Oh, why not — guess I’ll weigh in on the national pissing contest over Obamacare — a label that was invented many months ago just so you’d be aware that it was made into law at the urging of that socialist president. You know: the one who was born in Kenya.
Crazy stuff. Three columnists for the generally sane Washington Post this week banged out their own contributions to the hysteria: Charles Krauthammer used the headline “Obamacare — the reckoning”; Jennifer Rubin talks about “Obamacare — a disaster for Democrats”; and Stephen Stromberg goes right off the deep end with “Obamacare = the end of the republic.” And there goes my breakfast.
It’s hard to know why so many Americans see red when the idea of a national plan for health care comes up. Well, maybe not so hard, even though the whole idea was first suggested by Harry Truman and bandied about all the way up to Bill Clinton: the haves take amazing exception to the have-nots gaining something they already have. Remember, as well, that benefits such as paid vacation and healthcare were not even available to working folks until organized labor made it happen well into the 20th century. For that matter, being able to avail yourself of 401(k)s and matching funds has only been a reality in the last couple of decades.
Then again, maybe it’s because some of those European countries — always easy targets — have provided general healthcare for many years. Do we really want to be like the French, for cryin’ out loud? Or worse, like the Canadians?
And now, the Supreme Court is being drawn into the squabble to answer law suits from 26 states, no less, on the basis of the law’s Constitutionality.
Heavens.
It’s so simple, really: If the new health care laws are unconstitutional — and bad, bad, bad — then so too is the requirement to have automobile insurance and homeowners insurance. Just imagine: you’re driving down the freeway on any Monday, knowing that as many as half the other drivers have no insurance whatsoever, the laws requiring such insurance (I guess in order to make us freer Americans) having been revoked. You get rear-ended and you pull into the center divider to a chorus of guys questioning the legality of your parentage. And what’s to stop the rear-ender offender from simply sailing on down the road and onto the nearest off-ramp? Or more important, who pays for the damage to your car and your medical expenses?
Happily, that’s only hypothetical. And yet for those rolling disasters out there who actually do not have coverage, it turns out that you’re paying for them anyhow through the uninsured motorist item on your own policy. Mine runs about $70 a year.
So even more to the point, who do you suppose ends up footing the bill for the medically uninsured right now? Exactly. Your tax dollars at work. But then, I move the previous question: Why can’t we acknowledge the very real need and get to it in a direct way? Why can’t we even see it in a more self-serving way? Going back to the uninsured motorist scam, wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t have to add that extra charge on our auto policies? Because here’s the thing…more people supporting the system always equals lower cost, and like it or not, insisting on the opposite will always increase the cost.
Slick, huh? And all too obvious? Yep. The individual mandate.
Because the bottom line is that a refusal to share the cost inevitably generates a very high price to the tight-fisted in both the short run and the long run. And yet those who are too dumb and too selfish to see the light never get the reprieve they seek anyhow.