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THE OBAMACARE RATIONING RANT
The Supreme Court recently concluded three days of hearings to consider the constitutionality or lack thereof of the Affordable Care Act of 2010. The government’s spokesman or advocate, if you will, did not fare particularly well as he hemmed, hawed, and herrumphed in his at times seemingly incoherent and nonsensical answers to the Justices’ questions and missives. He looked and sounded like he was somewhere between angry and confused as he found himself repeatedly wedged in between the old rock and a hard place. He seemed to be doing his damndest to explain and defend this monstrosity that has come to be called Obamacare but I got the distinct impression that his heart wasn’t really in it. The poor Bastard seemed at quite a loss to put his best foot forward while being grilled by some of those Justices. It’s not all that difficult to understand because any attempt to defend something that is monumentally and patently indefensible is a task that can only be termed as Herculean. Any attempt to do so only serves to make the defender look foolish at best and a flat out liar at worst. Being the good and loyal “soldier” that he is, he took one for the team, gallantly and willingly threw himself on his sword, and went down with the ship.
The fact that the damned health care law is obviously and grotesquely unconstitutional, however, is absolutely no guarantee that the Supreme Court will, as it should, strike it down. There is, after all, no appeal once that august body renders its decision and it may very well remain the law of the land regardless of the will of the American people. When the bill was being discussed and debated, an overwhelming number of us never wanted to see it become law and even today most Americans are absolutely in favor of repealing it. For example, the damned thing is a clear and complete violation of the Constitution’s Commerce Clause and if not struck down will permanently and completely alter the relationship between the governed and those who govern in our country. No President or leader of any kind can force or coerce us into purchasing a product or service we do not wish to have. No where in the Constitution is that kind of megalomaniacal power stated or implied. This is simply not supposed to have any place or standing in our representative republic. This would absolutely destroy liberty and freedom in America like nothing we have ever seen or even imagined. It would change this nation in ways that are not fathomable to most of us and it’s not something that many folks thought we’d ever have to contemplate let alone face as an accomplished fact.
If we are forced to accept government run and controlled health care, what else do you suppose might be in the offing? I know, for example, that our Socialist-in-Chief is totally enamored of such toys as the electric automobile and has touted them as one of his weapons in his phony war to protect and save the environment. While he may champion these things, the American people – the consumer – certainly and emphatically do not. They are very expensive, inefficient, and in fact unreliable. They are also, from what I’ve been told, extremely uncomfortable and get a whopping forty miles to the charge. Last year I believe approximately 7,000 of these boondoggles were purchased and the largest single buyer was our own government! Nobody wanted the damned things and the American car buyer is voting with his dollars. But the Bamster’s heart remains untroubled and if he dictates that we will be forced into vehicles that we don’t want then so be it! Impossible you say? I never thought I’d see the day come when Americans would literally be forced to purchase government mandated and controlled health care and yet if the law is not overturned that day will have arrived. Why not the same as it relates to something like the Chevy Volt?
Our limited representative government was never intended or designed to interfere in ways like this in the daily lives of American citizens. This kind of intrusive, heavy-handed micromanagement of life in this country was and is expressly forbidden by the Founding Fathers because they understood that in the end government is about nothing but power and control at the expense and to the detriment of the citizenry. Our Founding Documents and especially the Bill of Rights explicitly denies this kind of all encompassing and overbearing reach by those we elected to govern and provide wise, faithful, and vigilant guardianship of our hard-fought for and won liberty. Suffice it to say, that grand vision has been completely and perhaps irrevocably shattered and if El Destructo is once more elected the America we know and love is forever doomed and destroyed!
