No More Politeness on Obamacare
As a general rule, I try to be polite with people and their policies.
When Obamacare first came out, I was careful to not attribute bad motives or intentions to those who wanted to change our health care system. It’s true I didn’t share their view of greater government intrusion in the U.S. healthcare industry, but I wanted to be civil in my reactions and opinions.
But I learned something recently that caused me to change my mind. It’s time to take off the kid gloves and state the truth plainly.
Obamacare is a sinister disaster.
Here’s why…
Actually, we should have known this a long time ago. There were a number of ominous signs when the original bill was being passed:
Sign One – The way the bill was put together behind closed doors on a totally partisan basis. The Democratic Party allowed no Republican involvement and didn’t allow CSPAN or anybody else to broadcast hearings or the decision-making process. A cloak of darkness almost always means deception. We should have strongly protested this clandestine process.
Sign Two – Buying off a number of senatorsto get this bad bill to pass. Congress is always involved to some degree in horse-trading, but the “Louisiana Purchase” with Senator Mary Landrieu and the “Cornhusker Kickback” bribe made to Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson–and others–went way beyond the pail. The passing of this legislation was loaded with bribery and pay-offs. That’s bad policy in a democratic republic.
Sign Three: Three thousand pages in length. The Obamacare bill was a multi-thousand page bureaucratic monstrosity–worth of the former Soviet Union but not the United States of America. The important things in life and best writings are usually simple–think the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address. We should have shouted from the housetops that we would not stand for a bill that was so large that nobody had time to read it–that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said needed to be passed quickly so that afterwards “we could find out what was in it.” Three hundred million Americans should have shouted bloody murder over that perversion of the legislative process. Pass a bill that alters an industry and nation–and find out afterwards what it means? That’s not only idiotic–its an evil use of governmental power.
Sign Four – Exceptions, exceptions, exceptions. Obamacare was passed on the idea that it was better for American business and the public. We were told it would make health care more available and affordable, bring costs down, and decrease the deficit. Well, if it was so good for one and all, why did nearly 1000 groups line up to be excused from the program for a number of years? If something is good, you won’t want to be excluded. You will desire to be the first in line for the benefits.
That didn’t happen with Obamacare. If it’s bad for business now, it will be far worse in the future.
But the worst abuse of the Obamacare bill only came to light recently. That’s because it took all this time to carefully comb through the voluminous pages of this legislative nightmare and actually begin to understand what it was saying and doing.
Buried in the 3000 pages of federal healthcare takeover was a stealth appropriation of 105 billion dollars!
Let that sink in.
105 billion.
That’s the entire size of the US debt in 1980–a mere thirty-one years ago. To implement Obamacare over the coming years, the authors of the bill totally side-stepped the appropriations process of the US Congress. They didn’t want anyone ever changing their prize plum.
How’s that for democracy? Sounds more like tyranny or dictatorship to me.
Our hero for uncovering this fraud is Congressman Ernest Istook. Here’s how the Heritage Foundation reported this incredible find:
“Today former Congressman Ernest Istook testified before the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee about the $105 billion slush fund in advance appropriations liberals tucked inside Obamacare. The $105 billion bypasses the traditional yearly budgeting process and is spread throughout the 2,700 page legislation. It took the Congressional Research Service (CRS) seven months to identify all the disparate funds and it was not until February (11 months after the bill passed) that all of the funds could be totaled up.”
We also need to give Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) immense credit for beating the drum to raise awareness of this unprecedented level of hidden, advance spending. She calls it “Obamacare’s 105 Billion Dollar Power Grab.”
Here is her analysis:
“While Obamacare is rightly notorious as a fiscal nightmare, less well known is just how massively it transferred power from Congress to the executive branch. In fact, the full scope of Congress’s abdication is still unknown. What is now known, however, is that deeply buried within Obamacare was a $105 billion slush fund that assures its implementation into the future, no matter what future voters think or want.”
“This makes then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s comment to the Legislative Conference for National Association of Counties about Obamacare, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,” made a year ago tomorrow, ironically prescient. Just this past month, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) updated an October 2010 reporttitled “Appropriations and Fund Transfers in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).” The new report found that, unbeknownst to almost every Member of Congress, Obamacare contains $105 billion in direct implementation spending that bypasses Congress’s normal appropriations process.”
“A separate CRS report, titled New Entities Created Pursuant to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, concludes: “The precise number of new entities that will ultimately be created pursuant to [Obamacare] is currently unknowable, for the number of entities created by some sections is contingent upon other factors, and some new entities may satisfy more than one requirement in the legislation.” These new bureaucracies would have the power to reach into your life on a daily basis, including control over who is allowed to sell you health insurance and how they may do so, as well as what procedures Medicare will or will not pay for. Once Congress allows these new bureaucracies to be created, it will be next to impossible to get your health care freedom back.”
“But these merging entities do have a weak spot. CRS reports: “In practical terms, many of these entities will not be able to function until their members are appointed and funds are appropriated or made available for the entities to operate.” That is where the secret $105 billion stash comes in. Instead of leaving these fledgling bureaucracies vulnerable to the budgetary decisions of future Congresses, Obamacare appropriated billions in implementation spending over a 10-year period. Conservatives can still save the nation from Obamacare’s bureaucratic kudzu, but they must act proactively. They must go beyond simply not providing funds for the implementation of Obamacare. CRS explains: “Precedents require that the language be phrased in the negative, for example, that ‘none of the funds provided in this paragraph (typically an account) shall be used for’ a specified activity.”
“This is why our nation cannot afford to fund the federal government by continuing resolutions, which perpetuate the status quo—a status quo where Obamacare’s implementation is already funded. In order to truly defund Obamacare, conservatives must go through all 2,700 pages of the bill and cut spending for every program one by one. That is the mandate this Congress was elected on. Members need to do their jobs.”
“Last night, I shared important news with you about the fraudulent appropriation of $105 billion dollars to fund Obamacare, passed by Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats without a single hearing or even allowing Members of Congress time to read the bill. In the coming week, my colleagues and I will be doing everything we can to ensure that this funding is rescinded, and I hope you’ll sign my petition to call on the rest of Congress to do the same.”
I was concerned about Obamacare from the beginning. But I was polite in my analysis and gave the benefit of the doubt to the authors.
No more. No more politeness. Obamacare is the worst bill in the history of the United States. It was crafted in darkness, used massive bribery to win approval, is a bureaucratic monstrosity, and stealthily used a massive monetary power grab to insure its survival.
It needs to be repealed, defunded, publicly scorned and placed on the ask heap of history.
There will be no economic renewal–or renewal of government–without it.
