friends, this was not at all about providing insurance coverage to the uninsured. It never was. This was the Left's attempt to wreck our health care system and in the process complete a power grab that is unprecedented in the history of this country. Think I am exaggerating? House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer conceded to reporters that Democrats knew that people would not be able to keep their plans- plans that met their needs and with which they were perfectly happy- under Obamacare. Those champions of socialized medicine have inflicted economic and emotional pain on America. It is time for them to feel some pain of their own in the next election cycle.

All power corrupts, but we still need the electricity.

One of the publicly stated premises of this socialized healthcare debacle is that there should be a minimum standard of coverage available to Americans. I do not have a problem with that premise. The problem lies in allowing bureaucrats in Washington determine what that standard is and how to pay for it. And therein lies the root cause of the sticker shock that many Americans are experiencing when they try to buy insurance under Obamacare. The administration and its minions in the bureaucracy established a minimum actuarial value of 60%, simply meaning that insurance plans under Obamacare would pay 60% of the incurred medical costs and leave the rest to be paid out of pocket. Here is what the Left will not tell you: As of 2009, the actuarial value for a typical employer sponsored HMO plan was 93%. For employer sponsored PPO plans, the average was 80-84%. Medicare's actuarial value was 76%. See what happened? Without one iota of micromanagement or interference from Washington, most Americans were covered under plans that VOLUNTARILY paid out more than what will be paid under Obamacare, yet Washington considered these plans "substandard". Obamacare is now requiring health insurers to provide some services that are not even remotely needed (single males paying for pre and post natal coverage, for example) that are helping to drive up the cost of insurance. This is the conceit of those in Washington- believing they know best how to run an economy and what is best for you and me as individuals. Even more frightening, they have used this conceit to grab a huge chunk of our economy and move it under their control.

I take my wife everywhere, but she keeps finding her way back home.

While we are all feeling the financial pain and the emotional distress over the attempted implementation (I say attempted because I believe the backlash from the public now that this monstrosity is being exposed to the light of day will force Washington to dramatically amend the program), the real issue is not socialized medicine, per se. No, the real issue is a federal government that believes it can control down to the last detail the economy and our lives. It is a collection of bureaucrats and elected officials drunk on power and spending. Obamacare is just a symptom. The pervasive and oftentimes corrosive intrusion of unnecessary regulation and general meddling from Washington is growing exponentially. Eventually, if that growth is unchecked, our freedoms will be curtailed and our financial future will be in jeopardy. Almost weekly in this blog, I extol readers to get involved and to dig deeper into the issues, for this is how we begin to take back our government and stop this madness. If we fail to do so, our future is going to look decidedly different. And it will not be good.

Marriage is made in heaven. Then again, so are tornadoes.

And that, my friends, is my view.