Mar 22 2010
At The Precipice
The House Democrats pulled off their miracle yesterday – though it was more corruption and misleading fig leaves than the coming of a brave new world. Mark Steyn said it best – Happy Dependence Day. Next test is in the Senate where all sorts of problems might arise, or might not.
Right now I am going to sit back and watch the public reaction. If, as usual, the public was duped into a false sense of success (i.e., the doomed to fail, lethargic government funded stimulus plan) then the lack of positive, substantive change will begin to erode what little support there is for this mess.
But more than that, we will soon learn if VA, NJ and MA were just coincidental flukes and not  the center of the country being really pissed off about this attack on their health care by a bunch of dysfunctional bozos in DC. Did the liberals waken a sleeping giant? It will take weeks to find out.
I do know as a small business owner that our health insurance will not be the same, as promised by the liars in DC. We will have to have adjustments for pre-existing conditions (premiums will go up) and covering children until 26 (premiums may go down). We will have to prepare for IRS audits of our plans, which will need to be adjusted (because I doubt any plan has all the requisite coverage). And we will decide whether we carry insurance or we all go into the health care pools. What I do know is our current situation will not survive the year. Clearly it cannot with all these new mandates.
Only time will tell if this recklessness will actually sink the liberals this fall, and begin the move to dismantle the federal bureaucracy.
Update: John Hinderaker at Powerline has some excellent postmortem observations.
Update: Look who woke up – the New York Times:
The battle over health care is poised to move swiftly from Congress back to the country as Democrats, Republicans and a battery of interest groups race to define the legislation and dig in for long-term political and legal fights.
President Obama plans to open a new campaign this week to persuade skeptical Americans that the bill holds immediate benefits for them and addresses the nation’s shaky fiscal condition. Republicans said they would seek to repeal the measure, challenge its constitutionality and coordinate efforts in statehouses to block its implementation.
The politics of health care are fragile — and far from certain — in the eight-month midterm campaign that will determine which party will control Congress next year. But both sides steeled for a fight to extend well beyond November, involving state legislative battles, court challenges and, ultimately, the next presidential race.
…
The next chapter in the health care fight will play out not only in the midterm elections, but also in the courts. Attorneys general in three states — Virginia, Florida and South Carolina — have indicated they will file legal challenges to the measure, on the grounds that it violates the Constitution by requiring individuals to purchase insurance.
You betcha! The damn thing has bipartisan and majority opposition. What did these fools think would happen?
Addendum: First, I want to remind DC that if they believe they have the authority to restructure 1/6th of our economy and take over health care, then we the people have the authority (and moral obligation) to restructure the federal bureaucracy. There will be no room for whining and complaining after this episode.
Secondly, if VA, NJ and MA were not flukes, it is time to lay out how we can restructure the federal government to (a) make sure it doesn’t impose on our personal rights again, (b) upholds the constitution in terms of protection of the nation and its people, Â and (c) is insulated from lobbyists and special interests (this is surprisingly simple). If opinion turns, I am thinking about a series of essays on how to change DC (no more changing America) to work for us.
We The People can show those buffoons inside the beltway how the real world solves problems like DC.
AJ,
There is no such thing as a Democratic centerist on healthcare.
See Karl Denninger’s market ticker blog.
Mr. Denniger explains the mechanism whereby the Senate bill just enacted will destroy the existing medical system, and he too says this is intentional:
http://market-ticker.org/archives/2109-Health-Care-Arbitrage-Obama-And-The-Dems.html
“The intention of The Democrats (and liberals generally) in this legislation is clear and impossible to hide – they intend to completely destroy private health care in favor of a fully-government-run single-payer system. The efficient market guarantees this outcome given the law they passed, and they know it.”
ObamaCare will kill off private insurance in about 3-4 years. It was designed too.
ObamaCare front-loads its revenue-generating mechanisms to disguise how much it really costs, so it will suck more more money from the economy while not returning it for a while.
AKA — “Taxation without medication!”
This is exactly how the onset of Social Security, which was similarly front-loaded, prolonged the Great Depression by two years. (That and FDR absolutely poisoned the business climate…which Obama has also done.)
The inherent results of a massive tax increase, at what would otherwise be the tail end of a major recession, is a bad recession sized disaster.
What is worse is that tax increase will disproportionately hit capital formation, thus we’re looking at a full-bore economic depression.
The federal government will, by the time ObamaCare kills off private health insurance, have used up all the tricks and gimmicks available to it just to maintain existing government operations during a full-bore economic depression.
California shows you can only go so far with that.
That’s when the money printing presses will roar, during 10-12% inflation plus 15-18% unemployment, for normal government operations.
The money for ObamaCare just won’t be there at that point.
Heck, the USA’s debt just lost it’s Moody’s AAA credit rating.
It is only the beginning.
Harold:
“Romney/Ryan in 2012 – to repeal this monstrosity.”
you have got to be kidding. Romney is a leader at pushing universal health care, Don’t you know what he did to Mass?
We don’t need to allow him anywhere near Washington, DC.
He is a Republican sell out of the First Order.
Can you spell misleading fig leaves?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/opinion/21holtz-eakin.html
At least from the recent CNN poll the majority realize it will increase the deficit.
Scott Brown is a centrist, but he would not vote for Obamacare. The truth is the Democrats screwed themselves by allowing someone like Pelosi to be Speaker. Their leadership has sold them down the river, now even the Democrats who voted against this thing might be in trouble, because people want to get rid of Pelosi and that means the Democrats must go. They just folded is all, partisan politics trumped good sense and duty.
Redteam:
I am not a fan of the system in Mass, but the legislature there was going to come up with some plan whether Romney was for it or not. And that is Mass. Here in Indiana the state came up with something entirely different.
If anyone wants to see what they all think about us, watch the clip at Gateway P or S&L of Jesse Jackson. Just another Rev.
Pure hateful contempt. Watch him taunt them. Then he just couldn’t help himself. They all tried as hard as they could to provoke an incident.
What do you think? Front page or 24/7 coverage by every MSM? Nope. Articles I read said he was interacting in the face of previous uglyness. Yep. Look at his face.
Terrye, it’s just an easyout for Romney’s role in health care. they were gonna do it with or without him. Well, from my point of view, it should have been ‘without’. Strange how it’s somebodys else’s fault, not his……
I actually supported the way Romney did health care in Mass. because it was basically run by private industry. You simply mandate that employers MUST cover their employees and you let the private market do the rest. The problem is that they didn’t follow that through with things like allowing out of state insurers write policies to increase competition and allow individuals to form their own groups for bulk purchase.
But this bill was not bi-partisan, heck, it wasn’t even heteropartisan (snicker). That bill stinks and the Democrats know it. This is the last hurrah of the 1960’s flower children. May they rest in peace.