A.J. DiCintio
Healthcare: who are the know-nothings?
By A.J. DiCintio
As Tuesday's vote revealed, individualism is alive and well in the nation, one happy aspect of which is that most of us insist upon drawing our own conclusions regarding the following question:
Which Americans are behaving with an anti-intellectual, hateful ignorance in the debate regarding the Obama/Pelosi/Reid healthcare bills making their way through Congress?
To answer that question, we begin by stipulating what is currently known about the bills, including the following —
. . . The final bill's estimated $1 trillion cost over the next decade is certain to be shockingly greater for two reasons.
First, Congress has never come within a million miles of correctly estimating the actual cost of any healthcare plan.
Second, to insure that cost estimates will be lowballed by the CBO, Democrats have put in a fiscal fix that initiates taxes for Obamacare in 2010 but waits until 2013 (conveniently one year after the Election of 2012) to gradually implement the plan.
. . . How to pay for a program that affects 16% of the nation's economy?
Well, Democrats claim they'll get $400 billion from Medicare — without ever explaining to seniors and the rest of the nation how they'll get that kind of money without cutting services, reducing services, or increasing Medicare premiums.
Democrats also proclaim they'll raise another $400 billion by increasing taxes on the rich as much as 30%, taxes that, like the insatiably rapacious Alternative Minimum Tax, will grow with inflation every year.
But a tax on the rich has never brought in the revenue projected.
Moreover, Democrats have never discussed the consequences of these huge tax increases, which will suppress economic growth, cost jobs, and reduce tax receipts at all levels of government.
. . . Democratic healthcare "reform" will enormously increase the cost of Medicaid and stick the states with most of the check.
However, Democrats never speak of the reality that this check (whose bottom line increases every year) will be paid by citizens who are already thrashing up to their noses in a rapaciously menacing ocean of state taxes, debt, and deficits.
(The fiscal realities of California and New Jersey offer sobering bi-coastal proof that the previous sentence contains not a bit of exaggeration.)
. . . Democrats propose raising taxes on healthcare providers with not a word about whether the cost will be passed on to consumers.
. . . To improve the chances of getting their Federal takeover of healthcare passed, Democrats have cut so many backroom deals with so many healthcare interests that the only "interests" left to pay for the plan are the elderly and the rest of We the People.
. . . Last, but not finally, in writing every one of their bills, Democrats have exhibited a galactic-sized chutzpah that delivers two vile slaps to every American's face:
While they had no problem ripping $400 billion from the elderly, Democrats remain shamelessly intransigent that the arm of the Democratic Party called Trial Lawyer Inc. pay not one cent toward "reforming" healthcare.
As if that isn't enough to let ordinary folks know where they stand in a Federally controlled healthcare system, Democrats have written their 2,000 page abomination in "legislative language" no human (except liberal activist judges) can understand — while requiring that henceforth all health insurance policies be written in "plain language."
Aware of facts such as the ones just presented, we are now prepared to examine the rhetoric of the healthcare debate.
Following is what we hear from opponents of Obamacare. (All percentages and quotes from Rasmussen Reports, 10/23/09.)
From 62% of Independent voters — "It would be better to do nothing rather than pass the current plan." (Let's remember that 60% represents a landslide in American politics.)
From 66% of all voters — "Free market competition between insurance companies will do more than government regulation to reduce healthcare costs."
Finally, this from 67% of all voters — "No matter how bad things are [with respect to healthcare], Congress could always make it worse."
(How's that for insight that recognizes the truth about politicians and the truth about the special dangers inherent in transferring power to the level of government most remote from the people!)
Next, we turn to the nation's most powerful Democratic politicians, only to hear them reviling the dissenters as an "unhinged mob" composed of "swastika" loving "evil-mongers."
Moreover, when we search for common sense from Liberaldom's non-politicians, we are stunned with the following kind of "intellectuality."
"One of the reasons that independents and conservatives who voted for Mr. Obama have been so easily swayed against him by Fox News and people labeling him a 'socialist' is because he has not given voice to the truly patriotic nation-building endeavor in which he is engaged."
Of all we have to say about that embarrassingly condescending passage by Thomas Friedman (NY Times), this observation is most important:
It serves as a metaphor for much, if not most, liberal thought, which rejects honest, serious, pragmatic discussion of ideas, facts, and consequences in favor of empty words, words, words — which are beloved by people like the Wizard of Oz and our president.
If we feel let down by Friedman, we are sent reeling by Frank Rich (NY Times), the author of this ugly, simplistic description of conservative Americans who are joining with Republicans, Independents, Libertarians, and Democrats to form the landslide majorities mentioned earlier:
"Stalinists. . . [actors in a] screwball comedy. . .participants [dressed] up in full 'tea party' drag. . . a wacky, paranoid cult [devoted to] right-wing ideological purity. . . rightists [consumed with] radical-right hysteria, seething rage, fear of minorities, [and] maniacal contempt for government. . . dispossessed antebellum grandees [who lament] the plight of white working-class voters. . . [denizens of an] alternative universe [in which] Palin [is] the great white hope."
There is but one reaction we can muster to that vitriol — We denounce it as a despicably ironic tirade delivered by a person whose psyche spews wild plasmatic flares of "seething rage" but succeeds only in foreshadowing its inevitable implosion.
There is, however, something good that comes from it; for it is of inestimable value in helping us determine who deserves to be recognized as the nation's modern Know-Nothings, in all their prejudiced, hypocritical, incestuous arrogance.
