
You know you’re getting old when you get upset at the news every time it’s on, but it’s inescapable these days with news at your fingertips and in side-bars while checking your email. It has been awhile since I’ve posted, so I figured that the Healthcare debate was a good enough reason.
I wonder if the fools in Washington realize how transparent they are, though? Democrat Ben Nelson spent a week grandstanding to his conservative constituents that he’s not going to vote for a healthcare proposal that includes abortion. All it took was a wheelbarrow full of money to grease those evil paws and a little re-arranging of the legal-speak to change his mind. The same could be said about Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu who was hedging her bets until she could get her piece of the bribery pie.

All to appease Obama in his political desire to have a healthcare bill…ANY healthcare bill on his desk before Christmas so he can say, “I did it”. It doesn’t matter if it’s as worthless as the paper it’s written on, he just needs to be able to say he did something. It’s a lot like the Copenhagen Debacle. Words…just meaningless words that aren’t legally binding because he has no power to sign treaties without Congress’ approval…which isn’t that hard these days with the idiots we have in power.
It doesn’t really matter though. It doesn’t matter if this idiotic “healthcare” bill passes because Democrats are truly damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
Obama has seriously undermined his efforts at re-election in 2012 because members of his own arm-twisters, Organizing For America, are defecting in droves in revolt over how whimsical the current healthcare plan is, feeling “duped” and describing their messiah as “weak” and “duplicitous”. I couldn’t have said it better and there is even palpable fear of the same type of backlash that happened in 1994 and are already picking their whipping boy in Rahm Emmanuel. I can’t describe my glee as I watch the infighting.
The Democratic Congress & Senate are also in serious danger during the mid-term election cycle. If this bill passes, and it’s very likely, conservatives will have been given the best campaign tool ever because the bill in it’s current form does very little but raise taxes and forces every single American to buy insurance. So, next year you can expect a whole boatload of extremely angry Americans to be at the polls, voting these turkeys out. If the bill somehow manages NOT to pass…then it’s still a great campaign tool because it will reinforce how feckless Obama and his Congress & Senate truly is.
It’s sad that it has come to this, though. I stated in a blog last year that if Obama won, it would serve a single purpose: to ensure the demise of Democrats because the younger generation would finally know the suffering and learn the lessons that some of us older ones remember from the days of Jimmy Carter. We didn’t need to learn, we already knew our history. If only this were taught in History Class at the local public school, we might have avoided these horrible times.

Another sticking point for me is these AP news stories that always say, “the measure is designed to spread coverage to tens of millions who lack it” After reading several of these over the last month or so, I always wonder how much of the story is copypasta from Obama’s Press Orifice. In debates with friends (and a few enemies) I always hear the mantra, “People need insurance so they can go to the doctor and get well”, and thus springs the immediate facepalm.

“Insurance” is not supposed to be a colloquial term for “Discount Card“, but it has creeped into the lexicon and politicians and fools have all spread the lie that if you have “insurance”, you’re entitled to pay less to your doctor. Okay, it’s a half-lie because as the end user, you only have to make your co-payment…but there is the rub: co-payment. By it’s very definition, it implies that somebody else is covering the rest of the fees. Could it be Santa? Nope. Is Obama or House & Senate Democrats opening up their personal checkbooks to help pay the rest? Not a chance.
So let’s get back to definitions. “Insurance” by it’s very definition is supposed to be like playing a game of chance. The insurance companies are betting that you won’t get sick and need them to pay part of your healthcare. You are betting that someday you might get sick and need them. That’s what “insurance” really is. Hedging your bets just in case, just like in blackjack.
So why does everyone think that by virtue of giving someone “insurance” that they are more likely to survive? It’s yet another lie perpetuated by the slick talkers in Washington. If you have insurance but lack the money to make the copayments, you’re going to be just as sick. At least today hospitals have to treat you. If you go to the right hospital, and can prove you cannot afford the bill, you can even get all of your healthcare for free (well, free to you but paid by the generosity of others) or at least at a very nice discount that would rival “insurance”. That’s the real “insurance” for the poor and needy. If you are really sick all you need to do is get to a hospital because they have to treat you.
I know, I know…but you live in a place like New York City or Seattle or San Francisco. If you aren’t thriving there, why stay? Is it so important to tell all your friends that you’re so cool because you live in a cardboard box in Manhattan and pay $600 a month to live in it? These days, there is no reason to feel compelled to live in squalor in a big city.
But by now I’m talking to myself….