Somewhere, Machiavelli is Smiling
Let me start off by making this point quite clear. I am opposed to the contents of the health care reform legislation. I am not excited about 95% of the population being insured at a painful cost to the taxpayers and to small businesses across this country. What if you don’t want to be insured (as around 1/3 of the uninsured are that way by choice)? Sorry. Apparently, government knows better. Just let them make that decision for you — don’t worry your pretty little head.
What are some of my favorite nuggets in this “reform” bill?
“Kids” can remain under their parents’ health insurance until they are twenty-six years old! Way to be a grown-up!!
“Hi, I’m 25 years old and my mommy still comes with me to the pediatrician. Why should I take responsibility for myself? It’s hard out there in that cruel, mean world!”
Starting in 2014, you will get FINED $695 if you don’t have health insurance!! The government is going to punish you because it doesn’t like the choice you make as an adult.
Medicaid coverage will be offered to anyone making 400% of the poverty level or less. For a family of four, that means that the government will take care of your coughs and sneezes if you make less than $90,000. Really? A family making $85,000 can’t get its priorities straight and purchase health insurance? Sounds like a budgeting class is in order instead of government insurance! I make much less than $90,000 (try less than a 1/3 of that) and I’m a single parent of two kids … and, since I’m self-employed, I pay for my own health insurance. I want to keep it that way.
As much as I dislike this huge expansion in the federal government, I’m even more disappointed in the process it took to get here. The Democrats have provided us with a clear example of “the ends justify the means.”
When President Obama was still a candidate, he was certain that he was going to be super-duper popular and everything he wished for would happen with ease. So, he had no problem saying that he wouldn’t be a 50 plus one president. Whoops. Changed his mind, I guess.
Also as a candidate, then-Senator Obama pledged to make the health care debate an open one, with every moment of discussion covered on C-Span. Did that happen? Ummm … again, that’s a negative.
The Democratic leaders in Congress and the White House are making the rules up as they go along because they firmly believe that they know what is best for us silly common folk. Come on, who needs to keep promises to the American people? Maybe they’ll get irritated for a day, but then they’ll put their focus back on March Madness or American Idol, right?
I do not believe for one second that Speaker Pelosi or Senator Reid really care about all of the uninsured people who will now receive insurance from the government. I honestly think these leaders find the Americans who are supposed to benefit from this bill to be simple minions and I imagine that, behind closed doors, they snicker about how easily duped their constituents are. They see health care reform as their first step of many in expanding government, creating more dependents (and, therefore, a built-in voter base), and fundamentally changing the core principles of our country. Ah, power! Ain’t it grand?