PrintAugust 31, 2009
The Lobbyists-First Healthcare Reform Bill
In the vernacular preferred by most men I know, Obamacare could be called the "Screw-You" plan. Just about every special interest in this Country will make out like bandits, while you and I will be...well yes, I hate to say it, but here goes: we taxpayers will be royally screwed.
We pay; they play.
The special interests that elected this president are conducting multi-million dollar ad campaigns to seal the deal on Obamacare. Every one of them has had a very cushy seat at the power table where the bill was written, not on C-SPAN as candidate Obama promised, but behind closed doors.
Good ole boys, whether from Chicago or New Orleans, play ball by the same slimy rules.
Big Pharma, according to Forbes, is expected to spend as much as $150 million on ads supporting Obamacare. The 1997 FDA rule change that opened the door to direct TV ads aimed at patients, rather than their doctors, heralded a golden age of unprecedented profits. But many of those so-called miracle drugs developed in the 90s are about to go off patent and this will shrink Pharma's profits. The president has promised the drug companies that if they give $80 billion discounts up front, then there will be no haggling with the government over pricing in the future. Good deal for Big Pharma; bad deal for taxpayers.
Can we use the word, "fascist," yet?
If you wonder why the union bosses are sending thugs to harass, intimidate and assault Obamacare dissenters at townhall meetings, there are billions of reasons hidden in the legislation. Union bosses spent so much money - about $65 million -- getting Democrats elected last year that they are now on the financial ropes. Obama's campaign got $28 million from the SEIU alone. Unions now have only about 30 cents for every dollar of projected costs for member pension plans. Buried in Section 164 of Obamacare is the anticipated $10 billion taxpayer bailout that helps these union bosses make up for their profligate political spending. And that's only the first-on-the-table figure. It's sure to get bigger and bigger as time passes.
In the real world, we call that political payback. And, honey, it's anything but transparent.
Health insurance companies, who have mysteriously been one of the Democrats' favorite targets in the reform sales blitz, are also on board with the plan. The reason for this may seem shortsighted on their part, since every sentient observer well understands that the so-called public option is sure to eventually put them out of business, but in the short term, they stand to be guaranteed millions of young, healthy, government-mandated customers to help offset the expense of also-mandated coverage for all comers, regardless of pre-existing conditions. And it should not be forgotten that HMO executives gave more than $1.2 million to the Obama campaign. Perhaps the boomer insurance execs are counting on the inevitable bankruptcy-tsunami coming after they've gone to their own golden parachutes in the sky.
Smelling fishier and fishier, honey.
Trial lawyers are in greedy-rapture mode, dreaming up schemes to convince even more patients to file malpractice suits, since there's not even a shred of tort reform in ObamaCare. The multi-million dollar abortion industry is all aflutter, as FactCheck.org has confirmed, abortions would be covered by the federal plan and also by federally subsidized private plans. Pro-illegal immigrant groups are purely salivating over Obamacare, since there isn't a solitary provision in this bill that would require anyone signing up for benefits to prove he is indeed a U.S. citizen. And George Soros, a multi-billion-dollar special interest unto himself, will get the eugenics-lite approach he favors to end-of-life decision making.
So, what we have here, dear readers, is a gargantuan failure to communicate. The trio of Statist Tyrants in charge -- Obama, Pelosi and Reid -- have decided that saying the opposite of what they mean, all the while accusing others of lying, is indeed the way to have an "open debate" about healthcare reform.
As these Democrats put on their plastic smiley faces in public, they are screaming the figurative, "Screw You," behind closed doors. Shameful. Purely plum shameful. And this from that nice young man who promised transparency and a new kind of politics.
Someone get me my smelling salts. Hypocrisy of such magnitude has given me the vapors.
Kyle-Anne Shiver is a frequent contributor to American Thinker and a newly syndicated columnist for Creators Syndicate. She welcomes your comments at kyleanneshiver.com.
