Since its passage 14 months ago, the grand total of year-long Obamacare "waivers" doled out by HHS now stands at 1,372.
Last month, the Obama administration approved 204 new waivers. Of those, nearly 20% (38) are for upscale restaurants, swanky nightclubs and five star hotels in Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco district - the same Nancy Pelosi who, as Speaker, infamously urged the 1000+ pg law's passage because we "need[ed] to find out what's in it."
Aside from the obvious political favoritism going on here, as one lawmaker remarked, "What does it say about the feasibility of the health care law when the administration needs to exempt over 1,000 health plans from its own law?"
Thoughts? Hopefully this will get more reaction than Bin Laden's death did.
5 comments:
Health care is one of those areas in which problems are identified and most of our enslaved minds can think of no other solution than to have the government mandate something. So the government mandates, and that creates more problems. The government then rushes in to solve these new problems and makes itself the hero, thus setting itself up to solve the new problems the previous solution will inevitably create.
We know where this path leads. Authoritarianism has been historically associated with economic collapse, almost without exception. The societies that have been the most prosperous have been the most free, plain and simple. The state is the opposite of freedom. It is brute force only.
Anyone who assumes that this legislation had anything but corporate interests behind it needs to wake up. No one's well being was considered. It was driven by lobby dollars and political intrigue. It satisfies neither conservatives nor liberals. It is a joke. We cannot magically create health care by mandating the purchase of insurance anymore that we can magically end homelessness by mandating mortgages.
But the real kicker is that neither side--the conservative or the liberal--is offering anything different. Each side is simply championing their flavor of authoritarianism. The only government action that would be both moral and effectual would be for it to limit itself, i.e. eliminating license requirements, eliminating restrictions on drug trade, eliminating involuntary regulation the insurance industry, eliminating subsidies and "welfare" programs.
Unfortunately, it is not in the nature of government to ever limit itself.
Good observations. My dad and I were just talking about this, although in the economic context. Unfortunately, it has become an unacceptable political position to just do nothing and let the free market run its course. Economy's bad? Let's "stimulate" it. Car makers on the verge of bankruptcy? Let's infuse them with taxpayer $. Banks going under? Roll out the TARP. Despite the numerous studies indicating that New Deal governmental tinkering actually prolonged the Great Depression by several years, we're still making the same mistakes.
Same goes with health care. 3rd party payer governmental reforms from the 60's are largely responsible for skyrocketing costs, so once again, government can't resist the temptation to expand and attempt to solve the problems it once created. It's a vicious cycle.
Good call.
Have you noticed how second-nature the use of the "majestic plural" has become? In modern political discourse, when people say "we" should do something about an issue, they don't mean you and me. "We" means "the federal government". People no longer approach issues with the question, "What should I do about this? What should my family do, my church, my business, my associations?" No no, people now generally tend to approach every issue with, "What should the government do about this?" They don't even consider that it may not be (and rarely is) the government's job at all!
Relevant.
That's inspiring. How many people in today's society would have just sat back, watched their businesses flood, and hoped that some government bureaucracy, like FEMA, would have 'saved' them in those conditions? Gotta tip your hat to that guy for taking matters into his own hands!
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