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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
WI Con #30
Amen brother. I kept seeing campaign ads in my head. Who would vote for someone so obviously either dishonest or clueless?
Oh. ‘Bama. Dang.
(Edited to correct WI Con name spelling. Sorry WI Con!)
Your article has been sent out on my mail list.
Barack Hussein Tudor VIII to Anne Boleyn: “If you like your head, you can keep it.”
No shortage of tools in that box.
The left’s toolbox ·2 hours ago
When are the people under 35 going to realize that they are going to have to pay for all of this?
I was just listening to the Canadian radio discussing a jobs report. Canada has got jobs, by the way. Did you hear that we just got free trade with Europe too and our oil people are very pleased about it?
Anyway, they talked about how the USA is like molasses with its job market and that 8% jobless rate has become your new normal that no one seems to mention.
They discussed how employers have such uncertainty and it is stopping growth and it starts with Obamacare.
Great ending quote! Sadly, you are too far above the head of the average voter. Don’t you know there are free phones to be had!!
Simon TemplarBrentB67: 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. · 23 minutes agoWhat Brent said.#13 · 20 hours ago ·Unlike (3) · Quote· Flag· Share· Direct link What Simon said that Brent said.
I’ve had enough if all those idiotic voters. Great piece, Dave. And no, I don’t think many understand what the word authoritarianism means, and that’s one of our big problems.
Not to take away from the larger import of the piece, but what kind of illiterate nonsense is that Begich quote?
“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.”
I’m tempted to think this must be a misquote or some kind of error in the reporting. Are we sure this came from a U.S. Senator and not the Obamaphone lady?
“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.”
I’m tempted to think this must be a misquote or some kind of error in the reporting. Are we sure this came from a U.S. Senator and not the Obamaphone lady? ·16 minutes ago
The distinctions between them grow smaller every day.
Dave, God bless you for having the patience to put that list of names together without going postal. My blood was boiling before I got 1/4 of the way through.
We suffer from moral poverty as a culture, and being lied to in the hope of relieving material poverty by receiving something “free” doesn’t seem to bother a lot of people.
Perhaps it is a disaster on the scale of Obamacare that will hit people hard enough in the pocketbook to make them wake up and vote these scoundrels out of office.
The progressive’s promise of government to meet all our material needs has left us bankrupt both financially and morally.
We are better than this as a people. Decline is a choice. Let’s pray for the strength to continue fight this battle.
Oops. ·
Did she have to pass it to find that out.
“Get the Government away from my Social Security!”
Do you think the Populist dreamers and Progressive-Fascist reformers did not know this? That they didn’t understand the implications of the fact that by definition half the population has an IQ below 100? They must have, for as they pushed for more and more direct popular involvement in politics and government and were reforming the schools to remove facts, rational principles, and critical thinking, they constructed a bureaucratic state in which elected officers ceded more and more power to expert administrators.
What’s more, in their less guarded moments, they tell us that those not of the Anointed are ignorant, stupid, mean-spirited, irrational, violent yahoos. That’s us. No wonder they cannot be patriotic.
There’s an untold story here that needs investigation. We still don’t know who actually wrote the ACA. Given the size of the insurance industry I have to believe that their lobbyists had a big hand in the actual legislation. It will be a fitting lesson if those who conspired with crocodiles find themselves getting eaten nevertheless.
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.
Aha! This sounds like the declaration of candidacy I’ve long been championing…
Alright, Colin, now you’re just trying to stir up trouble. ;)
I sure hope that those in the corridors of D.C. do read Ricochet as Peter, Rob and James attest. They’ve just rec’d, pro bono, an effective strategy for annihilating the Left come Novemeber 2014. Each one of those 27 quotes is a scalpel they provided us to flay them if the GOP has the guts & smarts to wield them effectively. I’ve often stated here that we’ve been experiencing a ‘slow motion coup’. Typically, after failed overthrows of governments, the insurgents are dealt with harshly – I’m with DocJay on this: prosecutions, jail time and financial ruin in defending themselves is in order. It won’t be done Under Obama & Holder. We shouldn’t wait for 2014/2016 – let’s see some of the Red State Attorneys General start bringing charges. I am pleasantly encouraged that the House Oversight Committees are stepping things up, I’d still like to see some contempt charges filed. Also, there’s supposedly a House jail – let’s take it out of mothballs.
Doc – aren’t all those insurance companies still regulated by the States? How is it that if Obama’s obscene extension of Federal authority collapses, there’s 50 abjectly corrupt States in which the well-connected are having their way with their citizens? If so, that’s a problem that needed fixing long before Obamacare and, therefore, isn’t terribly germane to the current question of clipping Progressives’ wings, restoring Constitutional democracy and reestablishing fiscal sanity.
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. ·November 17, 2013 at 10:30am
The two most abundant things in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.