LEANING RIGHT-The bloom is indeed off the rose and now it stinks to high heaven. When it was learned that the Obamacare website is such a disaster the first question that occurred to me was what were the responses and revelations the times that President Obama asked about its progress. This should have been occurring on a daily basis or at least on a weekly basis. As a minimum it should have been occurring on a monthly basis.
Peter Schweizer of the Government Accountability Institute revealed that not one meeting between President Obama and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was held during the 3 year development period. Meetings between the two did not occur despite the fact that Obama met with other cabinet secretaries 277 times during the same period. The White House Visitor Logs were used to confirm this finding.
This is unimaginable incompetence. Even the Obama-worshipers in the media seem stunned by the depth and breadth of incompetence exposed. Maybe this will shake them back to reality since they are affected along with everybody else. This is supposed to be Obama’s signature piece of work.
An explanation of this incompetence is that he doesn’t care whether it works or not. This would explain the complete indifference and non-concern for the fate of the man in the street. Compounding this incompetence, indifference, and/or non-concern is the fact that in a few weeks 100 million citizens will lose their current insurance, will no longer be able to visit their life-long doctors, and will no longer be able to continue with their current health plans. The website fiasco is just the tip of the iceberg.
In contrast, in World War II, FDR brought together the men who made things in America, dollar-a-year industrialists who swiftly took charge and met his immediate demand for 50,000 planes and 1,600 ships.
They built the most awesome military machine the world had ever seen, arming 12 million Americans, Russia, and England as well, and smashing two mighty empires on opposite sides of the world.
And these men did it in about as long a time as it took Barack Obama’s regime, captained by Kathleen Sebelius, to flunk a test to create a website. There is something deeply wrong with our republic after spending $1 billion and taking 3 years, that is, unless President Obama is just apathetic.
It could be the case that now that it is law on the books the next administration will have to worry about whether it works or not.
Yet, though it is a website that has America laughing, Obama’s legacy legislation itself could, in its entirety, be in peril. As ex-pilot George W. Bush used to say, this thing looks like a five-spiral crash.
Republicans are clamoring for Sebelius’s firing.
Why wouldn’t Obama just leave her right where she is?
After all, Sebelius’s continuance testifies more eloquently than any attack ad just how far Obama’s beliefs about government and political philosophy are beyond the Middle American mainstream. Furthermore her existence deflects criticism off Obama.
In most great U.S. corporations, if an executive had three years to roll out the product on which the company’s future might depend, and delivered this debacle, he would be gone. Panic would ensue.
Emergency meetings of the board would be held to determine if more heads should roll and who should be brought in to save the company.
Outside of government, people routinely pay for their mistakes. Inside, there is often no penalty, no price, and no punishment for failure.
● We have seen the death of 4 Americans in Benghazi while the Secretary of State claimed she had other things to worry about on her Sunday mornings. The man in the street might have rationalized that he does not know these 4 people.
● We have seen the death of US border agent and the Attorney General not lifting a finger. The man in the street might have rationalized he does not know this border agent either.
● We have seen NSA spying on US citizens and rationalizing that national security is at stake.
● We have seen the IRS treating one government party more favorably than the other as a result of administration marching orders.
● We have seen egregious distortion of unemployment figures whereas everybody knows that if you ain’t working you ain’t working.
● We have seen complete and utter disregard of the existence of oil resources within our borders and offshore of our borders. Development of these resources would spell energy independence and unimaginable wealth and development for the country.
But we have not seen anything as direct and personal as oncoming Obamacare. It will affect our health, our jobs, and our finances. There is no way of rationalizing or deflecting this full force onslaught that is on the way.
Even young Americans are starting to wake up. Maybe it is the realization that a lot of Obamacare’s burdens will fall on their backs. They are unhappy with virtually every major thing President Barack Obama has done since he was re-elected according to the results of a Harvard University survey released on Wednesday.
The national poll by Harvard's Institute of Politics of more than 2,000 people aged 18 through 29 is intended to provide insight into the political views of the youngest U.S. voters. This increasingly influential demographic known as the "millennial generation" has been a traditional base of Obama's support.
More than 50 percent of respondents in the survey, taken between October 30 and November 11, said they disapproved of how the Democratic president handled key issues in his second term, including Syria, Iran, the economy, healthcare and the federal budget deficit.
Some 57 percent of respondents in the Harvard poll said they disapproved of the Obamacare law, with 40 percent expecting the quality of healthcare to worsen and about half expecting such costs to rise.
"Among the 22 percent in our survey who report that they have no insurance, less than one-third tell us they are likely to enroll," according to the report detailing the survey findings. "A plurality however are 50-50 and are therefore open to enrolling under the right circumstances."
This has been referred to as a “train wreck” but it is going to be worse than a “nuclear disaster.”
It will be personally affecting most individuals and families. There will be no way of rationalizing or sloughing it off. The bloom is finally off the rose.
(Kay Martin is an author and a CityWatch contributor. His new book, Along for the Ride, is now available. He can be reached at [email protected])
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 11 Issue 99
Pub: Dec 10, 2013