Politics

The Promise of Obama

In 2010, I responded as follows to Obama’s promise—now discredited even in the mainstream media—that “you can keep your doctor” under Obamacare:

But every other American, even if he “couldn’t afford it” before, will be able to have your doctor too. You will have to share your doctor with all these additional people.

In 2011, I summarized Obama’s promise this way:

If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, but your doctor will now have to treat these additional patients in order to make a living.

Any reasonable person did not have to wait until 2013 to know that Obama was making a promise that was better not kept, because keeping that promise would oppress doctors even further and reduce further their ability to do their work.

Note the brazenness of Obama’s promise, along with Obama’s disparaging of his critics, in this speech by Obama in 2009:

So we need to do a few things to provide affordable health insurance to every single American. The first thing we need to do is to protect what’s working in our health care system. So just in case you didn’t catch it the first time, let me repeat: If you like your health care system and your doctor, the only thing reform will mean to you is your health care will cost less. If anyone says otherwise, they are either trying to mislead you or don’t have their facts straight.

Applying Obama’s own standard, was Obama trying to mislead us, or did he simply not have his facts straight?

Obama continued,

Now, if you don’t like your health care coverage or you don’t have any insurance at all, you’ll have a chance, under what we’ve proposed, to take part in what we’re calling a Health Insurance Exchange. … You will have your choice of a number of plans that offer a few different packages, but every plan would offer an affordable, basic package.

Again, this is for people who aren’t happy with their current plan. If you like what you’re getting, keep it. Nobody is forcing you to shift. But if you’re not, this gives you some new options. And I believe one of these options needs to be a public option that will give people a broader range of choices — (applause) — and inject competition into the health care market so that force — so that we can force waste out of the system and keep the insurance companies honest. (Applause.)

Two days after this speech by Obama in 2009, I replied,

To many people, who do not understand political freedom, Obama’s proposal sounds appealing. After all, Obama is offering more choice, more options, more competition, right?

Perhaps the evil of Obama’s plan is more apparent in this analogy:

So we need to do a few things to provide a desirable wife to every American man. Now, if you don’t like your wife or you don’t have any wife at all, you’ll have a chance, under what we’ve proposed, to take part in what we’re calling a Wife Exchange. You will have your choice of a number of different women, provided by the government.

Again, this is for men who aren’t happy with their current wife. If you like what you’re getting, keep it. Nobody is forcing you to shift. But if you’re not, this gives you some new options. And I believe one of these options needs to be a public option that will give men a broader range of choices.

Oh, and by the way, your current wife will also be made available for other men to choose, as part of their ‘public option’. After all, the government does not create new women out of thin air, any more than it creates new doctors. But don’t worry, we’ll pay her (with your tax money). And if other men choose her, you’ll still be able to share her.

Does that analogy make the meaning of Obama’s plan clearer?

Obama has a tyrant’s notion of ‘choice’. In a free society, individuals engage with each other when such engagement is by mutual consent. A man and woman marry when both the man and the woman choose each other. A purchase is made when the purchaser and the seller agree to the terms of the sale. An employee works for an employer when they both choose such an arrangement and agree to terms.

Obama, on the other hand, wants to give people the option to be served by doctors, in part paid for by taxpayers and in part not paid for at all, even when those doctors and those taxpayers choose not to do so of their own free will. Obama would abolish the principle of trade by mutual consent, and replace it with one party’s choice to coerce the other.

“If you’re not happy with your current cotton-pickers, whom you have to pay, we’ll provide you with the choice of free cotton-pickers.”

This notion is a tyrant’s notion of ‘choice’. This mentality is the mentality of America’s President.

I leave the reader with one more statement by Obama against his critics in 2010:

There were cynics that warned that Medicare would lead to a government takeover of our entire health care system …

For my response to this statement and other absurdities of Obama, see The Limitless Unreason of the Left.

Obama may still try to keep his original promise to let you keep your doctor and your health plan (unless you are “wealthy”), by further coercing doctors and insurance companies.

The promise of Obama is a promise of evil.