You think that this is just too much of a stretch and that those of us who ardently feel this way are displaying something between full-blown hysteria and rabid paranoia? Let’s go back, shall we, to the topic of Obamacare. With the passage of that Socialist bill into law, we effectively surrendered one-sixth of our economy to the gentle auspices of the Federal Government. No freedom loving, independent American should be the least bit sanguine about that new reality for it constitutes nothing less than a direct and brutal full frontal attack on our liberty and that is no overstatement or exaggeration. Can you think of any aspect of life, even the most routine daily and mundane activities, that in some manner, shape, or form can’t be either directly or indirectly linked to the concepts of health and health care? Well, maybe you can but I guarantee that Socialists absolutely cannot! Obama and the Boys are in fact Socialists and if you have difficulty wrapping your mind around that concept you simply don’t understand or comprehend the man’s worldview, his literal hatred for the United States as envisioned by our Founders and presently constituted, or how much he loathes and despises Free Market Capitalism! You just don’t get it and it’s probably because you don’t want to. Don’t feel alone. There are simply millions upon millions of Americans who just can’t come to grips with the fact and idea that we have elected as our President, the leader of the free world, someone who actually holds these views about the greatest nation God ever gave mankind! It simply doesn’t compute does it?
Unfortunately, that is exactly the case and this Socialist “Sombitch” has yet another powerful weapon in his arsenal with which he can dismantle and destroy our traditions, institutions, and way of life. Yup, that’s what Obamacare is essentially designed to accomplish. It’s got absolutely nothing at all to do with the state of your health, the quality and availability of services, or the efficiency or effectiveness of health care in the United States. Instead, it has everything to do with power, control, and a severe loss of choice and liberty. Government dictated health care constitutes nothing less than a monopoly and monopoly always destroys freedom. Additionally, under monopoly the quality of products and services always declines drastically while the price is driven up beyond the ability of most to pay it. The lack of competition – which is exactly what Obamacare means – always and severely harms the consumer regardless of the product or service in question. From health care to sporting goods to food and drink and anything else you can think of monopoly by definition imposes a loss of individual autonomy, choice, and freedom.
Once Americans accept government controlled health care, what other areas of our lives will the Fearless Leader next invade and despoil? Who knows for sure but you can bet the family jewels that Obamacare constitutes merely the opening gambit in his head-long rush to strip away our freedom for then literally no area of life is out of bounds or off limits to the Dictator Wannabe and his modern day Storm Troopers. This guy makes even those ancient Khan Boys look enlightened and benign! Can, for example, such activities and past times like sports be somehow tied to the entire concept of health care? Can they somehow be construed as a threat to the health of American citizens and thus be brought under the strict control and scrutiny of Big Brother and his freedom destroying Minions?
Of course they can. There are always a wide range of injuries associated with such things as football, baseball, hockey, and soccer. This is considered an assumed risk of these games which is a price to be paid and expected from the amateur to professional levels. We have entire professions such as sports medicine and physical therapy devoted exclusively to mending the broken and injured bodies of those who participate in them. Don’t these and other such activities pose at least the potential for serious health risks to those who partake of them? Absolutely, and thus they can become targets of the Obamacare Crowd!
Think of the potential threats to our health involved in such routine and mundane experiences as preparing the family’s evening repast. You know, dinner. Talk about the easy availability of lethal weapons like sharpened knives, broken shards of glass and china, or the ever-present and looming health risks posed by tainted or improperly prepared meat and fish. I’m tellin’ ya, the kitchen is just as dangerous to our health as is a loaded .45 with a hair trigger! Maybe one day under the auspices of Obamacare we’ll be forced to dine in only certified government dining facilities where meals can only be prepared by government approved food preparation technicians in order to protect us from ourselves!
If you think this is merely the ranting and raving of a completely paranoid and out of control conspiracy nut, well you might be right. But if you can’t fathom even the most minute possibility of something like this occurring given the direction our country has been taking for decades then you are simply not capable of understanding the strange things that go on in the minds of our statist, Socialist, and collectivist friends on the Far Left! If nothing else then, realize – as Rush Limbaugh is so fond of saying – I’m merely illustrating the absurd by employing absurdity! Care to consider but one more outlandish absurdity? Maybe our Statist-in-Chief will one day get it into his head that the sports fishing industry falls under the purview of health and health care and that activity should by all means be banned to the general public. Right, just how stupid can I get here? Really? Just read the Obama Fishing Ban Rant of April 13, 2011 and then tell me just how off-base I am.
