The Fall of Barack
Barack Obama is on schedule to leave office, widely acknowledged as America's worst president. Somewhere, Jimmy Carter is smiling.
Everything Barry has touched in four years and three quarters has turned to dog excrement. He has the reverse Midas touch, although there is always plenty of gold for friends, associates and cronies.
Take ObamaCare, for instance -- the ACA is a metaphor for the entire Obama presidency. Despite polls showing that 85% of Americans were happy with their health insurance, Barry insisted that there was a healthcare "crisis." Then, never the hardest worker, he allowed Nancy Pelosi and her minions, along with Harry Reid and his minions, to write a 2,000-plus-page monstrosity of a bill, including every liberal fantasy wish from the last half-century.
Afterward, the "I won" president, through bribes and legislative trickery, shoved the Affordable Care Act down the throat of America, on a strictly partisan vote and before anyone even knew what was in it.
As Nancy Pelosi famously said, "We have to pass the bill so you can find out what's in it."
Well...now we know what's in it.
Joe Biden, always a classy guy, and another metaphor for the Obama presidency, called it "a big [effing] deal."
Here is the good part. Barry, surely not having read the bill, welcomed it being nicknamed "ObamaCare." It never occurred to him that having his handpicked mandarins take over one sixth of the nation's economy might turn out to be a disaster. How could it fail? It had his name on it!
This is a man who named his dog after himself (Barack Obama = "Bo"). He had his legacy, and that was all that mattered. Yet the reality of ObamaCare is that in order for it succeed, the young and healthy must sign up and pay more so that the old and sick can pay less.
America is a nation founded on the tenets of capitalism and freedom. During the last 100 years, capitalism has been successful in improving the quality of life for billions. This is because it is the only societal system that takes into account man's inherent greed and selfishness. Free people striving for more, to serve their self-interest, created a world where everyone had more.
Barry, as a low-rent King Canute commanding the tides, was never going to work. He actually believes that people will do things not in their best interest financially to make ObamaCare function and keep his signature accomplishment accomplished.
One of the advantages of the ACA Barry is always crowing about is that the young and healthy can stay on their parents' insurance until they are 26 years old. Never the most analytical, Barry seems unaware that reducing the pool of potential enrollees needed to make ObamaCare functional and sound makes the law...well, less sound.
And the mandate penalties in the bill were set too low. Why would a 27-year-old car salesman making $40K a year willingly pay $300 a month for insurance that carries a $5K deductible, when he could just pay the $285 maximum fine for 2014, knowing that if he ever got sick, he would just need to wait out the months until the next enrolment?
Then there's the "pre-existing conditions" part of the bill -- Barry is always bragging about that. Insurance companies cannot deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions or ask them to pay more. This means that the health care costs of the old, poor, and sick will need to be covered by the young and healthy through higher premiums. Barry seems to have assumed that the young and healthy would go for this.
This guarantees that the afflicted will be the people most willing to sign on; it's in their best interest to do so. Look for them to be the most ardent supporters of the ACA as well. After all, who wouldn't want everyone else to pay for his health care?
Let the "death spiral" begin.
Let's talk about the deductibles. Americans accustomed to a $30 co-pay are going to just love waiting 2 months for a doctor's appointment only to be told they have to pay $350 to turn their head and cough, or bend over while they hear the snap of the rubber glove.
It's not a pretty sight, but isn't that ObamaCare in its entirety?
"We decided that this is what's best for you. Now bend over."
With huge deductibles, and the several=hundred-dollar monthly cost, it's not really insurance; it's wealth transfer from the young and healthy to the old, poor, and sick.
Yet Barry thought it wouldn't be a problem. He thought the young and healthy would jump, in an altruistic frenzy, at the opportunity to pay more for less. Bless their young and healthy hearts.
Healthcare.gov is another Obama metaphor. Barry and his team had almost three and a half years and a half-billion dollars to build a website -- and they still botched it. America got the king of the error message.
What makes anyone think that while this administration couldn't competently build a website, they will be able to competently manage the nation's health care?
Barry's "Fast and Furious," where his administration shipped guns to Mexican drug cartels to be used to kill Mexicans and Americans in order to build a better case for gun control...was nothing.
The IRS deliberately thwarting political opponents of Barry to help him beat Mitt Romney in last year's election...was nothing.
The deliberate obfuscation of the Benghazi narrative, where Chris Stevens, the United States ambassador to Libya, was sodomized and murdered along with three other brave Americans while Barry went to bed early, so he could be fresh for a campaign event the next day in Las Vegas...was nothing.
The NSA spying on basically everyone...was nothing.
The Keystone pipeline, the vitriol, the humiliation of America on the world stage...all these were nothing.
ObamaCare will finish little Barry, because it was designed to punish somewhere around 300 million people to reward 30 million or so voters whom Barry believes can be counted on to vote Barack and his minions.
Karl Marx said history repeats itself -- "first as tragedy, second as farce."
I disagree. While Barry's first term was certainly tragedy, it was also farce. And while Barry's second term has surely been farce, it is assuredly becoming tragedy as well.
I wrote recently that Barack Obama is the most dangerous of morons: the moron who doesn't think he is a moron.
Paraphrasing one of the Godfather movies, Fredo, Michael Corleone's brother, having been discovered betraying the family, tells his sibling, "I'm smart, Mikey. I could be the boss. I'm smart." To which Michael replies, "You're my brother, Fredo, and I love you. Now get in the boat."
Fredo doesn't come back from that boat ride.
Barry is America's Fredo -- without the love.
We will have to wait until Election Day 2016 to find our Michael.