Mitt Romney would seem to be the person who will benefit the most from the political demise of Obama. There’s no other Republican that ran in 2008 that has a proven record. While Romney has a track record of success in troubling situations he’s also saddled with RomneyCare.
The issue of health care wasn’t settled when Obama signed the bill into law yesterday. This is going to be hotly contested issue for years to come. That’s why the events in Massachusetts are going to be an important factor.
Like the bill that President Obama signed on Sunday, the 2006 Massachusetts plan was sold to voters on the now-familiar promise that it would reduce costs and lower unnecessary emergency room visits. That’s not what happened.
Since the bill became law, the state’s total direct health-care spending has increased by a remarkable 52 percent. Medicaid spending has gone from less than $6 billion a year to more the $9 billion. Many consumers have seen double-digit percentage increases in their premiums.
Even more striking, the 2006 law has done little to ease the burden on emergency rooms, a central goal of all heath care reform plans. A report by the Boston Globe found that in the first two years of the program, the state’s ER costs actually rose by 17 percent. “They said that ER visits would drop by 75 percent, and it hasn’t been even close to that,” said State Treasurer Tim Cahill, who is currently running for governor as an Independent. “It hasn’t changed people’s habits. It hasn’t been successful at getting people to use less expensive alternatives.”
Nothing about the problems of RomneyCare in Massachusetts should be surprising. This is the inevitable outcome of government intervention in a complex market. Politicians always overestimate the benefits and underestimate the costs. The question going forward is, will Romney defend his record in Massachusetts or will he have another “I’ve seen the light” moment?
There’s something to be said about using the states as the testing ground for reform; however, in the case of ObamaCare there are no useful success stories that we can reference. Health care is about to become more expensive.
For those scoring at home if ObamaCare doesn’t pass it’s because the Democrats in Washington insisted on making taxpayers pay for abortion. That’s right. There’s not one good thing you can say about a party committed to making taxpayers pay for the most divisive issue in the nation since slavery.
The party of “choice” doesn’t believe Americans should have a choice on guns, education or health care. The only real choice the left believes in is letting the State choose what to do with our lives.
There’s no new ground to make on abortion so I’m not going to delve into that topic; however, everyone agrees it’s a passionate subject. The American taxpayer shouldn’t have to pay for the procedure, but the Democrats have other ideas. If ObamaCare passes every Democrat running for election in a non-gerrymandered district is going to answer for this travesty.
According to a poll by Zogby 70% of Americans are against taxpayer-funded abortion. Republicans will be using this in elections for the next four years. What will the Democrats have to show for this partisan bill if they win? Obama has already endorsed infanticide, so I’m sure he’s not concerned, but the prospects for his reelection and his party are getting worse every day.
I received an email from one of my esteemed U.S. Senators the other day, Mark Udall. Mr. Udall’s email urged me to sign a petition telling credit card companies to “stop taking advantage of their customers.” In other words, to stop jacking up their rates in response to a credit card “reform” bill President Obama signed, which Udall co-sponsored.
I’m not a big fan of credit card companies, the bait-and-switch tactics they employ and the usurious rates they often charge, but I’m also a firm believer in caveat emptor. Apparently, our left-wing politicians are not very familiar with this versatile Latin phrase.
The progressive politician’s answer to everything is more government. Then, when government causes the inevitable litany of unintended consequences (rising credit card rates in this case), the government is “forced” to come back in and fix what it broke in the first place. Then, the “fix” is worse than the first one and I get to pay for it. Thanks a lot!
I sure wish this logic worked for me, like the time I hit a patch of ice and spun into the back of another car. I had a beauty of a dent in the passenger-side door. In progressive la-la land I could have magically fixed that dent by backing up and hitting that car again instead of taking it to a repair shop (I foolishly took it to a repair shop). Unfortunately, I’ve tried this approach before, usually with golf clubs, and it actually doesn’t work.
Progressives approach public policy as if they were Fonzie; you know, the lovable character from Happy Days who could make anything work just by slamming his fist on it, usually the juke box at Mel’s Diner. Unfortunately, Arthur Fonzarelli was a fictional character on a sitcom made in the ’70s and set in the ’50s. Fonzie’s magic touch does not translate to the real world, especially to government.
When progressives take the Fonzie approach, the hapless citizen gets saddled with a second-rate spin-off, like Joanie Loves Chachi.
Yours truly, Club Soda, happens to be one of those whom the White House and its fascist phalanx of Democratic Party machine drones have characterized as part of “the mob”. In reality, the vast majority of those showing up at town hall meetings to confront their “representatives” are average Americans expressing their Constitutional right to assemble peaceably and disagree with the direction those representatives are taking them.
So what if they’re encouraged by right-wing blogs and talk radio to take to the streets? How else do citizens mobilize en masse? When progressives do it, it’s called “community organizing,” but when conservatives do it they’re referred to as a “mob”. In reality, progressive community organizing means recruiting professional thugs, goons and bullies from unions and Soros-funded shadow groups with benign nom de plumes like Americans Coming Together (ACT).
As these community groups are brought together to help quell the popular uprising of ordinary Americans, you can almost hear Hedley Lamarr from Blazing Saddles: “I want rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists.”
