Poor Michael Barone: he still thinks ObamaCare is about “health care.”
It never was. And so the politics of its roll-out, or the strategy for its implementation, based as it was on perhaps rosy predictions of the President’s sonorous rhetorical prowess, is only of ancillary interest. ObamaCare is about wealth redistribution. As Obama has now said explicitly, and as Donald Berwick noted publicly long ago, which didn’t stop Obama from nominating him for head of CMS.
In fact, it’s why he nominated him.
We can’t fight the scourge of statism if we continue to pretend the forest and the trees are one in the same.
I’ve written at length on the power of language, but here’s a quick lesson that may prove useful: don’t be afraid to identify a thing for what it is. Because once you’ve done that, you’ve identified what it is you’re dealing with.
Confucius — ‘The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.’
It’s about love. Not too terribly complicated, really, if only the objects are correctly understood. The leftists love themselves. They love everything about themselves. They merely require that everyone else do what they do. Love them. Completely, without reserve. Only do this. All problems disappear.
“The darkness of private enterprise.”
In other words, people spending their own money on things they want, not things someone else believes they should have.
sdferr, if only we had a cabinet level post for love–call it the “Ministry of Love,” or “Miniluv” for short.
What gets me most about Obamacare is how easily people are lead to believe health insurance = medical care. Or, at least, uncritically accepted the premise.
You want proof ObamaCare isn’t about health care? Because it doesn’t touch dentistry. How many times a year do you see a doctor? How many times a year do you see a dentist? Your dental health has a direct bearing on your overall health, yet Obamacare doesn’t deal with it at all.
Stop giving them ideas!
Be reasonable, Scott. Getting it passed as it was, was like pulling teeth.
was like pulling teeth.
HA! Very sensitive subject for me – I have to have more than half of mine pulled shortly. And I found out that most of the costs aren’t covered by dental insurance, because it has an incredibly low yearly maximum. But my checkups are covered! (Of course, they won’t cost as much afterwards – fewer teeth to check.)
If your auto insurance was like this, it would cover oil changes and new tires, but not cover you when somebody totaled your car.
If you like your teeth, you can keep your teeth.
Scott, and you’re being silly. Obamacare car insurance would cover it if you totaled your car. It’s just that you’ll have $1000 a month premium, and $12,000 out of pocket deductible to meet.
Everything else is covered.
Everything else is covered.
But you’d have to buy the insurance at the RMV, and can only take your car for service at approved garages.
Yes, it’s about redistribution, but I’m afraid it’s also about gathering a huge national database they can use for voter drives and who knows what other nefarious purposes. If they get their database and amnesty, you can kiss this country goodbye.
*** is to “achieve peace based on the principle of a two-state solution and the establishment of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital.” ***
Ah, if only ClownDisasterSecOStateHairHattedMan could get it through his thick skull! But then, ClownDisasterSecOStateHairHattedMan is preoccupiededly busy with his self-loving ministrations.
I don’t always agree with that Confucius chap, but his ideas on the rectification of names I liked quite a lot.
Plus that business about first fixing things at home. Most politicians would never achieve higher office if they followed that one.
Take, for instance: Obama. Fixing things at the, say, Chicago level might have kept him busy well into his 70s, if not longer. Even if he put genuine effort into it.
I wonder if a MD’ services would be closer in cost to a DVM’s services if it was not for malpractice litigation and gov’t regulations.
Yes, it’s about redistribution, but I’m afraid it’s also about gathering a huge national database they can use for voter drives and who knows what other nefarious purposes.
I’m less afraid of the databases than I am of the implicit assumption that since Doctor Jugears and Nurse Reid are now in charge of our health, it gives them license to dictate what we eat, how much we exercise, how much television we watch, what time we go to bed, how often (and with whom) we have sex, and how much booze we drink to try to forget what a horrible dystopian mess we live in.
They’ll tell us what kind of cars we can drive, and how many miles we’re allowed to drive each week, which coincidentally gives them license to determine where we’ll live and where we’ll work and where we’ll shop. And who needs Glowball Worming when you can use the perfectly cromulent new national health laws to slap strict limits on pollution?
But I really must take issue with your use of “nefarious” to describe such measures, which are really all For Our Own Good.
Heh, all good points, Squid. But I think I must be heading towards dementia in my old age, as I forgot the big one, which is the insane expansion of Medicaid. Even if Obamacare implodes, they still have millions more enrolled in Medicaid, another unfunded mandate. The good news there is that Medicaid is such a lame and inefficient program that it might not make any difference.
I think Barone is a throwback to a more innocent time when we were all still Americans. On the one hand, I find this touching; solidarity is becoming in a citizen. But, there comes a time when you have to call a spade a small shovel. And some of our fellow Americans are now traitors.
I wouldn’t get rid of the Barones…they’ll be useful again when we’ve gotten rid of the rot. I just wouldn’t trust him to lead the charge.
he’s very, very old
elderly, really
like santa
It’s hard, I can attest, after a lifetime of thinking of our politics as it was, building habits of thought that way, to have the whole business ripped out from under our feet and have to learn quickly to think in a new way entirely, since the old ways just don’t fit anymore. I doubt I’ll ever overcome those habits completely, even if I try very hard. And Mr. Barone is nine years older than I.
i tried hard and i like to think i met with no small measure of success
dicentra helped
she told us about the rules
living so unequivocally behind enemy lines helps clarify a lot of this though
Leftists, wanna be euro-fucks, public sector parasites, and dumb easily confused go-along types that think incoherent bumper stickers are badges of merit, have all been conned into thinking they are history itself. And they are, in the sense that they are repeating the same old mistakes, and will get the same shitty results, and will make the same shitty excuses when the bad luck arrives.
How sad.
what will become of us
i don’t care
all i know is i’ll go anywheres
Fraud and deceit, Dem-SOP.
New signs appearing.
Planet Claire is far enough away, pioneerfoot.