Posted by
Vansword on Tuesday, October 27, 2009 2:00:21 PM
In the increasingly complicated healthcare reform game, the truth of costs, taxes, and government regulations are mixed with absurd Orwellian rhetoric and a magician's sleight of hand. It's hard to follow the con men's hands as they push those three shells around the table. Senators Harry Reid and Chuck Shumer could find gainful employment as street hustlers. Reid thinks that he can just attach the promise that states may opt-out of a government insurance plan onto his bill and no one, moderate Dems or American citizens, will be any the wiser.
Schumer continually looks for ways to stick it to a freedom-loving, capitalistic public. He recently said he thought that the pay czar should extend salary cuts to all private business executives. He'll vote for anything that will sneak government-run healthcare into law. He knows, as do we all, that once the laws are in place, the states will be pressured, politically, economically and every which way until they relent and accept the inevitable.
House Speaker Pelosi could be Big Brother's communication director in the novel, 1984! With reference to the Obama administration allowing Bush tax cuts to expire she said, "That wasn't a tax increase....it is eliminating a tax decrease that was there... " Now she says they need to rename the public option, again! First it was called government-run healthcare; next, they dubbed it non-profit cooperatives; then, came the moniker of public option. Lately, they fell upon the idea that it would really sound better if they threw a pretend bone to those skeptics who are afraid of government involvement by terming health reform, the opt-out plan. Now, Pelosi is convinced that Americans will swallow the whole idea if only they rename it the consumer option.
Her underestimation of Americans' intelligence is surpassed only by the size of those chunky necklaces she wears! She should be crowned the Queen of Doublespeak and sit beside the White Queen in Wonderland instead of behind the big desk down front in the House Chamber! She hasn't got a clue about the minds of the people she so passionately claims to represent-those poor souls who so desperately need health insurance for whom she believes she is some kind of savior!
The idea that individual states could opt-out of any government health legislation is attractive only on the Congressional parchment on which it appears, and then, only momentarily. Reid and his Democrat contingency have not made the exact details of this so-called opt-out clause available to anyone, to their Republican counterparts or to the constituencies who elected them. If no one is going to let every Congressman read the entire bill or post it on the internet for all to see, where are the guarantees of such a state perogative? Are we to trust that the same government that treats Americans like bullies for demanding their right to information, will suddenly be trustworthy and not include penalities for states who opt-out?
Opting-out is itself not a magic pill. The way the clause is set up now, even if states opt-out of the government-run plan, individual citizens would still be footing the tax bill for lower income medical subsidies. They would be paying twice. So much for Barack Obama's promise as a candidate that he would not raise taxes on the middle class. Not only would people have to pay for their own insurance, they'd be paying for healthcare for a sea of deadbeats as well!
Mark my words, there will be millions of the welfare ilk, who will be lining up for medical subsidies in their luxury SUVs, wearing Vera Wang jewelry with cellular earbuds attached to the side of their heads. Truth be told, there are many who squander their money on luxuries they are in no real position to afford-then complain that they can't afford health insurance! Budgeting their finances and living within their means is a reality they are incapable of facing.
Under Reid's plan, states could decide with gubernatorial decree, legislative law or voter referendums if they want to leave the federal insurance plan. People frightened by the spectre of high tax penalities for not carrying insurance might be inclined to vote against a referendum. The government is more than well aware that the lazy uninsured will look no further than to them for their insurance needs. One only has to think for a second to understand the political consequences that might ensue for a governor or state assembly who decides to opt-out without public consent. For that reason, the map of states who would opt-out of the Democrats' plan, will likely follow the traditional partisan red and blue.
Call it the public option, call it the consumer option, call it a common sense black hole, no matter! It's the same old scheme to let the federal government get its grimy little hands on the intermost sanctum of a citizen's life-his personal physical well-being.