Its been just six months and socialized medicine is officially being introduced into the homes of every American as Universal Health care takes stage front and center as this years top priority for the Obama administration. Make no mistake, this is not just a Clintonian like mantra revived to just maintain some political capital leveraged during the ’08 election… this is on its way to becoming reality. The transformation to socialism started long ago, but it really came obvious last year with George W Bush and his corporate bailouts for Wall Street bets went wrong. That was then - this is now and now is seeping into the private lives of every Americans, no doubt a bold and drastic attempt not seen since the days of LBJ. Obamacare has kicked into full throttle as we embark on a descent into uncharted waters of organizational upheaval, encroachments into our private lives but above all: paralyzing debt like we have never seen before.
With the Democrats having carte blanche, everyone knew this type of scenario was possible but for some reason most just chalked it up as lip service. After all, how could we possibly entertain the idea of paying for such a monstrosity as Universal Health care when we already have an entitlement tsunami on the way? A tsunami so large that it threatens to wipe out the budget as we know it, so much so that its estimated by 2030 we could be seeing health care take up 80% of federal expenditures.
First of all the 1 Trillion or 500 billion, whatever the number the Senate decides on from week to week to fund Universal Health care initially will be funded by… your great grandchildren. That’s right, we are still running budget deficits, so therefore we have no money to expand the size and scope of government any more then we have. So what do we do? You borrow it. This means the needed funding will come from money that will be printed and borrowed at interest from the Federal Reserve. Change you can believe in? Hardly.
No doubt that is obviously not sustainable, so with Medicaid spiraling out of control and Social Security on the verge of going bankrupt Universal Health care not only just a bad idea, its not mathematically probable. You would think that with the quagmire we are facing, the federal government would not want to put itself into another situation where even more of your health care is primarily funded by the state. You would think that in an era of record budget deficits and in turn an escalating national debt that is nearing 100% of GDP we would just have to say…”No”.
However, this is not the case. Obviously the ramifications of this measure are monumental and monstrous. And we could beat this topic to death with its obvious encroachments on personal choice and the invasion of privacy with even more detail of the ridiculous cost. Above all this however, I want to focus on just one small problem that gives this idea legs. And that is the premise, laid out by this administration and the people that put him into power. The same people that put back into power one of the most inept congresses (according to polling) that we have ever seen.
Because when your entire platform and political prowess is built upon the phrase “Yes we Can” then you will naturally have a President, his allies and his supporters who will ignore the hurdles and reality of a situation and shoot for the moon. Sure, the idea sounds good, the idea that we can overcome anything we want because we are headstrong to do it. But this isn’t a sporting event. There is no level playing field.
We have bills and fighting fire with gasoline may be a great ‘Bowie hook but its not however a strategy to get out of this train wreck that we are indeed facing. Now here comes the rub. Sixty-six percent of voters that voted for Obama were under the age of 30. Two thirds of his voting bloc was an idealistic population that by nature is incapable of making any sound rational decisions because they for the most part are inexperienced and are disciples of the moment. This is the generation of downloads and hi-speed, the first generation that was born inside the spectacle that is the 24 hours news cycle. Thus the ability to look down the road isn’t something that most of these people are capable of.
It was this population that would elect a man that clearly saw government as the answer not the wild beast that it always becomes. No matter how many times you pat it on the head, government is a rabid infested dog lunging at your throat and in this case your pocketbook and your consciousness. Which, leads me to my point, and let me just say, that irony obviously has a sense of humor.
Its this pie in the sky, idealistic segmentation that was the driving force in getting BO elected who will one day have to deal with carnage and insolvency that is coming as entitlements old and new merge into one death blow that will bring this country to its knees. If things are left "as is" the pain will be great, as stated before. However, if you compound obligations the nightmare will only increase ten fold when we add even more government intervention and responsibility.
Time is ticking and dealing with the past obligations before we undertake new ones is not just good political clout its just common sense. Unfortunately, common sense doesn’t apply to idealism. In fact common sense doesn’t allow it. So, yes we can. We can make the choice, all beit not a sexy one and it wont impact your reelection but it is a choice that must be made because its looking into the future and getting your hands dirty now as opposed to when your sinking. That’s a thought, a government forward looking and not basing its politics on a four year election window? That would be change I could believe in.
The idealist is incorrigible: if he is thrown out of his heaven he makes an ideal of his hell: Friedrich Nietzsche