Let’s suppose for a moment that the Obamacare debacle remains in place when the Supreme Court’s verdict is rendered in June. As horrific a thought as that is, let’s look at just how drastically and negatively it will change life in the United States. Up until now, health and health care have been literally a sacred trust between patient and doctor. It has been an extremely personal matter between care provider and care consumer. No one and certainly no outside agency or party must ever disturb or disrupt that delicate, sensitive, and ever-so private relationship. It’s just one of the ways in which our system of health and health care are so far and away above what exists on the rest of the planet. Well, under Obamacare that’s all finished, over, kaput, and through! It institutionalizes, codifies, and makes legal the God awful and abhorrent concept and reality of rationing and depersonalizing one’s relationship with the entire medical profession. Rationing by government is not something willingly accepted even when done in the name of national emergency like World War ll. It simply goes against the grain, so to speak, and violates sacred American traditions like choice and freedom. We Americans thoroughly and intensely dislike and resist these kinds of restrictions when imposed by government mandate or fiat. Just look at the black markets that sprang up during the Second World War for commodities like sugar and gasoline. Some have maintained that we are simply too freedom-loving and independent to merely quietly sit back and put up with things like rationing. Others feel that we as a people are just too damned cantankerous, stubborn, and ornery to put up with something as drastic as rationing. Whatever the reason, it certainly rubs us the wrong way.(see related video)
Yet rationing is a major component of Obamacare that is absolutely undeniable unless one is a thorough and complete Obama-file. It exists, it’s a reality, and the Far Left has successfully inserted a huge element of Socialism and government control into the extremely personal and private relationship between doctor and patient. This exists all over Western Europe where socialized medicine is the accepted norm. It has never been the case in the United States of America and goes against virtually all of our values, traditions, and our heritage. It strips citizens of all vestiges of choice and freedom in something as crucial as our health. This represents not merely the fabled “slippery slope” but rather is more akin to being thrown off a cliff! It’s a complete reversal and denial of everything and anything this country stands for and it literally shreds the Constitution into meaningless bits of confetti! It destroys the very meaning of America and nothing like it had ever been even imagined by our Founding Fathers all those years ago.(see related video)
Remember how Sarah Palin was so mocked, ridiculed, and scorned when she brought up the concept of “death panels” that would become a reality of American life should Obamacare ever become the law of the land? Sure you do. The woman was excoriated and made the butt of countless tasteless and humorless jokes by so-called pundits and Far Left comedians. She was brutally and shamelessly humiliated and her family suffered right along with her. Well, it turns out that she was dead-on accurate and a thousand percent correct! The death panels are here and they pose a direct threat to you and those you hold dear, especially our senior citizens. Unless this health care law is completely and utterly repealed and struck down in its entirety life and death as we have always understood them will be forever altered in the United States. Both will come under the strict and harsh scrutiny of an even more powerful and centralized government than any of us ever imagined possible. Life and death decisions will no longer be the domain of ourselves, our families, and our medical professionals. Instead, government and its beaurocrats would become the ultimate arbiters of who gets treated and for what. Does that sound like America to you? Me either.
Of course, in the official language of Obamacare you will not find the term death panels. That would simply be too open and honest for our Dissembler-in-Chief to employ. No where in the law can you read about the stark reality in bracing and chilling terms that your demise will be debated upon and decided by uninterested and uncaring FUCKING beaurocrats. Let’s say for example, that you have recently been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness like cancer. After you pick your stomach up off the floor and get your heart out of your mouth, you and your doctor along with your family decide upon the best form of treatment and care most appropriate for your particular malady. Not anymore. A panel of “experts” in the employ of government will make these kinds of life and death decisions for you. You and your doctor will not even be part of the equation and family members certainly not need apply!
