Obama fiddles; America burns

At a time when many Americans are worried about keeping their jobs, their homes, and putting food on their table, the federal government has just voted to confiscate up to an additional 20% of their income to pay for health care insurance under threat of prison. ObamaCare does nothing to add health care providers to handle the increased demand, but it does add 16,000 IRS agents to make sure that everyone buys health care insurance: a fact that speaks volumes about the true purpose of this legislation!


Those who are clueless about economics proclaim this as a victory of monumental proportions, but it is quite the opposite. In Massachusetts, RomneyCare promised all the glowing benefits of ObamaCare. Rather than reducing the cost of health care, MA now has the highest insurance premiums in the nation, exceeding the national average by a whopping 27% even as they continue to increase at 10% per year. But even that isn’t enough as they are now asking for $1.5 Billion in federal subsidies to keep RomneyCare solvent for another year. 50% of the physicians in MA are no longer accepting new patients, making actual health care unavailable for most, and those who can get in to see a doctor wait an average of 44 days. This of course drives sick people to the emergency room with more than 50% of services provided there now consumed in non-emergency services. In anticipation of reduced demand, reimbursement payments to hospitals for uninsured patient services have been reduced (even as actual demand has increased) driving many MA hospitals into bankruptcy.

The icing on the cake in MA is that new business starts are down 16% since the implementation of RomneyCare as entrepreneurs choose New Hampshire instead of MA for their new enterprises. With the implementation of ObamaCare, moving jobs to a different state is no longer an option so they will move off-shore.

All of the ‘blue-sky’ benefits promised by proponents of government health care insurance have proven to be the opposite of the realities.

The New England Journal of Medicine recently reported that 46% of primary care physicians claim that they will leave patient practice on the passage of ObamaCare; a number comparable to what has been experienced in MA.

Of much greater concern, passage of ObamaCare forces citizens to purchase a service, from the government, equal to up to 20% of their income, or face possible fines or imprisonment. Obviously not all citizens are going to be able to afford health care insurance, so they will have to be subsidized by those who can meaning that some citizens will be unequally taxed; a violation of Article I, Section 8 of the COTUS.

Fines for employers whose employees fail to purchase the required government insurance range from $695 to $3000 per year depending on the income of the employee. Is there a rational mind anywhere that cannot understand how this will reduce employability of those on the lowest rungs of the employment ladder? Is there a rational mind anywhere that cannot understand that adding such costs to the price of products and services of a business will make them non-competitive; thus threatening the continued existence of those jobs?

ObamaCare is the product of irrational wishful thinking by those who believe that they are entitled to something for nothing. The proponents proclaim this legislation to be the equal of Social Security and Medicare without noting that Congress has stolen from Social Security every cent contributed over the past 70 years and replaced it with a Ponzi Scheme that now represents a non-funded liability in 2009 of approximately $18 Trillion (yes that’s a “T”). Medicare, including Parts A, B, & D represents in 2009 an unfunded liability of $89 Trillion (yep, another “T”). How is this anything but a disaster?

Proponents claim that health care insurance is a right. Ben Franklin invented insurance in 1752: how can it be a right? Government has no authority to grant us new rights. The federal government was created solely to protect the inalienable rights that come from our Creator and nothing more: as the Constitution makes patently clear.

Proponents claim that federally mandated health care insurance frees people from linking health care insurance and employment, but it actually enslaves them. No business starts without sacrifice and privation. America already had the second highest taxes in the Western World; adding the 20% required by this health care insurance mandate not only enslaves all Americans, but it robs them of the revenue usually employed to create and expand new business opportunities.

This president and this Congress clearly fail to understand that all government jobs are revenue-consuming; funded solely by taxes on private sector employment. Every dollar diverted from the private sector to fund government employment and entitlements is a dollar denied to the private sector to create and sustain actual revenue generating employment. Every dollar of mandatory entitlement increases the cost of private sector products and services, making them less competitive against global competitors. Prepare to see even more jobs leave our shores in search of lower costs for survival.

The dancing of proponents will soon end as it comes time to pay the Piper. The federal government has operated on debt for so many years, but now those who have been buying our debt (our enemies in China and the Mid-East, and our friends in Japan) have stopped doing so. As a result the Fed is printing worthless script that the federal government is lending to banks for free and demanding that they use to buy Treasury debt at the exclusion of providing survival cash-flow loans to the small businesses that drive our economy. Not only will these higher taxes kill our businesses, but inflation will destroy our dollar even as the Baby Boomers move to fixed income status.

This mandated federal health care insurance legislation is no different than Nero’s fiddling even as Rome was burning. Rather than concentrating on reducing taxes to fund real job growth; and reducing debt to shore-up the strength of the dollar, this government foolishly and recklessly expands unfunded entitlements. Those who fail to learn from history are destined to repeat it. Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride!