Tag Archives: Obamacare

RADICAL-IN-CHIEF – Chapter 10 – The Obama Administration

This post continues the series of chapter by chapter summations of the book Radical-In-Chief by Stanley Kurtz.

Chapter 10
The Obama Administration
The modern socialist movement in America has abandoned its open and militant ways of that were so evident in the sixties.  That approach might work to bring the sought after revolution and change in an impoverished nation but not in a democratic, free and prosperous country like the United States.  Socialist scholars like Saul Alinsky and Michael Harrington convinced other movement leaders a long time ago that the only workable strategy for transforming the United States into a Marxist socialist government is a combination of stealth and incremental advance.  That’s the course followed by Obama and his administration today.

Stealth was evident in the way the health care plan was handled.  The stakes were high because single payer health care would bring 16 % of the national economy under government control.  That was Obama’s real objective.  Every measure was taken to avoid scrutiny which is why there was such a rush to get the bill passed as rapidly as possible.  The “public option” originally proposed was designed to lead to single payer, government only, healthcare over time…  Obama denied the single payer objective claiming the public would always have a choice; the government would simply be offering an additional option in fair competition with private insurance companies.  It should be obvious to anyone that private industry must remain profitable to survive and cannot compete with government that, supported by taxpayers, can operate indefinitely at a loss.

Barack Obama ran his presidential election campaign on promises of a post-partisanship and an open style administration.  Once in office, it turned out to be quite the opposite.  He stirred controversy, for instance, by attacking the Fox News network, calling them illegitimate and attempting to bar them from press conferences to which the other networks were invited.  He attacked the Supreme Court while speaking as President of the United States before the entire Congress and to the entire nation by television.  These are not steps toward healing; they are overt acts of division.

Naive voters may think the increased partisan hostility is a failing.  But, to a trained community organizer it is an objective.  The generation of animosity and division is the ground work laid for the conditions that prepare people to accept, even demand change.

To a community organizer, polarization is a strategy.  Creating division is the first step in the path to transfer of power.

WHAT I WOULD DO IF I WERE ELECTED DICTATOR

One thing that annoyed my father to no end was people who dumped spoonfuls of sugar into their tea and never stirred it because that would make it too sweet. It’s something my uncle Eddy did all the time. Uncle Eddy is a story by himself but that will have to wait for another day. It will suffice for now that you to know Uncle Eddy was not my father’s brother. He was my mother’s brother, got it?

The sugar in tea thing was my father’s pet peeve. I am an apple that fell far enough from the tree to have peeves of my own. If I tell you all my peeves it will destroy my marriage. But I will share one — telephone poles.

In my acceptance speech I will vow to fight for enactment of a moratorium on telephone poles. What am I saying! If I were dictator I would have Obamapower, no need to ‘fight for’, I could just proclaim. Good. No new telephone poles; all new wiring goes underground. I am beginning to get giddy from the power already.
Unlike my predecessor, I am not very interested in changing the tides. Let them ebb and flow like they always have and keep the clams happy. Who am I to go up against Mother Nature, aka God?

Next up, the federal department of education. It’s gone. Gone back to the states. The federal government has no business dictating what they want taught to my kids. The teachers unions will not be happy because if a teacher doesn’t teach the teacher will be gone. Tenure — gone. Discipline will be back! I will put the teachers back in charge of the classroom. There is no higher calling than “teacher” and a teacher needs to have the authority that goes with the calling.

On to healthcare. Obamacare is gone. Not back to the states, just gone! The quality of healthcare in America is superb but the delivery system is horrible. I will fix the system without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. (Dictators can use as many clichés as they wish).

Tort law has to change. I considered Shakespeare’s advice in Henry VI — “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” Too harsh I thought, just a little bit too harsh. We do need to keep a few because there really is such a thing as medical malpractice. But I will change tort law and set doctors free to practice patient medicine, not legal defensive medicine.

Commercials for prescription drugs will not be allowed. If I need a drug my doctor will prescribe it. Who am I to become my own physician by studying an advertisement?

