The real purpose of Obama care is to control the cost of healthcare consumed in the United States. That can only be done effectively if the US government is given authority to regulate healthcare.
Another purpose of the Affordable Health Care Act is to shift the cost of insurance coverage from poor Americans to working class middle income Americans. They call it subsidies. We will be hearing more and more about subsidies. A "subsidy" is when you and I pay for health insurance for someone else. Call it what you will. It is another tax on working Americans.
How does a subsidy work? It's really simple. Taxpayers contribute money to the US Treasury, mostly by paying income taxes. Another major source of funding under Affordable Care is over-priced premiums paid by middle class working Americans to purchase health insurance. The government uses some of these funds to help pay for health insurance for supposedly disadvantaged families or individuals. Really, it is working class Americans paying extra for healthcare to finance care for millions of people who cannot afford it. The government merely acts as the conduit or "pipeline" that collects the money and then redistributes it to the individuals they believe should have it. (I know how much the term "redistribution" is hated by liberal politicians - but that's exactly what the government is doing).
How anyone could call this "the Affordable Healthcare Act" with a straight face is beyond me. The average working American who pays full fare for his or her health insurance will see premium spikes of up to 400 percent. Of course it costs extra to cover millions of persons with catastrophic pre-existing conditions while giving away millions of insurance policies to the poor and unemployed. That is supposed to drive costs down? Hardly! It reminds me of the old joke about the used car dealer. He said he lost money on every car he sold. How could he stay in business that way? His answer was -- Volume! Sorry, it's a terrible joke but a good illustration.
"Socialism" is another hated word these days, because it correctly describes a big government superstructure trying to tax anyone that produces wealth in order to care for those who produce nothing. Liberals embrace and love the principles and ideas of socialism but hate the word because it once had a very negative connotation. Although the word socialism does not have the negative taint that it had during the Cold War, no politician wants to be labeled as a socialist (except Bernie Sanders)! They prefer other labels, such as progressives, free thinkers, "compassionate liberals," etc. No matter what they call it, no matter how they disguise it, the principles of European style socialism are at the core of all they are and do. That includes the economic structure of the Affordable Care Act. It is Socialist all the way to its core.
Socialism embraces the idea that it is wrong for "a few" in society to have too much while the masses suffer poverty and want. Of course, it cannot avoid pitting class against class, although that is constantly disavowed for the reasons already explained. Karl Marx's idea of socialism was to confiscate most of the wealth of rich individuals and redistribute it to the poverty stricken masses. The problem is that socialism fails to recognize the absolute necessity of producing wealth. Government only spends money; it never creates any wealth. Government could not collect taxes without wealth on which to place taxes.
As an example, the average working class American lives in a pretty nice home, owns a couple of good automobiles, has a checking and savings account, has 3 or 4 television sets, a cell phone for each member of the family, and in short enjoys one of the highest standards of living in the world! How was this achieved? By the success of the American economy, driven by privately owned businesses which provided good jobs and incomes for millions of Americans. Destroy the wealth created by those privately owned businesses and BOOM--suddenly you have no more wealth. Nothing left to tax. There goes the standard of living for everyone. Socialism does not just attack the vulgar "rich people," it attacks the middle class, too. But if I had the job of selling socialism to the American people, I would portray it as "taxing only the rich" and making the "wealthiest Americans" pay their fair share. Sound familiar? We'll hear a lot more of that in the 2016 election cycle.
Traditional socialism's model is for the government to own and control key elements of a nation's economy. Typically, we think of a socialist government owning the nation's airlines, railroads, utilities and perhaps automobile manufacturing. Smaller industries may be privately owned, except, of course, in communist countries such as North Korea or Cuba.
The Affordable Care Act, whether intended or not, is one huge step in decimating the traditional US free market economy. After all, healthcare now constitutes one-sixth of the US economy and if growth trends continue it will constitute at least one-fifth of the economy by 2025. A government takeover of that gigantic piece of the economy is too significant to comprehend. It's much bigger than the US government announcing that it would take over automobile manufacturing or airlines. It's bigger than a government takeover of auto manufacturing, airlines and railroads combined! Yet, it has drawn relatively moderate criticism compared to a government takeover of those private sectors. Can you imagine how Republicans would scream if the US Government suddenly took over Ford, GM, Chrysler, the airline industry, the railroads, etc. They just took over one fifth of the entire US economy and we're quiet as a mouse.
What liberal socialists hate about free enterprise is that it rewards achievers but not those who cannot or will not achieve. It allows more economic gain to those who produce something. In other words, free enterprise does not create a totally "equal" society where one person has as much wealth as every other person. The only known economic system that has openly attempted to do that is extreme socialism, also called communism, today practiced in such countries as Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, etc. (China now embraces a weird combination of communism and carefully controlled capitalism).