What concerns many Americans is the surrender of political power from the local and state level to the Federal level. The more responsibility the Federal government takes for the individual, the less free that individual becomes.
The powers delegated to the Federal government are quite clear, and they basically boil down to national defense, infrastructure and interstate commerce. The 10th Amendment clearly states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, or prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
The entire concept of the Constitution was to provide the necessary cohesion to the Union not provided by the Articles of Confederation while maintaining the autonomy of the individual to pursue life, liberty and happiness with minimal Federal restraint. This is why we do not see an enumeration of “positive rights” in the Constitution, such as a “right” to health care or other creature comforts. Rather, the Constitution enumerates “negative rights,” or the freedom of the people from governmental encroachment on their individual lives and decisions.
Perhaps no one personifies the corruption, cronyism and condescension currently permeating the nation’s capitol than Barbara Boxer. Through Boxer, we are provided a window into the soul of an arrogant aristocracy that will happily trample on our freedoms to expand their power and influence. It is this arrogant exercise of power at the expense of the individual that is driving much of the dissent in America today.
Progressives complain bitterly about evil giant corporate conglomerates, and to some extent I agree with them. I simply hate having to deal with large corporations because I can never get anything done quickly and easily. I am not an individual to this corporation; I am simply a number in a vast sea of ones and zeroes. “Press One for English. Prense dos para Espanol. Press Three for this. Press Four for that. And so on and so forth until you hang up in disgust. Have a nice day!”
The point is that the larger and more remote any organization gets from its constituency, the less likely it is to have any care for the individual. And that’s the problem with yielding more power from the local and state level to the Federal level.
Do we seriously believe that a gigantic, centralized bureaucracy will be efficient, caring and, ultimately, just? If we do, we deserve what we get, which will ultimately be a huge corruptacracy that serves a mish-mash of powerful special interests and grievance-mongering groups living 30 years in the past, a.k.a., community organizers.
This is not “progressive”; it is positively regressive and de-evolutionary. Was the Soviet Union a success; a model to be emulated by future U.S. administrations? What did we learn from past collectivist/socialist/fascist/Marxist forms of government? We learned that concentrating power and wealth in a centralized government led to vast societal misery and poverty. The “people’s republics” were about people alright… the people in power.
John Edwards was right. There are two Americas. The problem is that those two Americas make up the constituency of his party. The very rich are attracted to the Democratic Party because they’re able to “do something” to help others without lifting a finger themselves. Plus, their wealth insulates them from the consequences “progressive” policies have on the average American.
The poor, meanwhile, become dependent on the government, which is the way government and the aristocracy prefers it. It helps ensure the perpetual power and wealth of those in power as the rest of us are forced into dependency by the policies of the powerful.
I happened across a Q&A in USA Today with Andrea Jung, Avon’s CEO. As you may already know, Avon sells cosmetics. But more importantly, Jung is a big supporter of “change”, particularly since the consequences of change are unlikely to affect her since she’s taken home about $36 million over the past five years.
“Without being a political pundit, each one of us has come into a leadership role knows that the first 100 days will be looked at. President Obama’s 100-day plan is pretty impressive. I think it’s a Wow 100-plus days. The administration is not operating from fear, it is trying to drive change for the future, and that’s a good thing,” Jung said.
Good lord. Jung’s missive about the first 100 days totally misses the mark. What the hell is a “Wow 100-plus days” anyway? You mean ramming trillions of dollars in unnecessary spending down our throats without giving anyone a chance to read the 500-lb. bill? You mean the litany of tax cheats and other ethically-challenged people Obama tried to foist on our system?
Then she has the nerve to say “the administration is not operating from fear…” Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel said it best: “You never want a serious crisis go to waste.” It is obvious the administration was operating from fear, and playing on the fears of the American people in order to implement its left-wing agenda.
Given this foolishness (and the response to her foolishness could fill volumes), how can you possibly trust anything else she says, whether it’s about politics or business? But again, Jung represents the new narcissistic aristocracy in America. When cap-and-trade and a new health care program goes down, Jung’s millions will shield her from the consequences.
When energy prices double and triple all in the name of reversing mythical, magical “global warming” (now called “climate change”) through cap-and-trade, Jung will continue to jet around the world, burning petrol like no tomorrow. Meanwhile, everyone else better figure out how to squeeze into those freaking clown cars, or add another two hours to their commute as they mount their bike for the 20-mile ride downtown. It’ll be like China, but without good Chinese food!
But it’s all worth it… this change that Jung is helping foster through her support. We’re all going to have to make adjustments. Well, maybe Jung won’t have to make any adjustments. I very much doubt that Jung will face the same health care system enjoyed by the average American. There will be no rationing, no interminable waiting lists, and no being subject to the whims of a faceless bureaucracy for Jung.
In Jung’s brave new world, everyone else must pay the penalty to make her feel good about “doing something”. Jung gave $30,800 to Obama’s campaign in 2008. Something tells me that if you can throw around $30,000 you’ll probably do just fine when the inflation, high interest rates, skyrocketing costs of fuel and health care, and all the other you-know-what hits the fan when the Obama administration’s runaway spending starts to pay dividends.
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