Everyone will have to make a co-pay. Nothing creates greater demand and more waste than the words “It’s free.” I will establish clinics, good clinics, for the truly indigent and uninsured. Emergency rooms will be for emergencies when I am dictator.
I will close the southern border with modern technology, not wire and bricks. Penalties for crossing will be severe. Illegal immigrants who commit felonies will be sent back post- haste. But what’s done is done and cannot be undone. There are many good people here who took advantage of our laxities to make a better home for themselves in a better land. I will offer them a citizenship status where the only threat of deportation will be a criminal conviction. They can start working “on the books” and those who hire them will become law abiding citizens once again.

And when I become dictator you will still be able to buy those curly bulbs, but only if you want to.

GOVERNMENT-ONLY HEALTHCARE

As bad as Obamacare appears to be, it is even worse than it seems.  Passage of the Affordable Care Act was not the completion of a plan, it was the first step, a Trojan horse.  Read what Rick Unger had to say in Forbes on Dec 2, 2011.  Mr. Unger is not a Tea Party activist lamenting the coming end of patient controlled health care and Obama’s false promise of Choice.  Unger is a firm supporter of Obamacare.  He is not lamenting the end of private health care insurance; he is confirming and applauding it.

This is the true ‘bomb’ contained in Obamacare and the one item that will have more impact on the future of how medical care is paid for in this country than anything we’ve seen in quite some time.  Indeed, it is this aspect of the law that represents the true ‘death panel’ found in Obamacare—but not one that is going to lead to the death of American consumers. Rather, the medical loss ratio will, ultimately, lead to the death of large parts of the private, for-profit health insurance industry.

Why? Because there is absolutely no way for-profit health insurers are going to be able to learn how to get by and still make a profit while being forced to spend at least 80 percent of their receipts providing their customers with the coverage for which they paid.

In other words, the new law caps insurance company gross profit from insurance operations at 20%.  What a company manages to net out of that is up to them.  Unger acknowledges that it may not be enough to survive and he cries halleluiah to that!  The end of private insurance.

Today, [Dec 2, 2011] the Department of Health & Human Services issues the rules of what insurer expenditures will—and will not—qualify as a medical expense for purposes of meeting the requirement.

Not a chance-and they know it. Indeed, we are already seeing the parent companies who own these insurance operations fleeing into other types of investments. They know what we should all know – we are now on an inescapable path to a single-payer system for most Americans and thank goodness for it.

Note that it is the Department of Health & Human Services that sets the rules.  That means HHS can change the rules if their objective is not being met.  An act of Congress is not required.  SOTUS says Obamacare is a tax.  Taxation without representation, anyone?

If you thought that the Obama Administration chickened out on pushing the nation in the direction of universal health care for everyone, today is the day you begin to understand that the reality is quite the contrary. ~ Unger

As you heard Barney Frank and Barack Obama say in the video, single payer (government only) coverage is the ultimate goal.  As you will learn if you follow our upcoming coverage of the book Radical-In-Chief, the progressive’s strategy is incremental stealth.  If single payer is the goal, debate over percentages is pointless.  No private enterprise that needs a profit to survive can compete with a government that doesn’t.

The only way to stop government-only health care is to stop Barack Obama.  Come November, don’t let you vote go to waste.

WINNERS AND/OR LOSERS OF THE SOTUS DECISION, MAYBE

Justice Roberts’ decision is not controversial only because it let Obamacare stand, there is also controversy about the consequences of the decision going forward.  Some good arguments have been given claiming at least partial victory or defeat for both the left and the right in the near and in the long term.  There is also a logical opinion that the court has passed the buck by returning the decision to the voters.

One common line of thought is that the decision put a cap on the lefts widespread abuse of the Interstate Commerce Clause to justify all manner of expansion of federal powers.  Mark, an attorney commenting on our earlier post takes a contrary view.  In his opinion an even wider door was opened to Constitutional erosion by finding the Affordable Care Act can stand on the basis of the federal governments unquestioned right to tax.

Justice Ginsburg adds to the ‘we won but we lost’ confusion by taking the unusual, albeit not unprecedented step of writing a dissent against a decision she voted in favor of.

