It is fundamental politics to 'Give The People What They Want.' What then of those who not only refuse that adage but are convinced to grant the opposite?
Health Care Reform in America has long been a trumpeted goal of those who run the purse strings in Washington. It's a problem of epic proportions. Murky, costly, confusing and layered in a maze of enormous bureaucracy it has long been the source of civil divide and political rhetoric. An issue we all agree needs overhauling but that is where the fork in the road is reached. Once passed, there is an endless stream of argument which has stagnated the ambitions of more than one official and more than one administration.
Enter the Messiah.
Barrack H. Obama came to power on the wings of the most divisive president since Abraham Lincoln. GW shot us down a road so blackened with unrest, disgust and secular ambition that we, as a country, were willing to accept anything so long as it wasn't him. Well, we got what we asked for but it may have done us some good to have checked the labels on the products we were buying because this administration is even more enthusiastic about the policy of invasion than the last crew was.
And rather than invade foreign soil to grant 'democracy' to those who never asked for it these folks want unrestricted access to your bank accounts, diets, children and thoughts. Orwell's Big Brother 1984? Well, not exactly but the actions of the Obamanation do lead one to wonder what, exactly, are the goals of this administration?
Clearly, it seems, they are unconcerned with the voice of the people who sent them to DC. I have yet to see, hear, touch, taste or smell anyone who believes this administration is on the right track. A floodgate of unanimous opinion is a rare find in any sector but when it comes to politics you have a better chance of cashing a $200 million Powerball than finding 100% agreement. And yet the stake is driven harder, faster and with more resolution into the heart of the people. We can pick from a host of varied topics to dissect but let's stay with the one which has clogged the federal arteries for more than a year; pushing items like war, illegal immigration, infrastructure and oh, what was that thing we were all so concerned about a few months back...lemme see...oh right! Jobs! Sometimes that pesky 10 plus percent unemployment rate numbs us into natural endurance.
So we can pull, poke and puke apart any one of a multitude of Obama policies but let's stick with the one that seems destined to reach our plates before the year is out. Yes, before the midnight hour of this year we will experience the 'Change' we so desperately chanted for. But let us find out if it's really what we ordered.
Health Care Reform. Usually a good place to begin any argument is the presentation of facts. Those things in which we all find common agreement. And it seems to be a fair assessment that when it comes to Health Care in America it is universally considered to be too expensive and too complicated. But that's where the mutual nodding of heads comes to a close. Not everyone has it but depending on who you listen to that's either by choice or by financial inability. The quality is occasionally bemoaned but that too is a grey area. As is the lack of preventative care, individual responsibility or standardized costs. Forget about health care lobbyists, political pay-offs, multi-layered bureaucracies and malpractice law. We've got a better chance of hosting an Arab-Jewish potluck in Jerusalem than rectifying those barnacles of burden.
So cost and confusion. Seems like a fairly simple remedy. Lower the bills and make it easier to be healthy. On the surface it looks like we could have jump started the movement on Inauguration Day by telling all us Americans to hop the scale and begin the arduous task of taking control of personal health. Maybe mix in a mid-day walk around the office building, offer some incentives to business owners to provide health club memberships and possibly an injection of health education in the schools where the kids would be taught how to read a label on a box of food and how caloric intake directly affects the size of the gut...
Whoa whoa whoa! Hold on just a second there! Sounds like you're talking about individual responsibility! And that wasn't what the last election was about was it? We wanted a government that would take on those responsibilities for us.
Ah yes, a lifetime of dietary irresponsibility followed by a paid-for gastronomical surgery and organ transplant to keep us huffing long past nature's expiration date. Well, that's going to take a little more time isn't it?
Anyway, back to the track here. The current administration is going to change your health care package. And if you truly and honestly believe they are going to improve it the naivete from which you suffer is terminal and beyond cure. The government is incapable resolving this problem. Utterly and completely unable to do so. It will not work simply by the government's own design. And if you wish to offer rebuttal please explain how Medicare and Medicaid are operating as a precision-oiled machine.
Finished yet?
So we have a slew of out-of-touch, overpaid, insulated politicos in Washington who are under the hypnotic cloud of power and they love the way it feels. It's nice when your decisions have no affect on your own life. Let's be clear, they are designing a health care package for which none of them are going to participate in. Do you see a small problem with that? Does it in any way cause you to feel a twitch of burning fury under your skin? Sen. Harry Reid, one of the architects of the Destruction of America, is right now dealing with a wife and daughter who were severely injured in a car accident. The care they receive (at the tax payer dollar) is not what you would get under the new system.
Feel that fury yet?
So again the question becomes 'why'? Why on Earth would the most intelligent president (debatable) to ever breathe be so forceful of a policy that will not only bankrupt the country but will do so at a time when we are least able to withstand its assault?
Could it be for the political bumper stickers which will appear in about four months as the constant campaign begins anew? ObamaCare 2012! That's a bit of a shadow since the vast majority of Americans who elected him are incensed at this legislation (remember 365 days after inauguration Massachusetts elected a republican to fill the Senate seat vacated by Teddy Kennedy.)
So as a political strategy it seems somewhat suspect to alienate the very people who got you into office. In police work they say every murder has a motive and as this toothy, bobble-head with the transparent teleprompters commits a pre-meditated, back alley plunge of the long knife into the American back I'm wondering what then, is the motive? He's not going to get the votes which got him there and I don't think he can count on any Palinites (God help us) switching the vote so where are they going to come from?
The answer is in the bill. Obama will get his health care passed. That's going to happen and it's going to be a very bad deal indeed. But what will it do? Lower costs? Not for you. Simplify coverage? Not for you.
What is will do is provide health care for forty million people who won't pay for it. Obama likes the power of the White House address. It's a real nice place and he doesn't want to leave after four years or even eight. I mean, Air Force One is a pretty sweet perk and that motorcade? Man, you know you're a big shot when it costs $100,000 a mile to get you down the street. So when they came to power they needed a strategy to keep them there. And they knew they weren't going to be able to do so by clubbing the Middle Majority over the head with their socialistic (that's right, I said Socialistic) politics.
But what if they had a plan to replace those votes? What if their plan is right on schedule? Keep an ear on the 1600 Pennsylvania address in the coming months because there are two words being murmured in the back room hallways. Immigration is one and Amnesty is the other.
The 2010 Census has begun. And even this is a controversy. Controversial because it's believed the people being counted don't really belong here to begin with. And what if these people get the to vote in 2012?
Something tells me they aren't going to vote for the opponent and while we may not be living in an Orwellian time warp just yet he did have a valid piece of political acumen which states, "He who robs Peter to pay Paul will always have the support of Paul..."
Does it matter?
Hell yes it matters.
