Remember when Obama told you if you liked your health care plan you could keep it? And that health care wouldn’t cost you any more? Well, he lied.
Not only has the cost already doubled since the law’s having been rammed through against the will of the people — and this is before full implementation, and before whatever new goodies the Administration promises to provide for “free” in order to reel in various interest groups in the run-up to the 2012 election — but as was inevitable, given the laws of economics and math and other such patriarchal bourgeois tools of oppression, private health care coverage costs will skyrocket, until ultimately every one of the “masses” (that is, non-governmental crony or billionaire) is forced onto a government health care exchange, where panels of “experts” will ultimately decide on their course of care.
Unfortunately, the putative GOP front-runner being put forth to take on Obama is also a big fan of state run health care — in fact, he wrote an op-ed telling Obama to adopt his (unconstitutional) individual mandate — so it ain’t like he can make too big a deal over just how wrong the whole socialized medicine idea is. At best, he’ll probably run in a general election on partial repeal and then a group of “fixes” to make the system run more smoothly and efficiently.
Worse still, though the putative front runner has shown every inclination to smear and lie about his primary challengers — while stunningly, arrogantly noting that, in the end, conservatives will really have no choice but to embrace him as the not-Obama — he’s already gone on record as saying he won’t go negative against the President, who is a good guy who’s just in a bit over his head.
As if Obama, a studied leftist ideologue and academic reared on theories for crashing the capitalist system in order to replace its institutional foundation with Marxist “progressivism” has pressured the First Amendment, the separation of powers, and the very binding authority of the Constitution itself — all while running up unsustainable debt and simultaneously gutting the military — by pure happenstance.
Obama set out to “fundamentally transform” this country. And he’s relying on a feckless gladhander like Mitt Romney, who like McCain before him will cower in the face of racialist and identity politics attacks and accusations, to be put forth by an impotent GOP, allowing him to win re-election and set in place the bureaucratic and legal conditions that, long after he’s gone, and like a slow-moving poison, will finish off this country as founded.
John Boehner wept. But then, that’s what that orange-faced whiner does, isn’t it?
rammstein
The Veterinary ethics of Obamacare. But that’s consistent, isn’t it? Moving from citizen to subject to nationalfamily pet seems a natural progression. So, progress!
I’m going to go cry.
You know, on the upside. The only reason I’m hanging onto this 8-5 gig is because I need health insurance and a paycheck.
Once I lose my health insurance I might as well set sail for Costa Rica. Because honestly — life’s gonna be shorter than I imagined, why not live out my dreams.
Tropical weather, shorter life. It’s not all bad.
Economists reckon healthcare payments as a fraction of an employee’s total compensation package. As companies drop private coverage on their employee’s behalf, instead paying a fine to the government, what has become of the compensation reckoning? Do employees decide to leave the Obamacare acquiescent company to move to another company which refuses to take its employees out of private insurance? Do employees demand the smaller fractional difference between the fine to government and the former cost of private insurance, should there be a favorable balance? After all, if the “fine” is less than the former cost, with no compensation of the difference to the employee, hasn’t the employee then incurred a plain and simple pay-cut?
I once saw The Tears of John Boehner open for Slayer at the Cornpone Civic. It was awesome.
…hasn’t the employee then incurred a plain and simple pay-cut?
Yes, and you can bet your ass that the protests will be directed at the “fat cat” private companies, and not at the government functionaries who set up the system.
Do employees demand the smaller fractional difference between the fine to government and the former cost of private insurance, should there be a favorable balance? After all, if the “fine” is less than the former cost, with no compensation of the difference to the employee, hasn’t the employee then incurred a plain and simple pay-cut?
Progressives phoned in to say “This is why the government should supervise and regulate salaries. So the greedy employers cannot shortchange the little guy.”
Of course he lied.
His lips were moving.
Ah well, so much for the labor theory of value. Tough shit, eh Karl? Displaced for a simple government theory of theft.
… in the end, conservatives will really have no choice but to embrace him as the not-Obama — he’s already gone on record as saying he won’t go negative against the President, who is a good guy who’s just in a bit over his head.
This dynamic puzzles me, and I haven’t really given it much thought ’til just now. How exactly is this going to work? If the head of the ticket goes on record, repeatedly, saying that his opponent is a Good Man whose only failing is that he’s not up to the task, how do his minions get any traction with their insistence that everyone has to suck it up and vote for Mittenz lest the Republic fall into ruin? I mean, how much damage can a Good Man do?
Are the Romneybots counting on everyone’s visceral, subconscious understanding of the awfulness of Obama, and that everyone will discount Mittenz’ comments to the contrary? Are they counting on everyone not listening to their boss, nor taking him seriously? Is Mittsie going to talk about how his minions are being “unhelpful” when they paint Obama as the Antichrist and speak of the urgency of regime change? How on Earth is this supposed to work?
Are the Romneybots counting on everyone’s visceral, subconscious understanding of the awfulness of Obama, and that everyone will discount Mittenz’ comments to the contrary?
Just go to Althouse and read the Santorum pron post. Mittens and Gingrich have similar planks in their platforms, yet the commenters saw what they wanted – the narrative is that Santorum is a scold is what they wanted to see, so they ate it up instantly. I even tried to point it out, and everyone pretty much ignored my comment.
I’m beginning to think it’s the human race in general that’s the problem. Humans have proven that the majority of them can’t think logically, so they’ll make the wrong decisions most of the time.
Time for the smart people to colonize somewhere and then put up walls so no one else can get in.
Obama: “I’m directing the Justice Dept. to ignore the Defense of Marriage Act which was passed by a majority of republicans and democrats in congress.”
Republicans and Democrats: *crickets*
Santorum: “I’m going to direct the Justice Department to enforce existing obscenity laws.”
