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To The Obama Voter
By chance, have you had enough yet? Many of you have either lost your jobs or had your hours reduced. Millions of you are seeing your insurance policies go up in a fireball before your very eyes, like a KISS concert only instead of singing, “I Stole Your Love,” the frontman now sings, “I Stole Your Heath Care.”
But I don’t want you to feel gullible. I think, under the circumstances, something approaching totally bamboozled would be understandable, … or snookered, or hoodwinked, or hornswoggled, swindled, fleeced, scammed, deluded, stung, bent, folded, spindled and mutilated perhaps, broken into tiny dehumanized pieces to be redesigned into an academic’s experimental idea of a perfect society certainly, … but not gullible.
In what became the longest instance of political foreplay in contemporary American history, the President whispered utopian nothings in your ear, caressing your hopes while dreamily promising that millions of people would get something for nothing and you wouldn’t have to pay for it. You could say he was being coy, but that would be on the order of saying that the Titanic took on just a little added moisture.
After quoting the President’s oft-repeated promise that, “If you like your health insurance, you will be able to keep your health insurance,” NBC News did a little investigative work (presumably without spraining anything) and found that:
‘…when they made the promise, they knew half of the people in this market outright couldn’t keep what they had and then they wrote the rules so that others couldn’t make it either,’ said Robert Laszewski, of Health Policy and Strategy Associates, a consultant who works for health industry firms. Laszewski estimates that 80 percent of those in the individual market will not be able to keep their current policies and will have to buy insurance that meets requirements of the new law, which generally requires a richer package of benefits than most policies today.
You did catch that last sentence, yes? Those policies which meet Obamacare’s requirements require “richer” benefits. That means “more expensive,” as in, “you cannot keep your current plan and you will pay more for its replacement.” Within the last two weeks, the Manhattan Institute reported that 41 states and the District of Columbia will see premium increases, which demolishes yet another presidential promise, namely that you will pay less for that plan you are supposed to be able to keep.
Now, if you’ve noticed, the President’s response has been multi-fold. At first, he hadn’t much to say, preferring to send his spokesman out to explain that, well, you were simply too wooden-headed to realize that the arrangements you freely worked out with your insurance provider were substandard, and that it now takes a village of Beltway brainiacs to manage your life and health for you because anyone with even garden-variety tenure knows that an 80-year-old man needs maternity coverage and free rubbers.
Next came, “…[W]hat we said was you can keep it if it hasn’t changed since the law was passed,” which, if you can believe it, is even worse than the fine print at the bottom of those horrid used car commercials.
BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!! Because just a few days after lying, and then downplaying the lie, and then reinterpreting the lie in a way that makes Bill Clinton’s parsing of the word “is” seem positively jesuitical by comparison, the President emerged to shred the separation of powers doctrine in the Constitution by unilaterally changing the law. (In case I’m getting too far into the weeds here, he can’t legally do that. The legislative branch “legislates,” see, and the executive branch “executes” or carries out the law, meaning the President has no legal authority to change it all by his lonesome. This may be a minor point to the Obamaphone crowd, but it really does lead to pesky problems like authoritarianism, for example, and if that term is too steep then I fear we really are hosed.)
Now, says our Most Majestic and Beneficent Royal Highness, you can keep your plan for another year. Except that the insurance companies just spent years going through over 2,000 pages of Obamacare law, with its attendant 10,535 pages of regulations that required them to cancel your plan. And now the President waves his magical unconstitutional wand and, presto!, the insurance companies have a big problem. The law still stands. It’s still on the books. If they do what the President says, they will violate the the President’s law. Do they take him at his word that they won’t be penalized for following his order to break his law? What is his word worth these days? Are there penalties that the IRS, for example, could levy against them for breaking his law so they can’t follow his command? This is, in short, a big hairy mess that demonstrates what happens when the government reaches beyond the bounds of protecting your freedom and instead starts running your life.