Obama Care (the "Affordable" Care Act) is a victim of liberal and socialist thinking. It combats, in the name of compassion, the idea that some people can have more than others, some will achieve more than others, some will be better educated than others, some will succeed and some will not...., etc. It strives to destroy the incentives of what are often called the "wealthiest Americans" and provide relief to those whom the government perceives as poor or disadvantaged. The problem is, what it really does is diminish the middle class of working Americans by additional taxation and financial penalties. It requires working Americans who are by no means wealthy, and who are struggling to maintain a decent standard of living, to spend extra money to pay for health insurance for millions of others who say they cannot afford to pay for it themselves. And it tries to achieve this goal with the most inefficient, expensive and non-competitive manner that can be imagined.
To subsidize health insurance premiums for the previously uninsured, the government depends on selling over priced policies to younger, healthier Americans who do not perceive any need for or appreciation of health insurance benefits. Health insurance is especially not appreciated at the exorbitant prices being offered by Obama Care. In other words, a working class American is not willing to pay an extra $300 or $400 a month to provide health insurance for someone else. And adding millions of individuals with catastrophic, pre-existing health conditions will cost trillions of dollars. Without a large base of younger, healthier Americans buying over priced health insurance, who pays the cost? That's where the Affordable Care Act comes apart at the seams! You can hear the rivets popping! It seems like sixth grade arithmetic but the administration either lied or began to believe their own press releases.
As a columnist once said, "I'm scared. I don't know if the world is controlled by geniuses who are bluffing or by idiots who mean it."
The diabolical results of "Affordable Care" have been absolutely disastrous, unfortunately. Far fewer Americans have health insurance now than before this ill conceived law. Cost of health insurance did not go down - but up--and dramatically so in most cases. Simply getting or keeping health insurance is profoundly more difficult now and the law has a loophole that works against the government's intention of forcing younger people to purchase over priced health insurance. That loophole, unintentional as it was, allows individuals to pay a penalty (which is a fraction of the cost of health insurance) and opt out of the whole stupid, messy business. Millions are opting out and more will do so unless the loophole is closed by drastically increasing the penalties immediately. And the public doesn't seem to be in a mood to let that happen, at least not today. So politicians who supported Obama Care wring their hands and wonder how to get reelected. (The mid-term elections sent most of those people back home, unemployed)!
Obama tossed the politicians a political bone: we will delay the mandate that employers must buy health insurance for all their employees. How long will we delay that? Until after the mid-term elections--so all you Democrats who supported Obama Care can get reelected. (We couldn't have done it without you; one good deed deserves another). So politicians who stuck their necks out and supported Obama Care hoped the American voters had poor memories. They always have had. But, not this time. Along come the mid-terms and Americans remembered. The Obama Democrats got fired--the Republicans took control of both Houses of Congress. Sadly, though, we are still stuck with Obama Care.
So the younger, healthier Americans under age 45 who were supposed to contribute trillions of dollars to subsidize health insurance for the disadvantaged are opting out and paying the penalty. And in the haste to ramrod Obama Care quickly through Congress, terrible blunders were made. For instance, Obama Care was ramrodded through Congress without so much as a basic legal provision to pay health insurance companies their premiums. The fault lines are just now being discovered; the quake has not yet registered on the Richter Scale.
The worst of Obama Care was hidden until after the 2014 mid-term elections (on purpose). As fewer individuals actually purchase Obama Care there are fewer dollars for the government to use in paying for low cost or free health insurance for the disadvantaged. (The administration finds that there is a useful element to successful free enterprise after all--that element being to provide a tax base--the goose that lays the golden egg). But the goose is afraid to lay any eggs, not only because the eggs will be stolen but also because her proverbial head may be chopped off. So, as middle class working Americans avoid Obama Care, the government must spend more and more dollars to prop up the "Affordable" Care Act. Since the government has no more dollars, what does it do. It increases the debt. By October 31, 2015, the debt will have reached at least 19 trillion dollars and Congress will vote to allow the debt to ascend quickly to 22 or 23 trillion dollars to avoid a shutdown of the US government. This will happen in spite of the fact that Republicans will control the Congress in 2016. It will happen because Republicans are too timid to really oppose Obama Care. If the government does shut down in late 2016, Republicans know Obama will blame them. They have the gun to their head now. So, to avoid the shutdown, they authorize deadly debt limits approaching 23 trillion dollars--so much money that no government on earth has ever seen, printed or counted that kind of money.
