ObamaCare Speech: I’m Radical and Mad as Hell
By Jonathan Bean • Wednesday September 9, 2009 5:18 PM PDT • 8 Comments
Dateline: September 9, 2009:
Obama speech (as I watch): From the lips of POTUS . . .
Introduction:
Insurance companies are evil but I do not want to put them out of business. (Huh? After listening to the litany of insurance company evildoing, any sane person would put them out of business.)
Middle section:
I favor a not-for-profit public option that will cost nothing (cough, cough). It will promote competition—but competition across state lines is still illegal. (Socialism and states’ rights, together at last!)
If you eliminate profit and executive salaries, the government plan will be cheaper than private plans. (That is the essential belief of socialism: eliminate profit [a net rate of 4% on average] and you can make the world over. . .)
But, wait, even though private plans are awful, greedy, and the socialist plan is better, we estimate only 5% of Americans will choose the public plan. (Are we morons?)
Are you confused yet?
The Uninsured:
As for the uninsured: We will require “irresponsible” young people and greedy employers who don’t insure workers to get or offer coverage. (What’s next? Debtor’s prison for those young people who don’t buy insurance? Not going to happen. See Massachusetts). However, we will start by exempting the following:
*Small business: 95% of firms (who employ 50% of the population) will be exempt.
*Hardship cases will be exempt.
*Illegal immigrants will not be covered.
*Young people will not sign up (trust me, I used to sell health care).
Well, that amounts to about 90% of the uninsured.
Conclusion:
As the speech goes on, the president gets angry:
“Experts” will determine where the “waste” is located. And you people with good health care plans (remember, from the greedy insurance companies!) will be taxed so you can pay for a plan that “doesn’t cost anything.”
Those who say health care costs will rise are “liars.” The finger is wagging at his opponents.
Let us apply this profit=waste, government=efficiency model to every industry! We have taken over the car industry, we know best how to manage health care because “we are from the government and we are here to help.”
Remember citizens:
Sign up and “do your part” for the Volk. If you don’t, face the consequences.
POSTSCRIPT: Many viewers may have missed a crucial line: The president said his Plan would not go into effect for FOUR years so that “we get it right.” That sent chills down my spine because it means “regime uncertainty” — the term devised by Independent Institute scholar Robert Higgs to describe how economies slump when business is uncertain about the direction of the government. In this case, the government promises to do drastic things to the economy but investors and employers will just have to wait. Is Obama trying to make this a Great Depression?
Tags: Business, Government subsidies, Healthcare, Insurance, Nationalization, Politics, Presidential Power, Regulation, Socialism, The State 
I figured as much. Personally, I don’t have the stomach to watch this man lie to me repeatedly. He really must think we’re idiots if he claims his plan “doesn’t cost anything.” Who is he kidding with that whopper?
The bad news: we still have three years and four months remaining of Mr. Hope and Change. God help us all.
Steve Hogan | Sep 9, 2009 | Reply
Your introduction exactly matches what I said to my husband after hearing Obama: “He just said that insurance companies are evil, but we don’t want to put them out of business. ”
Disappointing. Sounds the same as before to me!
He’s right on with the high level ideas (e.g., we want competition, we don’t want to put private sector out of business, we don’t want people to be dropped when they have an illness, we want costs to drop) but completely misguided and not-just-on-the-wrong-path-but-in-the-wrong-forest in terms of how we’ll supposedly get there.
What did you think of the GOP speech afterwards?
PLJ | Sep 9, 2009 | Reply
The GOP speech was bland. Where is a Ronald Reagan when we need him? (Yes, he wasn’t perfect but he could communicate to people. This guy was a doctor, he conceded the “system” was messed-up but he showed no emotion, no hard-hitting feeling when talking about 53 new government bureaucracies, central planning, BIG government spending. Heck, Obama even beat him on body language with his finger-wagging. This guy didn’t move.
You are right: The Obama’s opening sounded like he was backing off all the many central planning schemes but by the end of the speech, he is exactly where he was a month ago. Inflexible, arrogant, and ideological to a fault (despite his protestations that he is not bound by ideology). See my update for a line that many may have missed.
Jonathan Bean | Sep 10, 2009 | Reply
The actual reason for not putting the plan into action for four years is so he can claim a victory for passing health care reform without people realizing how awful it is! It’s all about the next election, not the health care CRISIS... can’t be too much of a crisis if four years can go by without the law being needed.
Deborah Lair | Sep 11, 2009 | Reply
Right on! Just as the extreme CAFE fuel standards (40mpg) go into effect . . . And the light bulb ban goes into effect his second term as well, although I think we have to credit GW Bush for that one. I’ll miss my incandescent light bulbs. We will probably all go outside to read, get skin cancer, and there will be a new . . .
CRISIS!
Jonathan Bean | Sep 14, 2009 | Reply
The left will bankrupt the USA, while making it into a fascist dictatorship and taking away our liberties. Even Bush looks like a boy scout in comparison.
muller | Sep 14, 2009 | Reply
I see that anti-obama sentiment is on the rise, “The left will bankrupt the USA, while making it into a fascist dictatorship and taking away our liberties. Even Bush looks like a boy scout in comparison.”
This is fallacious. I object to the word ‘will’. Let’s substitute the word ‘could’ and suddenly the quote is hilarious. Let’s be precise gentlemen, the problem is that politicians have to sell policy to many poorly educated voters after disparate parties argue themselves into agreement. However, anything less than that is not democracy.
colin wigington | Sep 15, 2009 | Reply
Poorly educated voters... and where shall we lay the blame for that? Do I hear any votes for the government schools?
Deborah Lair | Sep 15, 2009 | Reply