Republicans and Democrats: SCOLD!!!
Why do you think the franchise was limited? It wasn’t out of cruelty, but in an attempt to limit the vote to those who have a stake in the game. Yes, excluding women and blacks was wrong, but I don’t see a particular moral problem with restricting the vote to property owners.
I read the CBO report and this is a little misleading. In one of four scenarios, 20 million fewer people would have health insurance. In one of the scenarios 3 milion more people would have non-government health insurance. In the other two scenarios the numbers are different but also negative.
What I find most ludicrous is that almost three years after passage, the experts in neither Washington nor in the industry can figure out what all this means or what it will all cost.
CBO Report
What it means to me as self-employed individual is that my health insurance premiums have more than doubled in the last two years… From $803.58 a quarter in 2010 to $1640.67 this year.
Frankly, 20 million, sounds like serious underestimation to me.
“I don’t see a particular moral problem with restricting the vote to property owners.”
I don’t think I would put it in moral terms, and the world was different those days(obviously), for example, little more than 100 years ago 80% of the entire population worked in agriculture, but I see problems with it in terms of representation and equality before the law.
I could entertain the idea of allowing only those who paid taxes to vote though…
Charles, if the CBO is reporting it as a worst-case scenario, I think it safe to assume it is really a best-case scenario.
“…put it in moral terms…”
Oh, but it is. It must be. I don’t think there’s any way around it.
This is a feature of a law which, in effect, consists mostly of “The Secretary shall…”, “The Secretary will…”, “The Secretary may…”.
The law will be whatever the HHS Secretary says it will be on a day to day basis. The relationship of the HHS Secretary to the universe of healthcare is the same as that which the Salafi Muslims have for Allah and the universe as a whole.
Sdferr, I was thinking in more constitutional grounds than moral grounds, IE, in no taxation without representation terms. You may still attach morality if you see it there.
The reason morality is always attached to politics is fundamental to the thing. Think of it as along the lines of Jeff’s analysis of speech production, where we simply can’t escape the presence of an originating agent. So also with politics and morality. Politics’ purpose is to achieve the good, whether through change or preservation. Morality is about doing the good. They’re inseparable, so far as I can see. Besides which, the actual historical arguments we see before us are simply couched in moral terms, so there’s no point attempting to “escape” them.
If politics’ purpose is to achieve the good, then yes, what is “good” is going to have to be defined. I’m not sure that’s always defined through morality though. Or perhaps I should say it’s often a subjective good, which doesn’t really fall into morality as I see it.
For example, capitol punishment. Both sides of the issue may have moral grounds, but politically, it isn’t instituted or barred on moral grounds, but by political process. Is the state that bars executions more moral than the ones that allow it? Politically, it’s an issue resolved through popular opinion, but morality isn’t determined by consensus.
Political process is moral process though, isn’t it (I’m uncertain whether there’s any use inserting a subjective/objective distinction into the examination of the question though, if it should happen to turn out there simply isn’t any such thing)? That is, all we’d do is push the question a little further away. That’s what the arguments are about. What is to be the moral order of politics in the first instance. I don’t think we do ourselves any favors attempting to put the issue off somewhere else.
Maybe I should come at the question from another angle? That is, as regards the good we have opinion, but not knowledge. Hence, the arguments. We aim to acquire knowledge about the good, yet the best we can seem to muster is an acknowledgment that we haven’t got knowledge of the good yet (fie!), i.e. the best we can do is to ascertain that we don’t know what’s most important to know (yikes!). So, we fight it out, peacefully, imposing on ourselves limits to our fights (if we’re smart that is: if we’re not smart, we enter into religious warfare), and in the exemplary case of the United States of America, impose limits on the powers of our government to impose morality upon us (because, we might say, we don’t know the good!).
“Political process is moral process though, isn’t it (I’m uncertain whether there’s any use inserting a subjective/objective distinction into the examination of the question though, if it should happen to turn out there simply isn’t any such thing)? “
Which political process? Isn’t that itself subjective? I mean, is a pure democracy a moral process? Depends on whether you are the three wolves or the one sheep voting what’s for dinner.
My employer will add approximately 35 people to this figure.
What is this subjective? Or, that is, what does subjective mean to you?
You said politics’ purpose is to achieve the good, and political process is moral process, I’m saying it depends on the political process, and good by what measure? I’m tempted to say you’re begging the question, but I suck at using that expression as bad as the petard one. ;-)
…what does subjective mean to you?
I see what you did there.
I was actually attempting to unbeg the question, or at least, had the idea that’s what is going on here.
“. . . to unbeg the question . . .”
But then, that isn’t to say there’s something unusual going on here, or that the good doesn’t always get smuggled in under cover of darkness, cause it does, and has. Everywhere, always. It’s just the way with the thing, and the source of the paradoxes it engenders. Our political problem is often simply to winkle that out and try to deal with our puzzlement.
In due honor to the birthday boy, or maybe better, Dad (261!), despite his protests to the contrary, a bit of his greatest stuff:
” What I find most ludicrous is that almost three years after passage, the experts in neither Washington nor in the industry can figure out what all this means or what it will all cost.”
Don’t worry. Once the election is over it will all become clear how much it “actually” costs as if by magic.
Jeff, I concur that we would be fortunate if that is as bad as it is.
I’m a health care plan administrator which gives me the exquisite privilege of sitting through forums of attorneys telling us what this all means every few months. I can’t begin to express the bewilderment of the professionals in the insurance industry trying to tell us poor suckers what we can and cannot do, must and must not pay, and my favorite — what the latest retroactive measures are in the implementation of the PPACA.
PPACA is a colossal Charlie Foxtrot and I remain convinced it is meant to destroy third party payers so that only a single payer plan will remain possible.
That was the plan all along.