Monday, February 17, 2014

Laws, Lies, Leeway and Lunacy


By William L. Garvin

 

Is there any doubt that the Affordable Care Act is nothing but bait and switch, a pig in a poke, an absolute sham sold under false pretenses, and a massive fraud perpetrated upon the American people by “progressives” with malice of forethought?  “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, period.”  Wrong.  “If you like your health insurance plan, you can keep your health insurance plan, period.”  Wrong.  “The Affordable Care Act will create four million jobs, four hundred thousand immediately.”  Wrong.  “Obamacare will dramatically improve Medicare.”  Wrong.  “I will not sign a bill that adds one dime to the federal debt.”  Wrong.  “The average family will have their insurance premiums reduced by $2,500 per year.”  Wrong.  The Democrats unilaterally passed this law and as we finally get to read and find out what’s in it, the news gets worse and worse.

 

Even if you think that government is capable of and is responsible for planning, implementing, and controlling your health care, you must have the same mounting concerns that the majority of your fellow Americans do.  There is no denying that the rollout of Obamacare has been an unmitigated failure.  Dems can do their best to rationalize the absurdly expensive, absurdly malfunctioning, absurdly complicated website as a “glitch” or a “bump in the road,” but there is no putting lipstick on this pig.  Predictably that is what happens when the nanny state formulates a “one size fits all” plan that the private insurance companies must offer which must include unnecessary and unwanted benefits that everyone is forced to purchase or be “taxed” for their noncompliance.  We have already seen over six million plans cancelled and no one knows how many more notices are still to come.  Unfortunately, the Congressional Budget Office says that after all is said and done, there will still be thirty million Americans who are uninsured.  After all the angst, after all the disruption, after all the turmoil and hardship, Obamacare does not solve the problem of the uninsured and does absolutely nothing to improve the quality of health care or the availability of health care.  Adding political insult to injury, Democrat political puppets now redefine your loss of personal freedom as “liberating”!  It is now somehow laudable in liberal la la land to work less in order to reduce your income so you too can receive a government subsidy!  Pray tell what happens when the worker bees morph into dependent parasites and the symbiotic relationship collapses?

 

If this government-centric future is not frightening enough, delve further into the insidious nature of the law itself.  Charles Kesler, a Distinguished Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College singles out the Independent Payment Advisory Board, aka “death panel” in the Act.  The IPAB is fifteen people appointed by the President.  They are to recommend “efficiencies” regarding Medicare.  Typically, such efficiencies are accomplished by rationing or reducing payments to doctors and hospitals to the point that no one will perform them.  According to Professor Kesler’s analysis, “Unless both houses of Congress overrule IPAB by passing their own equal or greater cuts to Medicare, IPAB’s proposals automatically become law.”  Here’s where the perfidy ensues.  According to the Act, no resolution to repeal the IPAB can be made before January 1, 2017, or after February 1, 2017, nor can it take effect until 2020!  In effect, the IPAB is exempt from the Constitution for the next six years except for a single month!  What sort of Machiavellian intent is behind this machination?  Skeptical minds may conclude that the entire charade is merely a stepping stone to single-payer, government run health care as advocated by the President, the Vice-President, the Senate Majority Leader, and the Minority House Leader, all Democrats.

 

Also keep in mind that Section 1342 of the Affordable Care Act forces taxpayers to make insurers whole for most of the losses they incur selling policies on the Obamacare exchanges through 2016. This “absorption of costs” (don’t ever call it a bailout!) is meant to hide the full scope of the economic failure of Obamacare until after the next presidential election.  That’s also the reason the President “with his phone and his pen” delayed the mandate to provide Obamacare-compliant insurance for some employers.  With a stroke of his presidential pen, he changed established law from “will”, “shall”, and “must” to “may”, “might”, and “maybe.”  Welcome to the “fundamental transformation” of America.  It’s good to be king!

 

 

 

 

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