Feb 22 2010
Obama’s God Complex Is His Achilles’ Heel
Update: Allahpundit has some choice observations on this over at Hot Air for those interested – end update
The message coming from the electorate to the government these days is pretty simple: “stop screwing things up, get out of the way, let us create and have jobs”. It is a very libertarian mood as the country has suffered through years and years of hyper partisan bickering, brinkmanship and stalemate. What we have learned in these years is to stop following false promises of simple solutions – stop believing in DC solving problems, they mostly create them.
I think most people forget that George W Bush received huge bipartisan and centrist support for his policies. From tax cuts to the successful prescription drug benefit for seniors in Medicare (and it is a success, where the needy get their drugs and those with money pay insurance premiums for theirs) to war funding, Bush was able to garner bipartisan support (not just peal off a Democrat or two and call it bipartisan).
That is because Bush trusted the process could work given the right leadership. He had faith in the American people and their representatives in DC to work out some positive progress. He surveyed the common ground, lifted it up as the new direction and avoided the wedge aspects – and he had success.
It was the fringes left and right who were impatient with the small steady steps of pragmatic compromise. It was the fringes who want scorched-earth blowout wins. It was the fringe who complained from their far left and far right positions of superior purity that Bush was a failure.
President Obama’s first term was supposed to herald the end of all this fringe fighting, this hyper partisan zero-sum game. He campaigned as the uniter. But in reality he appears to be the last of the hyper-partisan hangover from the 1960’s and 1970’s. He refuses to see America as anything other than his sand box, for him to shape into what ever form he deems proper. His fringe superiority complex is just like all the ones you see on the far left.
Today the spinmeister-in-chief has come out with the most drastic of health care proposals yet produced in a year of drastic health care proposals from the far left:
President Obama will call for new government power to regulate insurance-rate increases as part of comprehensive changes to the health-care system that the White House will unveil on its Web site Monday, senior officials said.
The proposal — part of a package that a top official said will serve as a “starting point” for the bipartisan health summit Thursday — comes as Obama has pointed to recent rate increases as evidence that his proposed changes are necessary.
Emphasis mine. It seems the most important aspect of the liberal health care plan – ‘death panels’ – is alive and well. Recall the term ‘death panels’ refers to the process of limiting the funds available for health care, which then requires boards of government appointed health czars to determine who gets what care with the now limited funds. When funds are limited it becomes unavoidable for health care to become rationed.
The legislation would create a rate board, called the Health Insurance Rate Authority, which would broadly determine what increases are reasonable and justifiable. The seven-member board would have consumer, industry and medical representatives, as well as experts in health economics.
These ‘death panels’ use the politically correct determination of whom is worthy of care and whom is not – who is worthy of the funds. This is how it works in England, where living to a ripe old age is many times lumped in with supposedly bad behavior like smoking, drinking or becoming over weight. In England they restrict health care for these sins against the public health care budget. And people die because of this rationing.
Thus the term ‘death panels’ for those lordly superior among us who are blessed with God’s sight of who is worthy and who is not.
It is this God complex which runs through out the far left (and sometimes the far right) that makes them so insufferable and such lousy political leaders. It is this God complex which turns off the voters big time.
Government determining insurance premiums is the same as government determining what services can be offered. It is the nth attempt by the left to tell us saps what is good for us.
No longer will the negotiation be between insurer and customer (i.e. you and me). No longer will there be competition between insurers to provide the best suite of services for a reasonable price – the government will force everyone to one rate. In fact, there will no longer be insurance companies, because we all know the government will be picking winners and losers by setting premium prices that will send the private companies they don’t like out of business.
You know how Gods are when you anger them with independent thinking and all that stuff.
In announcing this latest health care farce (and job killer) President Obama is doing exactly what I outlined yesterday. He is going hyper partisan and showing a massive streak of dumbership – which is the opposite of leadership.
He’s reacting to the announcement that Anthem in California was rasing rates – Even Krugman in a column last week realized that this isn’t profiteering, it’s called the Insurance Death Spiral. Forbidding companies to raise rates while mandating that they take on high risk clients is a guarantee of fast bankruptcy for every insurer.
And of course, once they are all dead, then who is left to turn to? Why the Federal Government, of course, as you say.
Obama, our dear reader would be much more comfortable talking down to a bunch of shoeless Kenyans.
I need some help here. Wages are not going up fast enough because employers are paying ever increasing costs for health insurance of 85% of Americans. Some Americans are paying their own health insurance costs as well. The government pays costs or some of the costs for the poor to 133% to 300% of poverty or those poor who earn as much as $88,000 to $112,000 family of 4 in some states. People who have preexisting conditions need insurance, that is for sure and those who have gotten sick need insurance as well. Of course they costs more to insure, but the government can help by allowing a larger tax right off for those exceptions. So my question is who are the people that we are trying to insure?