Not long ago the progressives told us all would be well. The website would be fixed. You were not really being forced to do anything except what is right. If you love your old insurance plan, just keep it! It's all oh so voluntary. All we're doing is to help a few million uninsured people to get free or almost free health insurance and what's wrong with that? But that is not at all what they were doing. And if it were, nothing would be wrong with that--except that we contrived a nightmarish, expensive method to achieve that goal.
It's kind of like having a flat tire on the freeway. It's a problem. The sane way to fix the problem is to change the tire. The insane way to fix it would be to leave the car on the side of the freeway and go buy a new $100,000 luxury sedan on credit.
I write this in December of 2013, near the end of the first terrible year for Obama Care. The doctor's diagnosis has come in and it is not good for the patient. Obama Care has failed. Even loyal progressive Democrats have had enough! No more trying to sell a dismal failure to the public, not on the eve of House and Senate elections when control of the Congress is up for grabs and angry voters are likely to send the scoundrels who sold us Obama Care back to work (and I mean real work, not back to Congress)! So now Democrats are screaming that Affordable Care was a good dream that just doesn't work, it is broken, and it must somehow be fixed! We will hear that at least until after the mid-term elections. I mean, politicians will resort to anything to get reelected--even telling the truth once in a while.
I'm not sure how to fix a rapidly sinking ship at sea. No dry dock is in sight.
Those who helped bring us the nightmare of Obama Care because they blindly believed what they were told, by people who were either unbelievably ignorant or preposterous liars (you choose) - deserve to lose their seats in the Congress. They ought to. Americans are too forgiving, especially toward politicians.
The Affordable Care Act is a national cancer. It is hemorrhaging and its victims are emaciated, angry, betrayed and lethargic. It will require a great lie, greater than all past lies combined, to cover up the unfolding national disaster. Whether politicians are capable of finding a mega lie that even a significant minority of Americans will believe remains to be seen; however, there are master liars in Washington, so all bets are off. There are still several months to go and the wheels are spinning desperately to find a political fix. Not a real fix to the nation's healthcare crisis, a political fix that saves the politicians. Reality doesn't matter. What the public thinks is real--that is what matters. And we have the talking heads on the media and the politicians telling us what is "real." We may or may not still be gullible enough to believe them.
The mid-term elections will tell the tale.
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One small update. I add this in April, 2014. I am watching a TV news report that says millions of Americans have had their private health plans cancelled. Also, many Americans say that health insurance policies offered by the Obama Care "marketplace" are inferior to the insurance they just lost. Deductibles are higher, co-pays are higher, premiums are higher, coverage is worse. Real Americans are on TV telling their story. How do Washington's political spokespeople respond to these reports?
"It's all lies." A US Senator stands in front of the camera and says with a straight face, "These are all lies." Obama Care is great. Those who find fault with it are just lying.
Here is what I wrote back in December 2013: " It will require a great lie, greater than all past lies combined, to cover up the unfolding national disaster. Whether politicians are capable of finding a mega lie that even a significant minority of Americans will believe remains to be seen; however, there are master liars in Washington, so all bets are off."
Of all the "great lies" that seem to have been prototype tested, this is the one they have chosen to use so far. "It's all lies." Get it? The great lie is: It's all lies.
We lied to you about Obama Care. You found us out. You spoke the truth. With what great "mega lie" can we respond? "It's all lies." The great mega lie is, "Our critics are all liars."
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I update this post again AFTER the 2014 mid-term elections. To my surprise, Republicans have taken the House and Senate by large margins. Voting for Obama Care was, indeed, the kiss of death, for many Democrats in the Congress. (And they know it). We now know what the Democrats' big lie was. ("All our critics are liars."). After the elections are over, Obama Care is now a moot point. No one is talking about it. Republicans won't or can't repeal it. They won't even try seriously. Here is the new big question: Will Republicans use their new power in the Congress to roll back any of Obama's radical agenda before the next big shakeup, the 2016 presidential election? Probably not. Will Obama Care even be a talking point in the 2016 presidential race? Probably not. Will Republicans pledge to repeal Obama Care if they capture the White House and both houses of Congress in 2016? Probably not. That leads me to a new big question: What good are the Republicans if they won't use their power to keep the national debt under $20 trillion or at least try to restore our healthcare system? Haven't they become just like the Democrats? Is there any hope in a political outsider like Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson, Donald Trump or someone/anyone who hasn't sold his soul to the devil up in D.C.? Will the 2016 presidential elections change anything? Or will we listen to whoever has the slickest promises, elect him or her, and things will continue as they are now?
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