Monday, October 07, 2013

Notes Concerning the Partial Government Shutdown

There seems to be a lot of mythology concerning what's happening in Washington now.  Let's get a few things straight.

The Senate and the President could work with the House.  They won’t so they’re as stubborn as the Congress.  Although the Senate and the President approved on paying members of the military, they refuse to pass the multiple bills proposed by the House to fund many of the government programs and services that are so dearly beloved by the Democrats.  These bills have nothing to do with ObamaCare, yet these same Democrats tell us how terrible it is that this stuff isn’t funded.

The Democrats want this partial shutdown.  They believe they can use it to convince Americans that Republicans are taking stuff away from them.  They are actively trying to make us unhappy by shutting down monuments and historic sites that require more funding and effort to shut down than to just leave them be.  They are actively preventing commercial fishing boats from fishing.  Again, it costs more and requires more effort to do this, but Democrats think it’s worth it because they believe they can blame these dastardly deeds on Republicans.  As long as they believe they can pull a fast one on the American public, they will be perfectly happy to continue the partial shutdown and tell us how terrible it is.

If you are thinking ObamaCare is some kind of government-run socialized medicine program similar to Canada’s or England’s, think again.  Understand that I would be against such a thing as well, but that’s not what ObamaCare is.  ObamaCare is a sweet deal made between the U.S. Government with health insurance companies.  By forcing people to buy insurance – especially young people who commonly wouldn’t buy it, the healthcare industry gets more customers.  The government, in return, gets more control, power, and funding.  This is great for the healthcare executives and the Washington politicians.  It screws the majority of Americans in raising rates and cutting services and access to doctors.

A vast majority of doctors are against ObamaCare.  It will mean less pay for them and more for administrators.  It also means they will spend less time with each patient.  This is causing and will further cause doctor shortages.  It just isn’t worth going through years and years of schooling, going deeply into debt, only to end up making the same salary as some government bureaucrat.  The number of applicants for medical schools around the country is going down.  The would-be doctors of the world are going to law schools instead where the number of applicants is going up fast.  The government hasn’t figured out how to screw lawyers yet.  This is probably because most politicians are lawyers.  Incidentally, the doctors who support ObamaCare tend to be the ones staffed by hospitals.  It doesn’t affect them so much.

ObamaCare is cake – as in “Let them eat cake”.  Politicians don’t want it.  Anybody who has any political clout is lobbying to be exempt from it.  Nancy Pelosi keeps telling us how wonderful it is but wouldn’t dare have it for herself or her family.  The rest of the Left keep reminding us that ObamaCare is LAW.  Well if it is LAW, then Congress and everyone else in Washington is under the LAW as well.  That’s how America works.

I am paying twice as much for my healthcare policy as I did a year ago.  My premium is supposed to go up even more next year.  I’ve also lost my doctor whom I had for over 10 years.  He wants no part of ObamaCare.  My situation is the norm, not the exception.  Years ago, Barack Obama promised my rates would go down and I would be able to keep my doctor.  Did Barack Obama lie or did he badly miscalculate?  How much have your rates risen?