Out will come the actuarial tables, the charts and calculators. They will assess the quality of your life up until the point of diagnosis, how much longer you are LIKELY to live, the quality of the rest of your life, and how much you can still contribute to our nation’s well-being in the form of taxes to justify the government deciding to provide whatever life-saving and expensive care you will need to keep you breathing! Sound like America to you? Yeah, me either. No, you say, not here in the United States. That can’t be – but it is and the Bamster openly admitted it at one of his town hall meetings just a few years back. A woman explained that her mother at the age of one hundred needed a pacemaker installed but doctors told her that Mom was too old and frail and they refused to perform the necessary life saving procedure. The woman responded by noting that her mother had always displayed an obvious zest for life and that the old woman was not a burden to anyone. No good, the medico’s wouldn’t go for it.
She finally found a doctor who was utterly impressed by the old gal, her attitude, and her mental awareness and he went ahead with the operation, installed the device and by the time of the town hall meeting she had reached the “youthful” age of 105 and was doing quite well, thank you very much! The woman asked our Socialist-in-Chief whether her Mom would have received the same care and concern under Obamacare? His answer was basically a chilling, flat out no. He said in his best professorial tone that at times one must forego the operation and opt for the good old pain pills! Yeah, folks, he really said that and never once apologized for it.
According to Obamacare, rationing will be implemented via a euphemism known as the Independent Advisory Board (IPAB) which would consist of, “a panel of 15 unelected bureaucrats empowered to make cuts to Medicare when spending exceeds targeted growth rates (http://dailycaller.com).” Well, let’s see, does that really sound all that much like rationing? Stay with it for the, “IPAB will essentially mean rationed care for our nation’s seniors.” Additionally, “The 15 officials who will make up the board will not only be empowered to make billions of dollars worth of cuts to Medicare every year, but will be required to do so when spending exceeds targeted rates.” How does that sound so far? An unelected board with, as far as I can tell, nary a health care professional appointed to it will be able to drastically and arbitrarily make drastic cuts to the health care provided to Gramps and Grammy! This is an example of what might be termed economic rationing. After all, if particular services lose their funding they obviously will not and cannot be provided. A loss of service always reduces the available choices that exist and drives up the costs of those that remain.
Not only will available services become more and more scarce but so too the health professionals that traditionally provide them. There are now increasing numbers of doctors that are refusing to accept any new Medicare patients to their practices. Is it that they simply don’t like elderly sick people? Of course not. Rather, “the board is expected to focus on minimizing payments provided to doctors who serve Medicare patients.” As payments to doctors are cut it becomes, “no longer financially viable for many physicians to serve Medicare patients as it is, and such cuts would exacerbate a Medicare-doctors shortage that is already affecting patients’ access to care throughout the country.” How does that sound for rationing? This, however, constitutes a mere baby-step in Obama’s Socialist health care prescription. The article concludes that while, “this form of rationing would most certainly be harmful to patients who need dependable doctors, a far worse form of rationing would be close behind. For example, IPAB may eventually be allowed to resort to Great Britain’s chosen rationing methods and refuse to provide certain effective treatment to patients who need them based on costs and patients’ remaining quality adjusted life years.” The author of the piece seems, then, to hold out at least some hope that it won’t come to this and we’ll perhaps be able to save ourselves from this fate which would constitute but one more nail in America’s coffin! I am not nearly as optimistic.
If one looks carefully at those nations that have long histories with Socialism, it is more then obvious that once government becomes even slightly involved in running large segments of a country’s economic activity it ends up in a relatively short period completely regulating all economic activities of a population. This is a given in any nation that is run exclusively from the top down rather than having ideas, decisions, and policies percolating up from the people to the powers that be. America, in case you have missed it, has become just such a country since at least when FDR unleashed his own personal Reign of Terror on us and it continues unabated with the Obama administration. This ultra-Liberal mutt and his cohorts have obviously inserted massive doses of government control over our health and health care but this is only his latest foray into his ongoing efforts to destroy our nation.