President Obama is NOT a moderate. I had noticed in his interview with David Letterman 2 years ago that although he sounded like a moderate in the way that he spoke, what he was saying was extreme.
This just goes to show that how a person speaks is not as important as what he/she is saying.
[…] at Strata Sphere blog writes… President Obama’s first term was supposed to herald the end of all this fringe […]
a bit off topic, but Anthony Watts this morning is more P.O.’d than I’ve ever seen him. But I suppose being slimed and stabbed in the back by an organization you’re cautiously reaching out to will do that to someone.
A good lesson on why the left can never be trusted, even on a personal level.
Insurers cannot insure for pre-existing conditions otherwise it will make insurance even more costly for the healthy than it already is. Someone pays for the medical care and that someone is premium payers. Take your wrecked car to the car insurance agent and tell him you want to buy insurance for that damage and he should then fix it. Try it!
The insurance for pre-existing conditions is in effect and is called Medicaid!
That may sound cold but someone has to state facts.
The community organizer is trying to organize ignorant Americans against the goose that laid the golden egg, (insurers and medical community). If he succeeds in that all that will be left is a government monopoly and crappy care.
Insurance is one of the most regulated industries far more regulated than Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Pinnochio would bring your heathcare decisions under the direction of the federal government, the portion of the current healthcare that is broken, full of fraud, abuse, and over charging, and do nothing about the frivolous lawsuits that are the other major factor in driving up costs and insurance premiums.
He’s trying to organize the people into giving up what they’ve got for something he promises to be the same or better.
How are Pinnochios’ promises workin out for ya so far?
The Republicans are idiots if they even attend the “Bailout Pinnochio and healthcare summitt”
All he wants is a couple of sound bites of these idiots agreeing with him that pre-existing conditions should be covered and premiums are too high and he will have his talking points. “See they agree but they are obstructing any fix to the system”.
The media will carry Pinnoshios water.
“This just goes to show that how a person speaks is not as important as what he/she is saying.”
Yep. It might sound good to Ma & Pa because they keep changing the WORDS. I agree with AJ. This is just another way to spell ‘death panels’. New media better start shouting this one because they have pitched it perfectly for the MSM to carry the water.
It’s a good thing Obama’s ego is so massive that he can’t see beyond it; otherwise, this crap might actually have a chance of passing…..
All the part D prescripton drug benefit had done for me is to tax me $26 per month to be paid to AARP, the cheapest prescription drug plan avaialable. For years I have purchased my drugs from an online foreign pharmacy that I found thru drugbuyers.com. I can get my maintenance drugs from this pharmacy for less than my Medicare co pay on a doctor’s visit. For a true emergency requiring a doctor’s prescription, I have to pay the full price for my prescriptions because of the up front deductible before the drug plan kicks in. In addition, the copay on the prescriptions is usually more than they cost from my foreign pharmacy. So thanks for nothing and a pox on the lot of them. It’s hard enough to live on Social Security. Taxing me $26 per month to help pay for other people’s meds is immoral.
From up above:
President Obama is NOT a moderate. I had noticed in his interview with David Letterman 2 years ago that although he sounded like a moderate in the way that he spoke, what he was saying was extrem
I remain fascinated at how many people took so long to figure him out. If anyone didn’t know what he was the first time they heard him speak, then they clearly had a comprehension problem.
He hasn’t changed his message at all. He told us he is a socialist, why won’t people believe him? He told us he wanted to fundamentally change America? Believe him!!!
So, what should Republicans do with this mess?
momdear1,
The point is you have choices and those who need drugs who could not access them now can. It worked – too many people dismiss it, but it was a good government-corporate approach. You don’t have to pay in – as you know.
teresakoch,
I agree! If he wasn’t so arrogant and naive he had a chance to sneak all this through.
momdear1. My sympathy, it’s even worse than you describe. I take care of my mother, who has Alzheimer’s. My father passed away this summer and during the turmoil of taking over their affairs I missed some form or other that I should have filled out and mailed back. About a month ago, I got a notice from Medicare that my mother had no “credible drug coverage” during the past year (not true) and therefore she was going to be charged a fee of $3.50 a month for the rest of her life. Imagine a private company pulling a stunt like that.
[…] assured of this: Government determining insurance premiums is the same as government determining what services can […]
Good point dhunter—those with a pre-existing condition need medical care not insurance. And guess what —they get it because hospitals have to deliver it. Tort reform and waste/fraud reduction would easily cover those costs.
The biggest problem there is these days is the inability to recall the paving material on the road to hell.
Paul and momdear1,
I don’t think you understand what the ‘benefit’ is! It is an insurance plan. Every insurance plan has everyone covering everyone else through premiums.
Sounds like you might want to register as Dems.
😉
> So, what should Republicans do with this mess?
Line the Dems up against a wall and give every third shooter a blank cartridge?
It’s bound to get us talked about, but it’ll work quite effectively.
:oD