Charles Krauthammer declares Justice Roberts’ action was brilliant.  Rush Limbaugh swears it was stupid.  Mitt Romney vows to make the repeal of Obama care the immediate focus of his presidency and he may have the House and the Senate with him to do it.  Nancy Pelosi says now it’s cinched; the Affordable Care Act is here to stay.

If it turns out that Obamacare is repealed in the next Congress, it will mean the right was the ultimate winner of the Supreme Court’s decision.  If Obama is re-elected it will mean the left was the winner.  If Obamacare is repealed and replaced by health care reform that preserves choice and quality and broadens demographic coverage at an honestly affordable price, the people and the right will have won.  The left will have lost because health care users will have maintained control of their own destiny and not surrendered to the specter of socialized medicine.

We just have to wait.

OBAMACARE IS IN! WHAT’S NEXT?

The libs get excited, rightly so.  Obama’s ratings get a blip up, but will they hold?  The House will vote on a bill to repeal Obamacare, but it won’t pass the Senate.  Karl Rove takes his wife out for a beer —  no champagne and caviar tonight.

Now the ball is in Romney’s court.  On the Tuesday before Thursday’s announcement of the Supreme Court’s decision Romney said “If it is deemed to stand, then I’ll tell you one thing: We’re going to have to have a president, and I’m that one, that’s going to get rid of Obamacare.  We’re going to stop it on Day 1.”  To accomplish that Republicans will need to win control of the Senate as well as the presidency.  If they do, then expect some form of repeal and replacement.

The Supreme Court’s decision that the law is constitutional is not an endorsement of its advisability, only a decision that it is legal.  Chief Justice Robert’s opinion was explicit about that.  Obamacare will rival jobs and the economy as the number one issue between now and November.  That is not a plus for Republicans.

On a brighter note a greater threat was averted.  During the debate prior to the Bill becoming law, the President emphatically denied the mandate was a tax.  Coming before the court, however, the administration’s attorneys argued the opposite; that the mandate is a tax.  The court agreed, more or less, more more than less.  The opinion read that the mandate ‘could be’ seen as a tax, in which case it ‘would be’ constitutional.  If the court had ruled that Obamacare could stand under Commerce Clause, such a decision would have gutted the Constitution setting a precedent that almost anything would be allowed under the clause.

Rumors are abounding that a deal was made or that Roberts bent to intimidation.  I don’t think we have sunk that low.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS – 3/30/12

A race baiting former Black Panther wears a hoodie on the floor of Congress in defiance of the rules of the House of Representatives.  He happened to be a Democratic Congressman.

Obama failed to respond in any form to any of three letters from parents of sons who were murdered in cold blood while visiting America.  It happens the victims were (1) British, (2) white and (3) their parents don’t vote in U.S. elections.  It also happens to be that the killer was black.

President Barack Obama’s budget proposal was rejected by the House.  It happens that not even one Democrat voted in favor of Barack Obama’s budget.

IRS seeks 4,000 agents, $303 million for Obamacare.” says the headline in the Washington Examiner.  What is the IRS going to audit, pray tell?  Whether or not you smoke?

John Hinderaker, well known attorney and co-founder of the Power Line blog wonders how the federal government can “force you into a government-run health care system; force you to pay for your neighbor’s health care; make you contract with physicians and hospitals exclusively on terms dictated by the government; and, perhaps, make it a crime for you to procure health care for your family outside of the government’s system”.

These are just some random observations for just one day.

OBAMA DENOUNCES PUBLIC MANDATE

In case you missed it ….

The Republican Party is preparing a collection of juxtaposed videos for TV commercials to be shown during the national campaign.  Thanks to Al Gore for giving the internet to the people, the Blogosphere is already suspending the Democrat contender from his own petard.

IS CARVILLE ADMITTING OBAMACARE IS AN ALBATROSS FOR THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY?

If the Supreme Court overturns Obamacare “I think this will be the best thing that has ever happened to the Democratic Party,” according to Democratic strategist James Carville.  Puzzled?  Here’s his reasoning,

“You know, what the Democrats are going to say, and it is completely justified, ‘We tried, we did something, go see a 5-4 Supreme Court majority’.”

Carville … predicted health care costs will only increase in the future, in which case Republicans will be to blame for leading the drive to expel a federal program designed to help Americans cover those costs. (CNN)

“Then the Republican Party will own the healthcare system for the foreseeable future. And I really believe that. That is not spin,” Carville said.