He has virtually destroyed any opportunity for us to achieve anything even remotely approaching the goal of energy independence. We can’t even go after our own vast and abundant natural resources and he has openly and publicly declared that he will absolutely destroy the coal industry. Our automobile industry, once the envy of the world, has come under massive and intrusive government control as can be truthfully asserted about our financial industry. Directly due to his interference and his support for debacles like “Freddie” and “Fannie” our once highly productive housing industry is in the crapper. All of this and more can be laid directly at his feet and thus so can our frightening and appalling unemployment figures. While certainly, former Presidents must share some of the blame for our current sorry state of affairs, none of them has done the utter and devastating damage as our Socialist-in-Chief has purposely and premeditatedly wrought on this country. Hell, all by his lonesome he has added five TRILLION dollars to our deficit!
The point here is that as the government asserts more and more control over major areas of our lives, freedom and liberty are squeezed out and that’s always the case. In all of the economic spheres stated above, rationing always becomes a harsh and stark reality and a cold new fact of our existence in 21st Century America. Gas prices, for example, will absolutely smash the five dollar per gallon ceiling this summer. Fewer and fewer folks can roll up to the pump and say the simple phrase, “filler up!” More and more Americans cannot blithely and without considering economic consequences throw fifty, seventy, or eighty bucks at a time into our gas tanks! Folks, this is rationing and it is not merely self-imposed by the realities of our own economic situations. It is being crammed down our gullets by the deliberate and debilitating effects of El Jefe’s negative or nonexistent energy plans and policies. What the Hell did the Brother-in-Chief think would happen to the price of gas when he single-handedly nixed the Keystone Pipeline? What about all of the employment possibilities that would have become realities had he allowed the damned thing to be built!?!
He damned well knew the consequences and they exactly fit his central template of destroying our nation! Have you noticed what’s happening to the price of food at your local supermarket? Of course you have. As the price of our victuals rise we are forced to ration the quantity and quality of our purchases of those necessary commodities. Once again, because of government policy we cannot buy more and more of the items we require and desire. How many Americans, for example, are having a tough time heating their homes in the winter because of this guy’s interference in our Free Market Capitalist system? How many of us fly far less frequently or simply stop taking those vacations we love? Rationing has become a normal albeit loathsome aspect of our national existence. Why should we expect, then, any different outcome when it comes to something as important as our health and health care? Exactly, we shouldn’t!
An article entitled, “Government-Run Health Care Always Becomes Rationed Health Care (www.mccl.org)!” recognizes that, “there are a number of people advocating a massive overhaul of our state and national systems to provide so-called universal health care.” The piece correctly points out that there, “is no instance in which a government has run a health care program more efficiently than the private sector. The only way universal health care can adequately address rising health care costs is by limiting available care,” and that, “rationing of care is not an acceptable health care delivery principle, nor is it an appropriate way to contain health care costs.” This obviously true statement cannot in any way be refuted by anyone who is not a Far Left Wing Socialist ideologue whose central philosophy has always been to destroy what America has come to stand for over the centuries. There is simply no other explanation.
These people cannot be compromised with, argued with, or appeased. They must be defeated. They are, in fact, the enemy of anyone who loves this country, its heritage, traditions, and institutions. We are literally engaged in a war of competing and diametrically opposing ideologies and world views. On the one side, there are those who insist that we preserve and maintain our liberty and freedom while the enemy is comprised of those who desperately want to destroy them – and we are running out of time. I believe that the future of our nation will be decided by the 2012 presidential election. Are there still enough Americans left willing to engage in this fight and see it through to victory or are there already too many of us who have raised the white flag of surrender and succumbed to the lure of big government freebies, hand-outs, and control? Are there still enough patriots left to secure a victory for our beloved American way of life? Are there still enough of us who firmly and absolutely believe in the concept and reality of American Exceptionalism? We’ll know the answer to these and many more questions in a mere eight months.
