Making Sense Of It All

So it’s official: the healthcare bill is not only going to raise your insurance premiums next year, the cost of care in the long term is going up, not down.  Remember how we were promised over and over that this overhaul was going to cut costs?  And that was one of the reasons it was so urgent: the cost of healthcare was contributing to the bad economy, and we had to fix it right away so the economy would get going again.  (You didn’t fall for that one, did you?)

Conservatives like myself and anyone who wanted to look at the actual bill could see nobody’s costs were going to go down.  In fact, costs would go up so much, many employers would simply drop coverage, leaving their employees needing to buy health insurance from somewhere or be thrown in jail.  (Yeah – that was in there, too.  Surprised?)

I remember debating a friend about socialized healthcare, and  he insisted a government somewhere could create a good system of shared costs and run it effectively.  Though such a system does not exist, he cited what he liked from certain countries in saying that a) We could do better in America, and b) The government should be given more power over the system.  Though I strongly disagree, I could at least see where he was coming from.  And even if his ideas were idealistic, I knew what he was advocating.  The breakdown happened when his ideas on changing the system met the Administration’s plan to change the system.  They looked nothing alike.  But in his mind – and in the minds of many others – the two became the same.  His thought of “we need to do something” translated to “whatever they are doing must be right.”  The rationale became: a) The system needs to change, and b) I know the President wants to change the system, so c) His plan must be good.  Make sense?

Sadly, I saw this happen with many people, most of whom were thinking, intelligent folks.  Because they believed the system needed to be changed, they automatically agreed with the President’s version of change, without really looking into it.  They did not study the specific kind of change the bill would bring.  Because they wanted a change, the bill was automatically good in their eyes.  Though the kind of thing they wanted was nothing like what the bill would create, they shut their eyes, pushed ahead, and criticized those who disagreed.

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read some of their comments.  What the defenders of Obamacare said amounted to either, “We have to do something now!” or “Let’s try something different…maybe it will all work out ok.”  None of their arguments dealt with the actual bill.  It was based on blind trust of politicians.  The same ones they consistently say can’t be trusted.  Go figure.

This speaks to a bigger point about how Obama was elected.  The man is an empty suit.  He spoke in platitudes during the campaign and with sweet sounding words of no substance.  And people projected onto him whatever they wanted him to be.  Their ideas and desires, though nothing like what Obama stood for and wanted, in their minds was exactly what he was.  Now, 20 months later, some are beginning to understand and to wake up.  Their country is being snatched away from them.  And now is the time to unite in stopping it.

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