Remember When?

Remember back, oh say, five or six years ago, when the only, only topic of discussion at work, around the water cooler, at the gym, in church, at the roller rink, or the bowling alley, at family gatherings or cocktail parties, was healthcare?  You know, who's got it, how to get it, when will it happen, and how about all those poor, poor people who don't have it?

And when folks weren't talking about healthcare, they were talking about getting illegal aliens legalized, or passing the farm bill and making sure that 47,000,000 people got free food stamps, and how to defund the military, and how to raise taxes on the evil, filthy rich, and how to close down all the coal mines, and when the will the world come to a fiery end due to global warming, and why profits are the invention of the devil, and how stupid is Chimpy McBushhitler? 

No?  Well hang on kiddies, while we dissect this really interesting situation to the edification of all.

Six or seven years ago, folks were talking about almost anything else beside healthcare.  They were talking about jobs, and retirement, and the stock market, and why their kid was the very best athlete, and where they were going on their next vacation.  NOT healthcare!  That's because America's healthcare system was the very best in the history of the Free World.  The VERY BEST!  Doubt me?  Ask yourself why the potentates of Arabia got on their Airbus A380s and trundled halfway around the world to come here for their healthcare needs?  And why the Canadians routinely skip across the border to obtain health care which isn't available to them up north because of their wonderful socialized medicine.  Medicine which we Americans are bound to enjoy in the very, very near future.

Yet, here comes Barack Hussein Obama, recent law school grad, he says, however none of his Haaaaved classmates can recall ever seeing him there, and recent addition to Chicago's population, and newly-hired community organizer (signer-up of people to register as Democrats so they could vote two or three or more times), and recent inventor of the "hope and change" mantra.  Oh, and in one of his multitudinous stump speeches, the need to bring about nationalized, single-payer healthcare to America. 

Now, it's known that socialists' deepest desire for generations has been to take control of America's healthcare.  They know that if they've got control over your health, they've got control over your finances and your life.  And it's also known that Dems have had plans to do just that in the lower right-hand drawer of their D.C. desks for decades.  So, when Barry gets elected on the basis of his load-of-crap "hope and change" thing, and the Dems take control of both houses of Congress, out comes the liberal wet dream plans, they are cobbled together into a 2,700 page behemoth, and so begins the speeches about how The One is going to "transform America." 

And a very big part of that transformation was nationalized healthcare.

"If you like your doctor, you can keep you doctor...period," he said.  "If you like your health insurance, you can keep your health insurance...period," he said.  And he made those flat and clear statements several times a day, month after month, during his tedious and tiring campaign.  Somewhere between 23 and 39 times it was captured on tape.  Imagine how many more times it was said during speeches and private gatherings and not memorialized on recordings for posterity.  And, he said, he would also lower your health insurance premiums by no less than $2,500 a year.  These promises tended not to sway many of the 85% of Americans who had health insurance through their employers.  Except for the liberal weenies, that is. 

But the 15% that had no insurance were intrigued.  Even though they were told by experienced folks like me, folks who had spent their entire working lives in the healthcare field, that this plan was not founded in fact, couldn't work, was a complete and total crock of shitake and would likely ruin forever the greatest and most effective health care delivery system the world has ever known, they were hiippmoootized by this smooth-talking charlatan in a shiny, empty suit.  And they voted for him.  And the plague of Obamacare was thus visited upon America. 

And we're just now beginning  to learn how screwed we all are.  Totally screwed.

The Democrats accuse the Republicans of shutting down the Gummint for 17 days.  That's because the Republicans wanted to defund, delay and defuse Obamacare.  Just one year's delay, they said.  Pretty reasonable, I would judge.  Barry and his brain-dead Congress-types wouldn't budge.  And now, as of October 1st, when the Obamacare exchanges opened for business, America is learning, to its profound dismay, exactly why the Republicans made such a monumental stink over this gigonda law. 

It's now more than a month later.  Somewhere between six and.......who knows?...... have signed up via this $600 million dollar website, put together by no less than 55 companies, all of which are managed by nice folks who gave millions to Barry and his reelection campaign.  55 companies.  Can you imagine the flustercluck when 55 different companies, working independently, try to spend boucoup bucks putting together more than 500,000 million lines of code to develop the very biggest website in the history of the universe!?  That's about 10 times more lines of code than Google, by the way.  500,000 million lines.  And while a handful have found new insurance via this portal, millions, millions more have been dropped by their carriers because their coverage pre-Obamacare didn't meet the new minimum standards. 

But not to worry!   They promise they will have this nifty new website up to speed not later than the end of November.  And then all the nice young folks who have no need for this putrid piece of crap insurance plan will be able to sign up and pay too much to get something they don't want (maternity coverage for sixty year old men?). 

But hey, the good news is that, if you have trouble navigating the tortuously slow website, you can always call in a Navigator.  That's one of them there folks who got as much as 20 hours of training in Oblamocare (that much?), and are laboring away for only $60k per year (that little?).  And, didn't have to pass a background check.  And could very well be a felon.  Sounds good to me.  Give all of your most personal information, including your Social Security Number, which we're all told never to give to anybody, to a registered, law-breaking, just out of the Gray Bar Hotel, certified, convicted criminal felon, so he or she can help you get some of that hot new inshorance.  Yeah...

Stay tuned.  This is going to get good...