© A.J. DiCintio
November 7, 2009
As Tuesday's vote revealed, individualism is alive and well in the nation, one happy aspect of which is that most of us insist upon drawing our own conclusions regarding the following question:
Which Americans are behaving with an anti-intellectual, hateful ignorance in the debate regarding the Obama/Pelosi/Reid healthcare bills making their way through Congress?
To answer that question, we begin by stipulating what is currently known about the bills, including the following —
. . . The final bill's estimated $1 trillion cost over the next decade is certain to be shockingly greater for two reasons.
First, Congress has never come within a million miles of correctly estimating the actual cost of any healthcare plan.
Second, to insure that cost estimates will be lowballed by the CBO, Democrats have put in a fiscal fix that initiates taxes for Obamacare in 2010 but waits until 2013 (conveniently one year after the Election of 2012) to gradually implement the plan.
. . . How to pay for a program that affects 16% of the nation's economy?
Well, Democrats claim they'll get $400 billion from Medicare — without ever explaining to seniors and the rest of the nation how they'll get that kind of money without cutting services, reducing services, or increasing Medicare premiums.
Democrats also proclaim they'll raise another $400 billion by increasing taxes on the rich as much as 30%, taxes that, like the insatiably rapacious Alternative Minimum Tax, will grow with inflation every year.
But a tax on the rich has never brought in the revenue projected.
Moreover, Democrats have never discussed the consequences of these huge tax increases, which will suppress economic growth, cost jobs, and reduce tax receipts at all levels of government.
. . . Democratic healthcare "reform" will enormously increase the cost of Medicaid and stick the states with most of the check.
However, Democrats never speak of the reality that this check (whose bottom line increases every year) will be paid by citizens who are already thrashing up to their noses in a rapaciously menacing ocean of state taxes, debt, and deficits.
(The fiscal realities of California and New Jersey offer sobering bi-coastal proof that the previous sentence contains not a bit of exaggeration.)
. . . Democrats propose raising taxes on healthcare providers with not a word about whether the cost will be passed on to consumers.
. . . To improve the chances of getting their Federal takeover of healthcare passed, Democrats have cut so many backroom deals with so many healthcare interests that the only "interests" left to pay for the plan are the elderly and the rest of We the People.
. . . Last, but not finally, in writing every one of their bills, Democrats have exhibited a galactic-sized chutzpah that delivers two vile slaps to every American's face:
While they had no problem ripping $400 billion from the elderly, Democrats remain shamelessly intransigent that the arm of the Democratic Party called Trial Lawyer Inc. pay not one cent toward "reforming" healthcare.
As if that isn't enough to let ordinary folks know where they stand in a Federally controlled healthcare system, Democrats have written their 2,000 page abomination in "legislative language" no human (except liberal activist judges) can understand — while requiring that henceforth all health insurance policies be written in "plain language."
Aware of facts such as the ones just presented, we are now prepared to examine the rhetoric of the healthcare debate.
Following is what we hear from opponents of Obamacare. (All percentages and quotes from Rasmussen Reports, 10/23/09.)
From 62% of Independent voters — "It would be better to do nothing rather than pass the current plan." (Let's remember that 60% represents a landslide in American politics.)
From 66% of all voters — "Free market competition between insurance companies will do more than government regulation to reduce healthcare costs."
Finally, this from 67% of all voters — "No matter how bad things are [with respect to healthcare], Congress could always make it worse."
(How's that for insight that recognizes the truth about politicians and the truth about the special dangers inherent in transferring power to the level of government most remote from the people!)
Next, we turn to the nation's most powerful Democratic politicians, only to hear them reviling the dissenters as an "unhinged mob" composed of "swastika" loving "evil-mongers."
Moreover, when we search for common sense from Liberaldom's non-politicians, we are stunned with the following kind of "intellectuality."
"One of the reasons that independents and conservatives who voted for Mr. Obama have been so easily swayed against him by Fox News and people labeling him a 'socialist' is because he has not given voice to the truly patriotic nation-building endeavor in which he is engaged."
Of all we have to say about that embarrassingly condescending passage by Thomas Friedman (NY Times), this observation is most important:
It serves as a metaphor for much, if not most, liberal thought, which rejects honest, serious, pragmatic discussion of ideas, facts, and consequences in favor of empty words, words, words — which are beloved by people like the Wizard of Oz and our president.
If we feel let down by Friedman, we are sent reeling by Frank Rich (NY Times), the author of this ugly, simplistic description of conservative Americans who are joining with Republicans, Independents, Libertarians, and Democrats to form the landslide majorities mentioned earlier:
"Stalinists. . . [actors in a] screwball comedy. . .participants [dressed] up in full 'tea party' drag. . . a wacky, paranoid cult [devoted to] right-wing ideological purity. . . rightists [consumed with] radical-right hysteria, seething rage, fear of minorities, [and] maniacal contempt for government. . . dispossessed antebellum grandees [who lament] the plight of white working-class voters. . . [denizens of an] alternative universe [in which] Palin [is] the great white hope."
There is but one reaction we can muster to that vitriol — We denounce it as a despicably ironic tirade delivered by a person whose psyche spews wild plasmatic flares of "seething rage" but succeeds only in foreshadowing its inevitable implosion.
There is, however, something good that comes from it; for it is of inestimable value in helping us determine who deserves to be recognized as the nation's modern Know-Nothings, in all their prejudiced, hypocritical, incestuous arrogance.
© A.J. DiCintio
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