Pass a bad law and then root for it to be repealed so you can blame the other party for the mess you created.  Good plan, Mr. Democratic Strategist.

Comments coming from Supreme Court Justices in response to Obama’s Solicitor General have been a riot.  Watching the Court hasn’t been this much fun since the Justices overturned Roosevelt’s NRA (Google it).

MORE ON THE CATHOLIC FLAP

Professor Paul Rahe minces no words in writing More Than a Touch of Malice, an article you can read at Ricochet.  He adds his wisdom to the argument that, far from committing a gaffe, Obama’s riling of the Catholic Church was a deliberate and well thought out step taken to define and solidify his base.

In 2008, when he first ran for the Presidency, Barack Obama posed as a moderate most of the time.  This time, he is openly running as a radical. His aim is to win a mandate for the fundamental transformation of the United States that he promised in passing on the eve of his election four years ago and that he promised again when he called his administration The New Foundation.

In the process, he intends to reshape the Democratic coalition – to bring the old hypocrisy to an end, to eliminate those who stand in the way of the final consolidation of the administrative entitlements state, to drive out the faithful Catholics once and for all, to jettison the white working class, and to build a new American regime on a coalition of  highly educated upper-middle class whites, feminists, African-Americans, Hispanics, illegal immigrants, and those belonging to the public-sector unions. To Americans outside this coalition, he intends to show no mercy.

Saul Alinsky, author of Rules for Radicals, taught that transforming a nation with a prosperous middle class like the United States into a Marxist socialist society could only be accomplished if approached as a three act play:

Act I – join the crowd, gain respect, acceptance and legitimacy.

Act II – develop the theme, spread discontent, and build a following for Act III

Act III – the act of final transformation which Alinsky says will of necessity, be violent.

Act I is complete.  The Occupy movement opened Act II; there is ample discontent.  It only needs to be channeled, fanned and kept alive.  “Those damned Regressives, now they want to take away your sex life”.  That will do it.  That’s the Catholic flap.

Act III…, there will be no Act III; we will see to that in November.  But if there were, the curtain would open in January with an Inauguration Proclamation declaring, “I, Barack Hussein Obama, am the way, the truth and the light; there is no way out of this mess but by me”.  And America would be on the road to becoming a Marxist Socialist society.

Bob B

WILL THE CATHOLIC FLAP COST OBAMA THE ELECTION?

The Catholic outrage could cost Obama the election.  But Obama doesn’t believe it will or he would not have taken the stance he did.  If there is one thing the President knows well, it is the art of agitation, how to create it, how to use it as a tool for accomplishing an objective and even how to deal with it if it turns negative to your cause.  The role of a community organizer could be summed up in three words – agitate, intimidate, mediate.  You remember, do you not, that in the primaries for 2008, Obama cited his organizing experience as a reason why Democrats should choose him over Hillary Clinton.  Politics is his profession; agitation is his method; don’t sell him short.

The Catholic demographic is heavily comprised of white middle class traditional, Truman/JFK style Democrats.  They are the tradesman, the small business entrepreneurs, the salt-of-the-earth people, proud to be American and proud of their self sufficiency and loyal to their church.  This demographic, once a stalwart of the Democratic Party, has been migrating away in recent decades.

To voters, politics is all about choosing the best people to govern them.  To a politician, politics is all about strategy and strategies are subject to change over time.  Last November, the New York Times wrote:

For decades, Democrats have suffered continuous and increasingly severe losses among white voters. But preparations by Democratic operatives for the 2012 election make it clear for the first time that the party will explicitly abandon the white working class.

Catholic Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh put it this way,

“The Obama administration has just told the Catholics of the United States, ‘To Hell with you!’ There is no other way to put it. To Hell with your religious beliefs. To Hell with your religious liberty. To Hell with your freedom of conscience.”

The far left has always felt contempt for the church, any church.  With the advent of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid trinity the Democratic Party’s policies and tactics are those of the far left.  A great many of the Democrat electorate have not yet realized that their party has left them.  This is a wake-up call for the Catholic Church.