Too Big to Fail?...NOT!

By William L. Garvin

 

 

“The bigger they are; the harder they fall.”  Many can remember this childhood exhortation to stand up to bullies.  Politicians and government agencies should take this as an admonition.

 

This seems particularly appropriate with the disastrous Obamacare implementation and now the president’s fading glory.  It is increasingly clear that this sprawling government monstrosity is redefining winners and losers.  The obvious winners are those with preexisting conditions and those who never had insurance, a good thing.  The losers are all those who have had their policies cancelled and are now facing budget busting increases in premiums and deductibles, a bad thing.  The former signups are in the thousands; the latter are in the millions with millions more to come.  Also in the loser category are state budgets because the vast majority of enrollees in Obamacare are in the Medicaid category.  The federal aid to the states will quickly be phased out.  The economic reality of any government trying to take control of one-sixth of the economy to aid one-tenth of the population is beginning to sink in.  Remember that this administration has the least amount of private sector experience of any modern presidency.  It’s becoming increasingly clear that the glitches are indeed train wrecks and there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

 

Concurrently, as THE ECONOMIST cover clearly demonstrates, the president who used to walk on water is now in it up to his neck and desperately flailing about to restore his fading luster.  If the heaviest burden is a great potential, President Obama had plenty to live up to.  In his book THE BRIDGE: THE LIFE AND RISE OF BARACK OBAMA, David Remnick quotes the president’s long time Svengali advisor and handler extraordinaire, Valerie Jarrett.  “I think Barack knew that he had God-given talents that were extraordinary.  He knows exactly how smart he is…He knows how perceptive he is.  He knows what a good reader of people he is.  And he knows that he has the ability—the extraordinary, uncanny ability—to take a thousand different perspectives, digest them, and make sense out of them, and I think he has never been really challenged intellectually.  I mean, he’s the kind of guy you’d hate in law school, who would pick up the book the night before the final, read it, and ace the test.  So what I sensed in him was not just a restless spirit but someone with extraordinary talents that they had to be really taxed in order for him to be happy.”  As George Will pointedly observed, how can anyone so smitten possibly be an effective advisor?  As the coup de grace, Valerie adds: “He’s been bored to death his whole life.  He’s just too talented to do what ordinary people do.  He would never be satisfied with what ordinary people do.”  All those little people, all those ordinary people, the ones who go to work every day, who balance their budgets, who don’t live and spend beyond their means, they just don’t understand His Magnificence!  What elitist claptrap!

 

What ordinary people do understand is that for all that money, they could have built a hundred working websites.  What ordinary people do understand is that the “good jobs for the jobless” promise has been a miserable failure and one of a long line of broken promises.  What they do understand is that they will soon forget his lofty boast that “This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” 

 

That’s why ordinary people in the latest left-leaning CNN poll shows that 56% disagree with President Obama on the major issues.  The same percentage says he “does not inspire confidence.”  It also shows that 53% of ordinary people do not regard him as “honest or trustworthy.”  Ordinary people now know the emperor has no clothes.

 

That’s why Democrats are finally moving out of lockstep with the President, voting against his decrees, and showing open rebellion.  Senators like Landrieu in contested states don’t even want to be seen with him.  That’s why liberal fanatics spin fantastic yarns about Republicans being responsible for Obamacare failures.  Three months ago, the Tea Party was irrelevant; now they are responsible for the latest “right wing conspiracy”; they are the cause of the website implosion; their mean words are the genesis of the public rejection.  Sorry spinmeister Democrats-- this is all on you.  Oh what tangled webs you weave since from the beginning, Obamacare was built to deceive.

 

 

Half Vast Ideas

By William L. Garvin

 

 

Military veterans probably remember the maxim that “Proper prior planning prevents p--- poor performance.”  Civilian applications were politically corrected down to “prior planning prevents poor performance.”  There are other colloquialisms for caution such as “don’t let your mouth write a check that your body can’t cash” and don’t let your alligator mouth overload your hummingbird butt.”  My favorite has to be “don’t take on vast projects with half-vast ideas.”  Apparently, the Obama administration never heard or has chosen to ignore these maxims.

 

Of course, when you start with a flawed premise, there is very little room for success.  How could any sane person possibly believe you can add thirty million people to the medical rolls, suffer a status quo or decrease in medical practitioners, mandate a plethora of additional benefits in every policy, and expect your insurance bill to decrease by $2,500 per family per year?  Yet, that’s what President Obama promised and Democrats and the media swallowed it, hook, line and sinker.  It was shoved down the throats of the remainder, the majority of citizens, who have never approved of Obamacare, who were satisfied with their own insurance, and were pleased with their medical care.

 

With a flawed premise, it’s important to embellish with lies.  If you like your health insurance, you can keep it.  If you like your doctor, you can keep him.  Period.  Don’t forget the emphatic assurance of what has proven false.  In order to keep your insurance, no changes could be made since passage of the Affordable Care Act.  Of course, Health and Human Services then told all the insurance companies that there were certain benefits that had to be included.  So far, a million and a half policies have been canceled since they don’t have all those benefits.  Now the liberal spin is all of those policies were “garbage,” the insurance companies that sold them were predators, and the consumers who bought them were ignorant rubes.  Only the government knows what is good for you; you can’t be trusted to make your own decisions!  Now it’s being reported that President Obama’s administration (you can’t say President Obama because he continually demonstrates that he knows nothing about anything!) knew from the beginning that 50 to 75% of the 14 million individual subscribers would be canceled out.  He both knew and lied or he is absolutely ignorant about his “signature” accomplishment.  It’s unclear as to which is the worse offense.

 

Now there’s the disastrous rollout of Obamacare.  After three and a half years and three-quarters of a BILLION dollars of taxpayer money, the website crashes.  On the grand launch, a miniscule total of six (6) people were able to sign up.  That will be the height of inefficiency in the textbooks for years to come.  Maybe if it hadn’t been a “no bid” contract, things would have been better.  Maybe if it had been an American company with a proven, positive track record, things would have been better.  Maybe if the companies hired hadn’t previously been fired for overbilling, ineffectiveness, and weren’t being investigated for possible criminal wrong doing, things might have been better.  They’re not.  Keep in mind that this is only one piece of the government takeover of one-sixth of the economy.  Wait until they start processing claims.  There are already problems with privacy and inaccurate information being transmitted.  Furthermore, over ninety percent of the enrollees are not enrolling in Obamacare but are enrolling in Medicaid!  That will have a disastrous effect on state budgets and will also be disastrous to the Ponzi scheme financing of Obamacare.  Someone once said that a camel was a horse designed by a government committee.  Unless young, healthy citizens enroll in Obamacare, the government camel will dehydrate from lack of financial water.

 

If this concoction was so good, you wouldn’t have to threaten consumers with fines if they didn’t purchase the government mandated offerings.  If this concoction was so good, Congress would have been first in line.  If this concoction was so good, Congress would not have given themselves an exemption from the law they are foisting upon others.  And large corporations wouldn’t have been given a year delay.  (Wait until they start dropping their insurance plans for employees!)  If this concoction was so good, Democrat donating unions wouldn’t have been carved out and thousands of waivers granted.  Contrary to your congressional testimony, Secretary Sebelius, it is not illegal for you to go to an exchange.  But no, you’d rather keep your government health insurance with 80% of your premiums being paid by the American taxpayer.  You passed the law; now we know what’s in it…and it stinks.