The Terms of the Deal

posted at 10:44 pm on March 18, 2010 by Doctor Zero

This weekend may see the fateful vote on ObamaCare, or it may be passed with twilight’s last deeming. There is not much time left for Americans to consider what is about to be done to them, and raise their voices in a protest loud enough to frighten nervous Democrats out of their parliamentary maneuvers. The ruling class wants this bill badly enough to interpret anything less than fierce protest as implied consent.

Even discounting the sewer system of underhanded deals and bribes needed to push ObamaCare through Congress, distorting it beyond any semblance of a carefully-designed plan, it’s foolish to accept it as a “solution” to health care “problems.” No government program is a solution to anything. I’m not referring to their inefficiency or cost. I’m talking about their very nature.

A government program is not a carefully-designed system, or even an enduring commitment. It is a promise. Systems require discipline. For example, the operation of an aircraft carrier is a very complex system, which relies upon many individuals to perform carefully-defined duties. Failure to perform these duties results in punishment or dismissal. All of the crew members understand this, so the system is reliable. When the captain orders a fighter to launch, he knows the deck crew and pilot will quickly obey. The crew and pilot, in turn, know that the captain would not order a launch for no good reason. Everything happens with speed, efficiency, and precision, because the system is illuminated by trust.

Government social programs don’t work that way. They can’t. Today’s Congress cannot bind future sessions with discipline. They can only saddle their successors with obligations. The national debt has grown to staggering proportions because debt is the only thing each new Administration and Congress inherit from those who went before.

When Barack Obama tries to convince you to accept a government takeover of the health-care industry, he is making a promise he won’t be around to keep. ObamaCare’s job-killing taxes are front-loaded, but in order to fool the Congressional Budget Office into giving it a respectable deficit score, its benefits are delayed for years. Even if Obama wins re-election, he would complete his second term long before the program was completely phased in… and no external authority exists to compel either Obama, or his successors, to honor the promises he’s been making.

Consider the question of public funding for abortion, which has led Democrat representative Bart Stupak and his little bloc of pro-life colleagues to withhold their support. They are ostensibly holding out for guarantees against government-funded abortions, but the odds that ObamaCare will never cover abortions are exactly zero. It’s simply a question of when, not if. Once the government controls the health-care industry, there is nothing to prevent Democrats from paying for any service their constituents demand. A future law funding abortion can easily be passed, or maybe even “deemed” into existence. Abortion advocates can use lawsuits to squeeze funding out of the government. Control of the health-insurance industry will give the government massive leverage to erode determined public resistance against any steps it wishes to take.

Think about the evolution of ObamaCare health insurance into single-payer socialized medicine, something Obama and the Democrats quietly promise to left-wing audiences. The government will have every incentive to press for this transformation, and arrange it by pushing private competitors out of the market, then presenting single-payer government health care as tomorrow’s “solution” to the problem they’re working to create today. There is nothing to stop them from doing this.

The only guarantee you have that ObamaCare will provide the promised benefits, and remain within its boundaries, is the trust you place in the word of Barack Obama and his party… and your faith in future politicians who have yet to be elected.

It is madness to extend such trust to the party of Charlie Rangel, John Conyers, Nancy Pelosi, Christopher Dodd, Barney Frank, and Harry Reid. There is no reason to trust an administration that places billions of dollars into the hands of unaccountable “czars,” including the odd Communist. Only a fool would believe the endless string of lies and deception from this President will magically transform into honesty and fidelity, after his angry demands for more power are fulfilled. A party that openly plans to subvert what little power remains in the tattered Constitution will not become more lawful after it seizes control of an entire industry. It would be idiotic to believe that a government whose economic projections have never come close to reality can suddenly predict the costs of the most enormous program it has ever produced. Remember, this Administration’s idea of a “system working” consists of frantic airline passengers tackling a terrorist seconds before his underwear detonates.

It would also be foolish to place such faith in Republicans, or anyone else. Today’s Democrats are not unique in their corruption, a cancer that can be driven into remission with electoral chemotherapy in 2010 and 2012. Massive government breeds massive corruption through its very nature – it is the predictable behavior of people who are no less greedy, ambitious, or deceitful that the most rapacious robber baron. They hide their avarice behind masks of finely chiseled sanctimony, but as the final maneuvers toward the passage of ObamaCare illustrate, they’re just as quick to bend rules and perpetrate fraud as any white-collar criminal.

It would be a horrible mistake to accept a deal with the creators of history’s most staggering natonal debt, based on assurances they will place your interests ahead of theirs, for decades to come. As Darth Vader memorably explained to Lando Calrissian, the State can always alter the terms of the deal, and your only recourse will be praying they don’t alter it any further.

Cross-posted at www.doczero.org.

Blowback