This just in from Reuters News Service:
United Health Group dropped thousands of doctors from its networks in recent weeks, leaving many elderly patients unsure whether they need to switch plans to continue seeing their doctors, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
How does the old song go? Oops there goes another Obamacare promise! The question keeps arising: how did a free and sovereign people allow themselves to be reduced to cattle, prodded here and pushed over there by people who, in the final analysis, are themselves no better than the rest of us? De Tocqueville may have summed it up best when he wrote that, “Every man allows himself to be put in leading-strings, because he sees that it is not a person or a class of persons, but the people at large who hold the end of his chain.”
We therefore delude ourselves when we fancy a faceless and nameless thing called the government as that which bullies us, pushes us around, and beguiles us with benefits only to pull them away, taking our income and our children’s future with them. Fine. Let’s add names to this debacle, courtesy of the Washington Examiner:
SEN. HARRY REID (D-Nev.): “In fact, one of our core principles is that if you like the health care you have, you can keep it.”
SEN. RICHARD DURBIN: “We believe — and we stand by this — if you like your current health insurance plan, you will be able to keep it, plain and simple, straightforward.”
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): “If you like your insurance, you keep it.”
SEN. PATTY MURRAY (D-Wash.): “Again, if you like what you have, you will be able to keep it. Let me say this again: If you like what you have, when our legislation is passed and signed by the President, you will be able to keep it.”
SEN. MAX BAUCUS (D-Mont.): “That is why one of the central promises of health care reform has been and is: If you like what you have, you can keep it. That is critically important. If a person has a plan, and he or she likes it, he or she can keep it.”
SEN. TOM HARKIN (D-Iowa): “One of the things we put in the health care bill when we designed it was the protection for consumers to keep the plan they have if they like it; thus, the term ‘grandfathered plans.’ If you have a plan you like — existing policies — you can keep them. … we said, if you like a plan, you get to keep it, and you can grandfather it in.”
THEN-REP. TAMMY BALDWIN (D-Wis.): “Under the bill, if you like the insurance you have now, you may keep it and it will improve.”
SEN. MARK BEGICH (D-Alaska): “If you got a doctor now, you got a medical professional you want, you get to keep that. If you have an insurance program or a health care policy you want of ideas, make sure you keep it. That you can keep who you want.”
SEN. MICHAEL BENNET (D-Colo.): “We should begin with a basic principle: if you have coverage and you like it, you can keep it. If you have your doctor, and you like him or her, you should be able to keep them as well. We will not take that choice away from you.”
SEN. BARBARA BOXER (D-Calif.): “So we want people to be able to keep the health care they have. And the answer to that is choice of plans. And in the exchange, we’re going to have lots of different plans, and people will be able to keep the health care coverage they need and they want.”
SEN. SHERROD BROWN (D-Ohio): “Our bill says if you have health insurance and you like it, you can keep it…”(Sen. Brown, Congressional Record, S.12612, 12/7/09)
SEN. BEN CARDIN (D-Md.): “For the people of Maryland, this bill will provide a rational way in which they can maintain their existing coverage…”)
SEN. BOB CASEY (D-Pa.): “I also believe this legislation and the bill we are going to send to President Obama this fall will also have secure choices. If you like what you have, you like the plan you have, you can keep it. It is not going to change.”
SEN. KAY HAGAN (D-N.C.): ‘People who have insurance they’re happy with can keep it’ “We need to support the private insurance industry so that people who have insurance they’re happy with can keep it while also providing a backstop option for people without access to affordable coverage.”
SEN. MARY LANDRIEU (D-La.): “If you like the insurance that you have, you’ll be able to keep it.”
SEN. PAT LEAHY (D-Vt.): “[I]f you like the insurance you now have, keep the insurance you have.”
SEN. BOB MENENDEZ (D-N.J.): “If you like what you have, you get to keep it” “Menendez is a member of the Senate Finance Committee, which is expected to release a bill later this week. He stressed that consumers who are satisfied with their plans won’t have to change. ‘If you like what you have, you get to keep it,’ he said.”
SEN. JEFF MERKLEY (D-Oreg.): “[E]nsuring that those who like their insurance get to keep it” “The HELP Committee bill sets forward a historic plan that will, for the first time in American history, give every American access to affordable health coverage, reduce costs, and increase choice, while ensuring that those who like their insurance get to keep it.”
