O'Care success? Unfortunately yes By Mark Alexander Three weeks into the laughably catastrophic failure of Barack Obama's signature Obamacare portal, Healthcare.gov, he proclaimed, "The Affordable Care Act is not just a website. It's much more." Last week, in congressional testimony about that failure, Marilyn Tavenner, who's responsible for overseeing the ACA technology, reiterated, "It's important to remember that the Affordable Care Act is more than just a website." Indeed, it is much more, all of which poses an ominous threat to Essential Liberty, but for the moment, all eyes are on the cascading failures of Obamacare. The Lies and Cancelations In a 2009 health care reform speech before a joint session of Congress, Obama said, "If you misrepresent what's in this plan, we will call you out." This pathetic narcissist won't admit his own lies and duplicitous deceptions, so we'll call him out. On 26 September, five days before the O'Care rollout, he declared, "I want to speak plainly, clearly, honestly, about what [Obamacare] means for you and for the people you care about. Let's start with a fact. About 85% of Americans already have health insurance. If you're one of these folks, it's reasonable that you might worry that health care reform includes changes that are a problem for you, especially when you're bombarded with all sorts of fear mongering. So the first thing you need to know is this. If you already have health care you don't have to do anything." Of course, we all now know that his oft-repeated lie -- "If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period." -- was a subterfuge to help push Obamacare through the Democrat-controlled House and Senate. To date, more than 4.1 million Americans have had their insurance policies cancelled. Worse yet, the Obama administration knew in 2010 that more than 90 million policies would be at risk of cancelation. At present, Obama is fabricating new lies in an effort to cover up the old lies. Of his prevarications, National Journal's Ron Fournier, a long-time Obama acolyte from the Associated Press, wrote: "It might not seem possible that Obama could do more harm to his credibility ... than misleading Americans about health insurance reform. But he can. The president is now misleading the public about his deception." Fournier also took note of Obama's pronoun substitution. In the first round of lies, it was all "I." But in the lies about lies, he has shifted to "We." Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) offered his assessment of Obama's lies: "You know, the president already has a Nobel Prize for peace; I think he's shooting for one in fiction." Indeed, if he wins a Pulitzer for fiction, it will be because he actually earned it this time. The Sticker Shock and Awe Obama promised, "We're gonna lower your premiums by $2,500 per family per year." Well, not quite. For the truth about O'Care policy replacement costs, this interactive map illustrates how the so-called "Affordable Care Act" will alter health insurance premiums. The latest report concludes that premiums will increase in 41 states, with some increases exceeding 100%. The Security Breaches John McAfee, founder of the world's largest computer security company, offered this assessment of the scope of the Healthcare.gov failure: "Glitch is a minor annoyance. This is a catastrophic failure, not a glitch. There was no security testing, no quality assurance and no system emigration." McAfee notes that there are now more than 700 look-alike sites successfully scamming those pour souls who think they're at Healthcare.gov -- giving up lots of personal information. But it's not just the scammers that folks need to worry about. The information they'll be providing to the Obamacare portal itself is at great risk of compromise. In addition to the current O'Care debacles, I contend that there are very consequential political silver linings beyond all the lies, cancelations, price increases and security issues. The real DemoCare liability is this: From October 1 forward, and with increasing frequency, Americans of every political stripe who have any issue with health care, whether a hangnail or heart transplant, a delay in a doctor's office or in critical care for a loved one, will tie blame for their discontent like a noose around the necks of Obama and his fellow Democrats, who were and remain solely responsible for forcing this abomination upon the American people. So what's the success story for Obama? The fact is, O'Care is achieving Obama's most coveted political objectives -- both the redistribution of wealth and the centralizing control and regulation of the U.S. economy, as outlined by his Marxist mentor, Saul Alinsky. Despite the "glitches" plaguing the web launch, and other notable issues undermining whatever credibility Obama has left, his macro agenda for the so-called "Affordable Care Act" is on track to become the largest wealth redistribution scheme in American history, and a crushing burden upon the shoulders of free enterprise. Obama's ACA is the Socialist Democrats' crowning achievement for "fundamentally transforming the United States of America" -- the greatest domestic threat to Liberty since Franklin Roosevelt's despotic regime. As for the two most significant objections to Obamacare -- the increasing cost of insurance coverage and the forcing of millions of people into part-time employment so employers can avoid the mandates -- Obama will roll out two solutions. First, once enough people have lost their existing insurance, he will launch a populist proposal to substantially increase "subsidies." Second, he will unilaterally create even more regulatory measures to redefine part-time employment as it pertains to avoiding O'Care mandates. Both of these measures will be wrapped up in his rhetoric about "fighting for the middle class," his incessant vows to protect the average American from the ravages of free enterprise, and his efforts to ensure "economic justice." Regarding objections from his union constituency, HHS quietly announced this week a planned reinsurance tax exemption for big union insurance plans. Obama has already succeeded in swelling the rolls of those who are government dependents. According to the latest census data, while there are 125 million Americans who depend primarily on earnings, there are now 100 million Americans who depend on the government for subsistence. Some 82 million receive Medicaid welfare (and that number is going up as a result of O'Care), almost 50 million receive food and shelter subsidies, and 5 million receive unemployment checks. (Note, these figures do not include the 50 million Americans who receive earned assistance in the form of Social Security, Medicare and Veteran's benefits.) Obamacare adds millions to his government-dependent constituency through insurance subsidies. Obamacare expands the ranks of unionized government employees, much as was the case when the Transportation Security Administration forged its alliance with the Democratic Party. Obamacare greatly inflates IRS power and scope. Obamacare hugely increases the expense burden on small businesses -- punishing entrepreneurs and their employees for engaging in free-market capitalism and supporting conservative principles. Obamacare massively expands the Medicaid entitlement, which will cost taxpayers trillions more. Oh, and did I mention that Obamacare is going to be a conduit for new (and fraudulent) voter registrations? Indeed, within Obamacare's application for insurance subsidies is a checkbox for voter registration. Now, it's not out of the realm of possibility to substantially amend or revoke Obamacare. In 1988, with the support of the AARP, Democrats in the House passed the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act by a vote of 328 to 72. A year later, Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-IL), Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, literally had to flee an angry mob of unhappy constituents. The law was repealed 16 months after passage by a vote of 360 to 66. However, the only hope of rolling back Obamacare is by way of a coalition of conservative and moderate Republicans who can win controlling majorities in the House and Senate in 2014 and the White House in 2016. That means a cease-and-desist order regarding all the self-defeating Republican infighting. In the meantime, we must do everything possible to contain Obama's overt and covert expansion of the ACA. Mark Alexander is the executive editor of the Patriot Post.
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