The above referenced piece maintains that universal, “care insures that everyone gets the same care but of necessity it will be of lower quality. In order to control the cost the government will limit payment and determine treatments. Doctors will be required to use only what the government determined was the ‘best practice’ to treat your case, even if it doesn’t work for you. Doctors will be punished for using treatments that were not a listed best practice. Government directed medicine will result in fewer practitioners because their practice is controlled by the government, not their ability.” You might want to take a moment and read that last one more time. Does this sound like America to you? Does this even remotely resemble the America you grew up in? Yeah, same here. This is the new United States of America and is brought to you by the Far Left since at least the 1960’s. All of them to a greater or lesser degree despise this country and what it represents. With the election of their Champion, they can literally taste victory. They know it’s coming. Should the Socialist Bastard remain our President then he will be accountable to no one and all the stops will come out. Thus far, believe it or not his actions and pronouncements have been somewhat moderated and restrained but this will not be the case once he is a “lame duck” and can no longer run for the office. If that should happen, and I believe in my blackest moods it will, the damage he has thus far wrought in our country will seem ever so benign compared to what is coming. He will truly assume the mantel of Dictator-in-Chief and Monarch of the Realm! We already know that our Constitution means literally nothing to him and he views it only as an impediment to achieving his overriding goal of bringing the United States to his knees!
The article ominously informs us that, “you will not be allowed to purchase treatments that would not be provided by the government run plan with your own money because that would be unfair to those who could not afford to do so. Obamacare bans private fee-for-service so like Canadians and citizens of many other countries with universal coverage you are not allowed to purchase additional care. That is why so many Canadians come to the U.S. for medical care, even though they have so-called free universal health care.” What happened to choice? What happened to options? What happened to freedom? Again, does this sound like America to you? The piece continues that as, “health care costs rise the government will have to decide whether to raise taxes or cut benefits. The Obamacare law includes the establishment of an Independent Payment Advisory Board whose role is to insure that Medicare Payments are held below the cost of medical inflation,” and that, “rationing will occur if we rely on an appointed government panel to control Medicare funding.” Finally, the piece concludes that however “noble the goal to provide all Americans with adequate health care, Obamacare is not the type of reform that will ensure everyone receives the care they need. Government-run, socialized medicine can only lead to rationed care because they contain no provisions to expand available care while adding patients to the system.” The author uses the word “noble” here. What the Hell is so damned noble about the desire to destroy this nation, trample on our rights, transform us into government slaves while totally wrecking the finest health and health care system known to man? Noble, my sorry old ass!!
An essential question that must be asked is how did this complete charlatan, this utter fraud ever get elected in the first place? Since when have Americans failed to be able to detect a snake-oil salesman in their midst? Folks, we have only ourselves to blame for all of the evil and malfeasance he and his sycophants have and will continue to perpetrate on this country. We sat complacently back and let the Liberal juggernaut roll right over us! That’s right, we did this to ourselves. We’ve had ample warning about the horrors of socialized medicine and how thoroughly crippling it is to freedom, liberty, and opportunity. We’ve witnessed it’s absolute failure in nation after nation and yet we still allowed this con artist to get elected. Yes, it’s our fault. We stopped teaching core American values and traditions to our “young uns” both in our homes and our schools. We no longer teach the concept of American Exceptionalism or the crucial importance of patriotism. We no longer teach our young to appreciate all of the magnificent contributions America has made and given to the world since our very inception! We no longer extol our nation’s leading role of spreading liberty to literally hundreds of millions of folks all over the globe or that we are the most compassionate and generous people to ever inhabit the planet.
No, we don’t do that anymore. Instead, we have turned our children over to those who despise and denigrate this country at every turn. Our students are taught from elementary school that America is evil and constitutes the worst scourge in the history of humanity! They are brainwashed into believing that we are oppressors, deniers of freedom, and a deadly threat to the very planet itself. The kids learn from a very early age that Free Market Capitalism is by its very nature brutal, unfair, and immoral (see The Morality of the Free Market Capitalism Rant of 12/1/11).