SEN. BARBARA MIKULSKI (D-Md.): “It means that if you like the insurance you have now, you can keep it.”
SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER (D-W.Va.): “I want people to know, the President’s promise that if you like the coverage you have today you can keep it is a pledge we intend to keep.”
SEN. JACK REED (D-R.I.): “If you like the insurance you have, you can choose to keep it.”
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-Vt.): “‘If you have coverage you like, you can keep it,’ says Sen. Sanders.”
SEN. JEANNE SHAHEEN (D-N.H.): ‘if you have health coverage that you like, you get to keep it’ “My understanding … is that … if you have health coverage that you like you can keep it. As I said, you may have missed my remarks at the beginning of the call, but one of the things I that I said as a requirement that I have for supporting a bill is that if you have health coverage that you like you should be able to keep that. …under every scenario that I’ve seen, if you have health coverage that you like, you get to keep it.”
SEN. DEBBIE STABENOW (D-Mich.): “As someone who has a large number of large employers in my state, one of the things I appreciate about the chairman’s mark is — is the grandfathering provisions, the fact that the people in my state, 60 percent of whom have insurance, are going to be able to keep it. And Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that. That’s a strong commitment. It’s clear in the bill … I appreciate the strong commitment on your part and the president to make sure that if you have your insurance you can keep it. That’s the bottom line for me.”
SEN. JON TESTER (D-Mont.): “‘If you like your coverage, you’ll be able to keep it,’ Tester said, adding that if Medicare changes, it will only become stronger”.
SEN. TOM UDALL (D-N.Mex.): “Some worried reform would alter their current coverage. It won’t. If you like your current plan, you can keep it.”
SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE (D-R.I.): “…it honors President Obama’s programs and the promise of all of the Presidential candidates that if you like the plan you have, you get to keep it. You are not forced out of anything.”
These are just some of the people you get to hold accountable as a voter. They aren’t nameless or faceless. These people are directly accountable to you, the American voter, and they lied to you. There’s another one though, who fancies himself as a journalist. On July 1, 2009, MSNBC’s own Ed Schultz thundered, “If you have a health care plan and you like it, you can keep it. Got it?” Oh, we got it alright, Ed. De Tocqueville got it too, as he reminds us:
I am full of apprehensions and hopes. I perceive mighty dangers which it is possible to ward off, mighty evils which may be avoided or alleviated; and I cling with a firmer hold to the belief that for democratic nations to be virtuous and prosperous, they require but to will it.… The nations of our time cannot prevent the conditions of men from becoming equal, but it depends upon themselves whether the principle of equality is to lead them to servitude or freedom, to knowledge or barbarism, to prosperity or wretchedness.
And so again I ask: have you had enough yet?
Published in General
The Democrats in the Senate are either (1) among the biggest liars or (2) among the stupidest nitwits in history.
My theory is that, on average, it’s about a 50-50 combination. The smart ones are liars and the dumb ones are, well, really, really dumb.
Which brings us back to Dave’s concluding question.
But I’m starting to think the stupidest nitwits in history were anybody who actually believed any of the Obamacare nonsense. If Obamacare was supposed to be so great and wonderful why were we being told over and over and over that we wouldn’t have to participate? Reading the congressional quotes, in which they all use eerily similar language, makes you realize they knew most people would not willingly participate.
This morning on Meet the Press, Nancy Pelosi was unable to avoid saying that there never was any provision in the ACA law that allowed you to keep your plan.
Oops.
Forewarned is forearmed . . .
What we’ll continue to see is the Left desperately pushing the meme that Obama didn’t lie; he just should have been more clear about that measly 5%. They are frantically trying to ensure the distraction of ‘what did the President know and when did he know it’ pervades the “debate.”
They hope to contain this as, ‘Hey, it could happen to anyone.’ Damn staffers should have more carefully tele-prompted him. Obama as much as said this week that ‘I didn’t know the web site was a disaster and I’m not stupid, so it must be someone else’s fault.’ He’s a cleaver manipulator . . . a choom gang rationalizer with Harvard Law forensic abilities.
I’m not an Obama vote, but I sure have had enough!
