Let me start by saying a Happy Birthday to the Obamacare Legislation. This was the single most cynical piece of governance ever to come out of Washington’s hallowed halls. There was arm twisting going on, kickbacks, bribes, thuggish tactics employed against anyone who spoke out in protest including a Tea Party member getting his finger bitten off in St. Louis, and left just a general sour taste in the mouths of many Americans. The law in question is in fact so bad, that even a good number of my liberal friends are against it.
One year later, where do we stand. Those large, evil corporations that the Socialists are protecting us from, have to a large extent been granted waivers from the expense of Obamacare. We small independent business owners, not so. We have to pay the increased expense of $10,000 per employee. For a fledgling business just starting out, this is often the difference between thriving and not even surviving. A company fighting for its survival, will probably not be taking the gamble to expand and hire. Meet Scott Womack, who through the Heritage Foundation, will give a better explanation for the whole mess.
The waivers are well over a thousand now, and have been granted exclusively to those organizations who were mostly on the sidelines acting as shills and cheerleaders for this sink hole of a law. Rationing of care has already begun. Several drugs are no longer available, and certain treatments are being denied based on a cost benefit ratio analysis.
Much ado was made about Sarah Palin’s use of the phrase, “death panels.” I watched in amusement as everybody missed the point of what Governor Palin was talking about. The assumption was that Sarah was speaking to the end of life counseling being offered under the plan. What Governor Palin was speaking to was the concept of bureaucratic panels making decisions on medical care based on Generally Accepted Accounting Principles rather than Medical Professionals making those decisions on what would be best for the patient. If you don’t believe our law would bring that about, meet Joseph Maraachli. His parents brought him to a hospital in Missouri after just such a panel ordered that he would not receive a relatively simple medical procedure to save his life in Ontario. The judge who ordered his death gave the parents a whole week to say their goodbyes to their baby. The decision was made solely based on economics, with not one medical fact being considered. I realize that Ontario is not our country, but we have been told for years how our medical system should look like Canada’s. Now that we have modeled our own system to theirs, and are moving in that direction, would it make sense to actually see what medical care in Canada is really like.
Read more about this at Investor’s Business Daily.
11 new taxes are going into effect over the next 4 years, and this boondoggle is already hundreds of Billions of dollars more expensive than we were told it was going to be. The CBO estimate was based entirely of fictional numbers, which are still being touted by a sycophantic media as though it were gospel. For those who haven’t been told yet, the CBO qualified their statement, by basically saying here is our report on the financial impact of this bill, which has almost no accuracy since there was no accuracy in the assumptions made to score the bill in the first place.
The first benefits of this law will not be received until well after the next Presidential election. With that being the case, why was it necessary to pass this bill so fast that no one was given ample time to actually read it? Beyond the fiscal mess it is creating, this bill removes huge swaths of our basic liberties and hands control of much of our daily living over to the executive branch. Even if you think President Obama and Secretary Sebilius are just aces, what about the President and Secretary elected 24 years from now. Personally, I want to be able to buy my kids a Happy Meal, which this new law has enabled the city of San Francisco to ban. Since everything we do in our daily lives has the possible impact of affecting our health, and costing the government money, kiss your personal liberties good bye.
Obama care is 1 year old now. By the time it turns two, I hope we will have the ability to take it off of life support, so that the rest of us have a chance.
Crossposted at Musings of a Mad Conservative.
UPDATE: This one was just too funny to not include in my continuing Obamacare rant. Apparently, Jon Tester believes that the best way to hold on to his Senate seat in November of 2012 is to claim that he was in fact not the 60th vote in favor of the Law, but only the less important 52nd vote. I’ll give some background for this update, as only about a quarter of the country will recognize what is happening. There are 23 Democrat Senators up for reelection in 2012. The NRSC is now running ads in each state calling the appropriate Senator the 60th and deciding vote for the Sink Hole of a Law. Since the Law in question needed each of the 60 votes to force cloture, then each vote was the deciding vote. Even though we have seen those loopy polls from PPP and Gallup showing that America is evenly divided on the issue, the internal polling of the Congress Critters in question is a far different story. The Senate Democrats are scurrying away from this thing like cockroaches exposed to light. Tester realizes that defending his vote would be certain death, so he instead is trying to downplay his vote’s importance. Good luck with that Jon. The NRSC has to be salivating over this debate scenario.