Socialism they learn is the epitome of humanitarianism, compassion, and altruism. All of this and more are reinforced in high school and at the university level (see The Anti-Americanism in our Public Schools Rant of 6/29/11). By the time they graduate from college they are lost to us and are putty in the hands of puppet masters like Obama and his Mob. They are taught that there is no shame in taking wealth from people who earn it and redistributing it to those who don’t and they believe that government is the source of all of our rights and liberties. Our Founding Documents – you know, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights – are either not taught or if they are they are denigrated in the extreme. Our brilliant Founding Fathers are viewed only as racist, slave-holding cretins who did nothing but slaughter the noble Native Americans and earned their wealth off the backs of the poor. They are referred to as those long dead white men!
Given the state of America’s educational system, the complete melt-down of the American family, and the almost total destruction of the concept of limited government along with the rise of the Nanny State Mentality it is no surprise at all that our country faces a crisis of crippling if not deadly proportions. It should, then, not have surprised me that an out and out unapologetic and proud Socialist won the ultimate seat of power – but it did. I was utterly shocked. If it happens again, therefore, I will not be surprised. No, should that happen I’ll haul my ass down to the compound, stock up on ammo and provisions, and just wait there until it’s time to pull a Randy Weaver!!
You have probably by now discovered in your life’s sojourn that we are judged at least in part by the company we keep. If, for example, you are regularly seen in the company of known criminals and thugs then don’t be at all surprised if you are viewed by many as the same type of person. If, conversely, you are regularly seen in the company of members of your church or synagogue and people know you faithfully attend weekly services, then other impressions will be consigned to you. It’s human nature and it’s never going to change. The same is true of those in leadership positions in the United States. Obama and Jeremiah Wright are inexorably and forever linked. It is assumed by most of us that the President and the Preacher hold much the same views on the State and the nature and role of government. It’s a natural assumption.
The same can be said of those that the Great Leader appoints or nominates to high positions in his administration. After all, wouldn’t you nominate and/or appoint like-minded and kindred spirits? It’s almost unnatural to select someone with diametrically opposing world views and philosophies. Let’s look, then, for a moment at the individual selected by the Anointed One to run both Medicare and Medicaid in the United States. In a piece entitled, “Obama’s Rationing Man (http://spectator.org),” We are informed that the individual was one Donald Berwick, a Harvard professor. The gentleman was picked by El Jefe to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid and he has a, “self-professed love affair with Britain’s socialized health care system.” In fact, in both his writing and speeches the man, “has defended government rationing and advocated centralized budget caps on health care spending.” Huh, go figure.
The gentleman warns that, “Cynics beware, I am a romantic about the (British) National Health Service; I love it.” He goes on to explain that government, “is an extraordinarily important player in the American health care scene, and it has inescapable duties with respect to improvement of care, or we’re not going to get improved care.” Did you catch that? Without government, the quality of health care in America will decline precipitously and crumble into dysfunction. This is an absolutely revealing statement about the role of government in American life and perfectly reflects the views of good old Barry Boy.
Only Big Government can properly provide for our needs in the fields of health and health care. Does this damned poltroon really not grasp the fact that virtually all advances made in these fields have come via our Free Market Capitalist economic system? Does he not understand the concept that it is the entrepreneurial spirit and a willingness to take risks and invest one’s own money that has led to literally all of the technical achievements, innovations, and marvels that today are routinely taken for granted in this great country? Has he not a clue that more government involvement and interference in the sphere of the private sector only stifles innovation and creativity and does all but destroy productivity and competition? Is it possible that these statist, collectivist dolts really do not comprehend these basic concepts or are they merely faithfully and blindly spouting the party line?
The piece goes on to opine that there, “are two basic visions for how to contain the growth of health care spending. The free market approach would give individuals control over their health care dollars, with the idea that it would encourage more shopping that would drive down costs and increase quality as has happened in every other aspect of the consumer-based economy.” Well, we certainly can’t have that in Obama’s Socialist transformation of our nation, now can we? Give the citizens of the country more control over their own lives? Give us more choices and freedom? No way this side of Hell will these autocratic thugs willingly do that! No, we have chosen through the passage of Obamacare to have government ration our health care and decide who will live and who will be abandoned. Does that sound like America to you? Yes, folks, elections really do have consequences. Obviously, the Bamster “rejected the market-based approach, and sought to drastically expand insurance coverage while reducing health care costs.” In fact, “the new law will actually increase health care costs. That leaves rationing of care based on a bureaucratic notion of the common good as the remaining option for containing skyrocketing spending, and it’s an outcome that Berwick once predicted would be necessary to achieve universal coverage.”
