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Friday, November 15, 2013

Krauthammer: "Why Liberals Are Panicked About Obamacare"

"National Geographic: Per Capita Healthcare Expenditure Correlated To Longevity"


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Krauthammer is a smart fellow. But he is not smart enough to realize that if his dream of Democratic demise "came true," contemporary conservatives will oversee America's departure from "the community of civilized nations." Revered RINO, Ronald Reagan, is the very fellow who, at Ground Zero, unleashed gridlock, dysfunction and incivility by declaring "Government is the problem." 

 To take one measure, the United States' failure to provide government-supervised universal healthcare is barbarian behavior, 
unique in "the developed world." 

Even Mexicans have "free" universal care. 

It is not top notch, but is way better than nothing.
Several months ago, a peasant friend had her gall bladder removed at no cost.
Mexico for Christ's sake!

Should Krauthammer's "dream come true," the nation's de facto status as The United States of Barbaria will become de jure

Theocratic brownshirts may not seem as menacing as their goose-stepping forebears. 
But, once empowered, they would dismantle democracy with iqual gusto.

Given their passion for apocalypticism, it is an open question just how far their lunacy would take them.

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I am not, as Krauthammer alleges, "panicked about Obamacare." 

I believe the Affordable Health Act will work quite well. 
And if it doesn't, we will be one step closer to single payer.

"Here's Why Republicans Have No Alternative To Obamacare"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/11/heres-why-republicans-have-no.html

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Charles Krauthammer

“Even if it takes a change to the law, the president should honor the commitment the federal government made to those people and let them keep what they got.”
— Bill Clinton, Nov. 12
Krauthammer writes a politics column that runs on Fridays.



So the former president asserts that the current president continues to dishonor his “you like your plan, you can keep your plan” pledge. And calls for the Affordable Care Act to be changed, despite furious White House resistance to the very idea. 

Alan: On this very point, the "furiously resistant" White House has already given in. Methinks Mr. Krauthammer projects his own party's "furious resistance." Be that as it may, Krauthammer's views are often contradicted within a single news cycle. 
Coming from the dean of the Democratic Party, this one line marked the breaching of the dam. It legitimized the brewing rebellion of panicked Democrats against Obamacare. Within hours, that rebellion went loudly public. By Thursday, President Obama had been forced into a rear-guard holding action, asking insurers to grant a one-year extension of current plans.
The damage to the Obama presidency, however, is already done. His approval rating has fallen to 39 percent, his lowest ever. And, for the first time, a majority considers him untrustworthy. That bond is not easily repaired.
At stake, however, is more than the fate of one presidency or of the current Democratic majority in the Senate. At stake is the new, more ambitious, social-democratic brand of American liberalism introduced by Obama, of which Obamacare is both symbol and concrete embodiment.
Alan: The "symbol and concrete embodiment" of American liberalism - including Obama's preferred embodiment of liberalism - is single payer healthcare. If Obamacare is repealed, single payer, or another more comprehensive form of federally-coordinated healthcare, will be its replacement. The private sector does not work as a way of providing universal care at affordable cost. This failure is not theory but the manifest experience of the last 80 years. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/10/obamas-preference-for-single-payer.html  


"Here's Why Republicans Have No Alternative To Obamacare"
Precisely when the GOP was returning to a more constitutionalist conservatism committed to reforming, restructuring and reining in the welfare state (see, for example, the Paul Ryan Medicare reform passed by House Republicans with near-unanimity), Obama offered a transformational liberalism designed to expand the role of government, enlarge the welfare state and create yet more new entitlements (see, for example, his call for universal preschool in his most recent State of the Union address).
The centerpiece of this vision is, of course, Obamacare, the most sweeping social reform in the past half-century, affecting one-sixth of the economy and directly touching the most vital area of life of every citizen. 

Alan: Notably, the Democratic Party's enactment of Social Security and Medicare were even more sweeping reforms that took place in the past half-century. Furthermore, they are the most successful - and popular - government plans ever!
As the only socially transformational legislation in modern American history to be enacted on a straight party-line vote, Obamacare is wholly owned by the Democrats. Its unraveling would catastrophically undermine their underlying ideology of ever-expansive central government providing cradle-to-grave care for an ever-grateful citizenry. 

Alan: What do we want? We want ingrates! When do we want 'em? We want 'em now!
For four years, this debate has been theoretical. Now it’s real. And for Democrats, it’s a disaster. (Alan: By the November election, I see no disaster. And if there is one, the resulting Republican disaster will be completely chaotic. "Republicans For Revolution" - http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/09/republicans-for-revolution-by-mark-lilla.html)
It begins with the bungled rollout. If Washington can’t even do the Web site — the literal portal to this brave new world — how does it propose to regulate the vast ecosystem of American medicine?
Beyond the competence issue is the arrogance. Five million freely chosen, freely purchased, freely renewed health-care plans are summarily canceled. Why? Because they don’t meet some arbitrary standard set by the experts in Washington.
What does "freely chosen" mean in a society whose capitalist handlers promote aggressive ignorance? And why does Krauthammer ignore epistemology?
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For all his news conference gyrations about not deliberately deceiving people with his “if you like it” promise, the law Obama so triumphantly gave us allows you to keep your plan only if he likes it. This is life imitating comedy — that old line about a liberal being someone who doesn’t care what you do as long as it’s mandatory. 

Alan: Although absurdist comedy has a place - and a revered place - Krauthammer's concluding reductio ad absurdem is just not funny. Stewart, Colbert and Maher are funny. "The Right" is not funny. The right is too afraid to be caught - unguarded - in wholehearted laughter. The absence of uproarious conservative humor is one of several missing mental circuits. In the end, the real healthcare mandate will be single payer system. The day is coming. And it will be resoundingly successful. Not only will single payer provide high quality healthcare for every citizen, cost-containment is embedded in its nature. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/03/national-geographic-chart-of-per-capita.html

Although Krauthammer may not be conscious of the fact, his "bones" know that Republicans have no viable alternative and that the failure of Obamacare will propel the nation toward Canadian or French-style healthcare. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/02/cheese-eating-surrender-monkeys.html

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