Great article Dave, I hope it makes a difference. If progressivism was merely a political bent or idea I think this would be a turning point. Unfortunately progressives worship a false religion and that isn’t so easily reformed.
Oops. ·1 minute ago
No “oops” about it. Oceana has always been at war with East Asia.
Oops. ·1 minute ago
No “oops” about it. Oceana has always been at war with East Asia. ·1 minute ago
Quite.
Oops.
No “oops” about it. Oceana has always been at war with East Asia.
Quite.
Yeah, that’s the problem isn’t it? Democrats suffer nothing no matter how egregious the ‘Oops.’
At least, that’s how it’s been . . . question is whether this time they’ve really crossed a line. I think it depends upon the opposition’s reaction. If it hammers away at the Dem’s lies, they can probably prevail. But they’ve not shown much instinct for the jugular in the past, preferring to slip comfortably back into their Party of Washington pseudo-opposition role.
Dave,
The young and ever so helpful Andrew Stiles gives us this article at NRO “Prosecute HealthCare.gov”
If HealthCare.gov was a private corporation and BHO its CEO, the FTC would already be prosecuting it for deceptive advertising.
The Administration all tangled up in Obamacare.
Regards,
Jim
The pattern has been that whenever the Democrats (or Obama particularly) get caught with their hand in the cookie jar, their first defense is distraction.
Abetted by the media, the Democrats immediately start pushing an agenda whose only urgency is to take the heat off them.
They’re going fishing for Aikins, my friends.
This time, they’ll probably have to do it all at once. They’ll push immigration to keep Hispanics in line; some new wrinkle in the war on women; a new farm bill loaded with goodies so the GOP will be seen as opposing “helping people.”
Come on, folks, we know the drill. Time for a lot of discipline.
Think of it as the offense trying to draw the defense offside on fourth and two. The quarterback barks signals, bobs his head, but every coach is screaming for the defense to stay disciplined and wait for the ball to actually move.
Abetted by the media, the Democrats immediately start pushing an agenda whose only urgency is to take the heat off them.
They’re going fishing for Aikins, my friends.
This time, they’ll probably have to do it all at once. They’ll push immigration to keep Hispanics in line; some new wrinkle in the war on women; a new farm bill loaded with goodies so the GOP will be seen as opposing “helping people.”
Come on, folks, we know the drill. Time for a lot of discipline.
Think of it as the offense trying to draw the defense offside on fourth and two. The quarterback barks signals, bobs his head, but every coach is screaming for the defense to stay disciplined and wait for the ball to actually move.
I’m trying to think of a time the “defense” managed this level of discipline. No Republican voted for Obamacare, so there’s some discipline. But that was one vote. This will require discipline month-after-month, at least through November.
What Brent said.
“I think it depends upon the opposition’s reaction. If it hammers away at the Dem’s lies, they can probably prevail. But they’ve not shown much instinct for the jugular in the past, preferring to slip comfortably back into their Party of Washington pseudo-opposition role.”
Which brings us the the real problem. Not only must conservatives prevail over the progressives, we must prevail over the GOP status quo. Which brings us to Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and the Tea Party. Unless we first bring down the GOP status quo non-opposition to progressivism, if not outright complicity in it, how will we see conservatism overcome the religion of progressivism?
Crisis; The Chinese word for danger and opportunity.
What will we decide.
My theory is that, on average, it’s about a 50-50 combination. The smart ones are liars and the dumb ones are, well, really, really dumb.
Which brings us back to Dave’s concluding question.
An age-old question: were they fool or knave?
There’s only one answer:
Yes.
Maybe, maybe, just enough Low Information Voters, moderates, and whatnot in the middle will wake up sufficiently to alter the standard electoral calculus of
I’m not optimistic or giving odds though.
Which brings us the the real problem. Not only must conservatives prevail over the progressives, we must prevail over the GOP status quo. … Unless we first bring down the GOP status quo non-opposition to progressivism, if not outright complicity in it, how will we see conservatism overcome the religion of progressivism?