There is simply no getting around the fact that Obamacare with its emphasis on government intrusion into and control of such personal and private aspects of life as our health care denies and makes a mockery of America’s traditions, values, and heritage. It eviscerates our Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights and it puts us firmly on the path to full-blown, unabashed Socialism. These conclusions cannot be denied. Obamacare with its rationing and death panels must be that line in the sand, that hill upon which we battle to the death to save our country and our way of life. Make no mistake, for we are in a literal life and death struggle for our future and that of our kids and grandkids. If this legislation from Hell is not repealed and forever destroyed the United States of America will simply cease to exist in any meaningful or recognizable form. It will no longer be the nation we love and cherish and will place us firmly on John A. Friedrich’s Road To Serfdom! There can be no other outcome or result and Americans should be outraged, furious, and exorcized over that real and looming possibility. This is why the 2012 Presidential election will undoubtedly be the most pivotal political battle we will have ever had to fight!
Many of us are indeed angry and acrimonies over the direction our Socialist Leader has taken us and can only imagine the horrors he will inflict if he wins a second term. Republicans have been handed on a silver platter the weapon that will bring victory with the passage of Obamacare and all of its attendant ills and evils. Yet, throughout the Republican primaries this has not been an overriding issue. When the nominee is finally selected, the candidate had damned well better be screaming about death panels and rationing and the devastation they will bring to our system of health and health care. It must be harped on and emphasized constantly, consistently, and passionately. This issue, among others, can and will throw the Bastard out of office and he can retire to some university, indoctrinate our children, and drink adult beverages at the University Club! He must not be allowed to continue making decisions designed to weaken and destroy America. Republicans have indeed been given a gift here but the question is will they use it and use it effectively? I have my doubts about this, for time and again these folks habitually are able to uncannily snatch defeat from the jaws of victory!
An article entitled, “Get Ready for Healthcare Rationing Under Obamacare: Truly Evil What the Democrat Socialists Have Planned for America in the Future (http://sodahead.com),” notes, “They’re back. Rationing, death panels, socialism, all those nasty old words that helped bring Republicans victory in 2010, and that came to seem so impolite after November of that year. They’re back because of IPAB. Remember that acronym. It stands for The Independent Payment Advisory Board. IPAB is the real death panel, the true seat of rationing, and the royal road to health-care socialism. President Obama won’t admit to any of that, but his speech in response to Paul Ryan’s plan did push IPAB out of the shadows and into public view, however briefly.”
Author Stanley Kurtz continues that if, “Republicans don’t seize the IPAB issue and run with it, they’ll be losers in 2012. Policy wonks and political junkies may know a bit about this health-care rationing panel, but most Americans have barely heard of it. That has got to change. And the only way to expose and explain the dangers of IPAB is to tell the truth about Barack Obama.” The article continues that, “Rationing, death panels, socialism, and deception. It’s all there.” Additionally, “a body of unelected bureaucrats has the power to cut off care through arbitrary rules based on one-size-fits-all calculations, just as in Britain. IPAB is the key to socialized, single-payer health-care, which is and always has been Obama’s ultimate goal. If Republicans remain unwilling to point out Obama’s unavowed socialist aims, they will be thrown onto the defensive by Obama’s class warfare rhetoric. That spells defeat in 2012.”
Folks, if “WE” lose the upcoming election and the Socialist Scum Dog is given another four years, the havoc and destruction he will wreak on our nation will be devastatingly catastrophic! It will absolutely mean the end of our way of life and will certainly be the final nail in the coffin that will have become the United States!!
Much Luv Y’all and Have a Great Day!
The Fifth Horseman
(Dr. David M. Rich, Ph.D.)
