By Isaac Yetiv, Ph.D
LA JOLLA, California — The world is in a tohu-bohu, in dangerous confusion, and the US Congress and the US president are politicking and shutting the government. Our enemies are regaining confidence and power over the greatest country on earth, now in their eyes “a paper tiger,” that inspires no fear and deserves no respect. Our friends and allies have lost their trust in America and feel abandoned and betrayed by it, and don’t hide it anymore. Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf states are trembling with fear of a nuclear Shiite Iran that will dominate the Arab Middle-East and are incensed by the phony negotiations Obama and Kerry are conducting with Rouhani.
Israeli officials have recently warned that Iran is very close to producing the bomb (some say “one month”) and that they will prevent it by force even if they have to go alone. They see as blatant “chutzpah” the declarations of Obama-Kerry that “peace between Israel and the Palestinians is number one issue in the Middle-East,” relegating to a lower priority the nuclear weaponization of Iran which Israel sees as primordial for its survival. And they reject as “cynical” other pronouncements of the US Secretary of State such as “Israel should return to the 1949 borders” (which Abba Eban once called “Auschwitz borders”) or that “ALL settlements are illegitimate” which is absolutely false according to international law and all the UN resolutions and agreements between the parties.
And to top it all, our allies Germany, France, Brazil’s and other countries are furious at the Obama government because of American spying on them by the NSA, which reached the ridiculous level of bugging the German Chancellor’s cell phone. Obama has really his hands full.
In the “shutdown” episode, there are no real winners, certainly not the American people. Both sides are to blame : the GOP for undertaking a losing proposition, and the president for demagoguing it by increasing the pain to the people to incite them against the GOP.
The Republicans, egged on by their “extremists,” insisted on defunding Obamacare, a silly endeavor since it is now the law of the land, even confirmed as constitutional by the Supreme Court, and it was absurd to believe that the Democratic Senate and the president would allow its defunding.
The GOP should have chosen another battle where they could easily win, and they are aplenty. Although they are right on substance, because Obamacare is really, objectively, a disaster (see below) they lost in the political arena.
Conversely,the president and his cohorts “won” while wrong because his signature accomplishment, in his fifth year in office, what is commonly called “Obamacare,” is now a confirmed fiasco, denounced not only by his political enemies but by his friends and allies, including the unions.
This is the first substantial breach in the honeymoon of mainstream media with Obama: NBC News, which has practically been an advocate of the president, denounced Obamacare as causing 50 to 75% of the happy insured to lose their coverage, adding that their number could reach 19 million. It is now about 2 million. These losers are in a state of panic because they can’t even apply to Obamacare website that refuses to work.
Different public polls show from 57% to 68% of Americans wanting to repeal it Obamacare. The president’s promises of “you can keep your present insurance; you can keep your doctor; the average household will save $ 2,500 etc…” have proved to be false promises –some call them outright lies and are sure they can prove it– and have become joke material in late night comedy shows. Most of the young and healthy, on whom the system counts to take care of the poor, the old, and the sick, seem to prefer to pay a penalty of $ 95 rather than a huge premium. Without them, collapse is certain.
Not only the Unions are against it but, to date, eleven Democratic senators ,and many House Representatives, fearing a danger to their re-election– that’s the only thing that counts– are pressing for the “delay” which, inexplicably, has been initiated by the same right wing Republicans who fought for the “defunding” and lost.
I say “inexplicably” and politically dumb because, by removing the Damocles’ sword of Obamacare hanging over the head of these Democrats, they are helping them to get elected in 2014, and maybe win the House, giving Obama total control to complete the “transformation of America” into a Socialist state. And, according to Lenin, “Socialized medicine is the keystone to the arch of the socialist state.”
The smart political thing for the Republicans to do is do nothing. Give the Democrats their wish, let Obamacare be implemented as soon as, God willing, the website is “up and running by November 30” as “they promised,” and just watch how it will disintegrate by its own weight and contradictions.
If forced on the people, the economic impact will be overwhelming: millions losing their fulltime jobs or becoming part-time workers, a huge increase in the premiums, 21 new taxes,,1600 new IRS agents to surveil and punish the delinquents, thousands of “navigators,” new recruits, unvetted for a possible criminal past, who will have the duty and authority to invade phones, emails, and domiciles and private lives, bank accounts and health files, and tripling the cost promised at the inception of this monster which even the Congress committee chair who pushed it through called ” a train wreck.”
These numbers are objective, a-political, whether you are for or against the idea.
The healthcare system encompasses one sixth of the American economy. Government numbers show that 85 % of Americans are insured and content with their health insurance. I believe, as so the overwhelming majority of American citizens, that every American should have access to healthcare. But the easy way to achieve that is to help the 15 %, not to revolutionize the whole system. And that should never be entrusted to the federal government, whatever its political color, because it is notorious for AWFUL (Abuse, Waste, Fraud, UnLimited.)
The federal government should admit its failure and transfer the project to the states. There, there is not even a need for a law. The solution is simple: Leave intact those who can insure themselves, individually or through their employer as things stand now, and help those who can’t manage by just helping pay their premiums, part or all according to their financial capacity. Everybody will be covered without laws, impositions, mandates, penalties, IRS and navigators…and trillions we don’t have.
That’s the “common sense” solution. It is clear that Obamacare was not intended to “produce the greatest good for the greatest number of people” (Edmund Burke) but to control the most important need of the people, its health care. Hillarycare failed lamentably in 1992-93 ; Obamacare will meet the same fate, now, or will ruin America if forced into its collective throat.
Mr President, please obey the tenth amendment. Let the states handle healthcare while you take care of what is constitutionally yours and which is now in dire need of attention and repair, both domestic and international.
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Yetiv is a freelance writer and lecturer based in La Jolla, California. He may be contacted at Isaac.yetiv@sdjewishworld.com