Welcome to the December Growth/No Growth issue of NorthBay biz magazine. This is one of the issues we especially enjoy producing each year, as it gives us a chance to shed some light on the always lively and controversial topic of growth in the North Bay. So please enjoy all the stories, special features and columns this month in the area’s only locally owned, glossy business publication—NorthBay biz.
In last month’s column, I talked about the government shutdown and touched on the unfolding debacle that’s Obamacare. I thought at the time that would be it—the government would restart, Obamacare implementation would begin in earnest and I’d be free to move on to other topics. Shows what I know.
The Obamacare rollout has gone beyond even my immensely skeptical belief in big government competence. Three years and $500 million later, the government website that’s critical to implementation barely boots up. I believed then, as I most assuredly do now, that the underpinning assumptions supporting Obamacare were deeply flawed and the program couldn’t possibly deliver what was promised, but even middle school kids these days can build a website that works.
To what we were told/sold: Ostensibly, the core reason for Obamacare was to bring heath care coverage to the 30 million Americans who had none. A noble premise. But from the outset, it was just another red herring deflecting attention from the “central planners’” true intentions. It was made even more palatable by promises of reduced costs and assurances that not only could you keep your health care plan, but your doctor, too. As we’ve come to find out, not only is none of that true, but in the case of costs, exactly the opposite is true. Insurance premiums are doubling and deductibles are often tripling. At the risk of being simplistic, I have a question: If the goal was to insure 30 million folks without insurance, why did we have to blow up the plans of hundreds of millions of people with perfectly good insurance to accomplish that goal?
Here are a few more questions: If Obamacare was the answer to America’s health care problems, why was it necessary to lie about it from its inception? If Obamacare health policies are so truly fantastic, why make individual participation mandatory? If they’re so damn terrific, why not let people buy the coverage voluntarily? What happened to an individual’s right to choose that I thought the left championed? And finally, if the old insurance plans were so inferior, why did the administration issue thousands of waivers to favored groups and supporters, letting them keep their old plans?
Here are a few answers: The law’s design is brutal and arbitrary in the way it reduces individual liberty and makes every American and his or her family subservient to the whims of unelected bureaucrats in an area where the stakes are as high as they can be—your personal health care and quality of life. It takes away choice and stuffs everyone into a one-size-fits-all container. The “we know what’s best for you” crowd will tell you what’s in your own best interest because you’re too damn unenlightened to make these kinds of decisions for yourself.
A government that blatantly encourages a welfare culture can hardly wait to take over your health care decisions. Why? It’s a giant step to more power over every facet of life in this country. With 50 million people on food stamps and 83 million already on Medicaid, the culture of dependency is skyrocketing. There are more people on welfare today than hold full-time jobs. I’d say Obama has gone a long way in fulfilling his election promise of fundamentally transforming America.
Next year, when the employer coverage mandate kicks in, another 102 million employees will be in jeopardy of losing their existing health care plans. Jobs will be lost, hours will be cut and business growth will be stifled. But none of that matters to this administration as long as wealth redistribution is accelerated through taxpayer subsidies.
This is part of the same strategy as is casting the insurance companies as villains because insurance premiums rise to cover the increased costs of compliance with government mandates. Where is all this leading? My guess is to the Golden Fleece as far as the progressives are concerned—“single payer” health care.
As Obamacare stumbles and bumbles its way along and more and more people are disillusioned and demand a change, the government, once again, will ride to the rescue claiming that, this time, if the pesky naysayers will only get out of the way, it can get it right. It has the perfect solution. When that happens, remember, all it’ll take is another temporary suspension of disbelief on the part of the American people and single payer will be a reality. What “single payer” (Obamacare on steroids) guarantees is a government monopoly with no choices, higher costs, diminished quality of care and less service.
That’s it for now. Enjoy this month’s magazine.