We agree on needing clear-eyed, dependable conservatives like Ted Cruz in power . . . but he already is. Not that I don’t want to see him go further, but next November we just want to defeat Dems. We need to get independents and Libertarians to vote against Dems and for Republicans . . . the right kind of Republicans or at least ones ‘primaried’ into doing the right thing. For 2014, we’ve got to fight smarter not harder. We need to bring others to us, not simply defeat those who are (admittedly) useless to the cause. Obama’s healthcare folly has given conservatives an opening . . . it needs to be exploited skillfully and I’m not sure constructing it as first and foremost an internecine struggle will get us there. Transforming the GOP can wait until we’ve walked the country back from the ledge it’s on.
Dave: I have been watching the destruction of Venezuela for twenty years. I would scratch my head wondering how those people could allow Hugo to do what he did. Now I know . It’s happening here. Thanks for your post.
HVT’s, if Obamacare fails to the point of non implementation then the fix will be written by the insurance industry through old guard bought and bribed GOP members. Monied special interests cannot be what decides our health care future. Progressives need to be defeated, and even worse, discredited. Crooked politicians need defeating too.
Dave, great article!
What Brent said. ·1 hour ago
On some level, this plays into Peter’s post from last evening. Mark Twain observed that history doesn’t necessarily repeat itself,…though it does rhyme occasionally. No amount of experience or recorded history can erase human nature. While it may not always fly under the banner of liberalism or progressivism, there will always be those who wish to lord over the affairs of others. Conversely, a great many people will always prove P.T. Barnum’s statement correct, that there’s a sucker born every minute. In my humble opinion, the key, as the Founders observed, is individual virtue.
We agree on needing clear-eyed, dependable conservatives like Ted Cruz in power . . . but he already is. Not that I don’t want to see him go further, but next November we just want to defeat Dems. We need to get independents and Libertarians to vote against Dems and for Republicans . . . the right kind of Republicans or at least ones ‘primaried’ into doing the right thing. For 2014, we’ve got to fight smarter not harder. We need to bring others to us, not simply defeat those who are (admittedly) useless to the cause. Obama’s healthcare folly has given conservatives an opening . . . it needs to be exploited skillfully and I’m not sure constructing it as first and foremost an internecine struggle will get us there. Transforming the GOP can wait until we’ve walked the country back from the ledge it’s on. ·1 hour ago
We’ve watched that kabuki for 50 years.
You are expecting the miracle America is no longer worthy of.
Thank you sir.
Thank’s Dave. Once again you tell the story clearly. Sorry we can’t express optimism for the outcome. We’ve seen the play and read the book already. It ends badly.
Senator Warner of Virginia (my senator – lucky me!) belongs on the list.
I read the same book, and agree. But I have to fight. I owe my children and grandson nothing less than my best effort to secure for them that which was paid for in blood.
We’ve watched that kabuki for 50 years.
You are expecting the miracle America is no longer worthy of.
So, wouldn’t you agree that after 50 years it’s time we had a strategy for success instead of simply repeating the recipe for failure to which we’ve grown accustomed?
Americais a miracle–nothing in human history even suggests it would emerge, let alone made it inevitable (or permanent!). Its citizens will never be unworthy of it, no matter how unworthy its leaders prove to be nor how incapable those leaders are of sustaining it.
The State of Washington tried “community rating” back in the 1990’s, and it manifestly DID NOT WORK (most insurance companies stopped writing individual policies in the state, and the insurance commissioner’s department panicked). They got rid of that policy. Now, our state is one of the biggest backers of Obamacare, and is running their own exchange, which has been used mostly by the “poor” seeking enrollment in expanded Medicaid. Free stuff? Yep! The venerable (?) Seattle Times, on its front page two weeks ago, admitted that 290,000 individual policy-holders have had their policies cancelled due to Obamacare. They do not advocate a repeal of the law, however. Liberal First, everything else later.
Dave, I am going to be linking to your post on my own blog-thanks!
WI Con, it’s going to take a lot of housecleaning. I have tremendous fears of a go along, get along, get rich on the side, GOP making deals instead of prosecutions. Somehow we must delouse the progressive infestation, roll back the power of government, and inspire America to work. I want the same result as HVT’s. We all know that conservatives are the key to correcting our problems but we differ on which ones. HVT’s, when the insurance industry has the state run monopolies end, I’ll be a happy person.
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