The Obamacare debacle disproves one truism, and upholds another.
Truism # 1: ‘Ignorance is bliss.’ So we’re told.
Supporters of Obamacare benefited from the ignorance of millions who either went along with it, or tolerated it. ‘Well, that Obama guy seems pretty smart. Maybe he can figure this out.’
To persuade 51 percent of the population that his scheme would work, Obama needed the ignorance of millions. This ignorance included, but was not limited to, the fallacy that all economic well-being comes from the government, and that so long as the government is ‘well run’ by a compassionate and smooth operator—as Obama seemed to be—well then, it was worth a shot.
Even a tiny bit of inquiry into economics will tell you that government does not create anything. It can (at its best) restrain criminals or it can become a criminal itself—but it cannot innovate, generate or create.
It’s a widely known fact that government bungles just about everything it touches. Obamacare’s collapse on Day One should never have been a surprise.
Nevertheless, most people retain a great deal of ignorance about economics and, goodness knows, nobody in their government-run schools or elite, one-sided universities/media will ever encourage them to think otherwise.
On the surface, economic ignorance among the masses was to Obama’s benefit. It’s how he got elected, how he got Obamacare passed, and how he got reelected.
Yet now the tide has turned. Those same ignorant masses who expect government to ‘do something’ and make health care the equivalent of a competitive marketplace, where innovation and patient/customer satisfaction rule, expected Obama to make it happen. Why, the law even has his name on it, and he embraced that name, at least until the last week or two.
Metaphors were everywhere leading up to its “launch date,” about Obamacare being ‘rolled out’ to the ‘marketplace’ and making a big hit on day one. It is something for nothing, after all, and what could possibly go wrong with that?
What in the world did people expect Obamacare to be? The equivalent of Steve Jobs releasing his latest culture-changing technology? Of course, even innovators like the late Steve Jobs experienced both boom and bust in their careers. But when they took a risk, it was always with their own reputation and money. Politicians ride on arrogance, power, and the wealth of others they obtain through force—not persuasion.
Now watch Obama scowl, scorn, criticize and pass the buck. Welcome to socialism in the twenty-first century. It’s no different from socialism in the last century, or the century before. The only difference is there are computers nobody can run and websites nobody can find.
Of course, the technology spawned by the relative freedom and profit-incentive of the marketplace—the kind of context which permitted a Bill Gates, or a Steve Jobs—is the very thing hurting Obama now. He claims to be one of those innovators, when in truth no politician ever was, or could be.
Obama got to where he is by exploiting the ignorance of people who thought he was just as cool, just as capable, and just as able to bring about ‘health care for all’ as the innovators who have brought us all the other seeming miracles of modern civilization. The difference? Obamacare is not an innovation. Socialism is the oldest scam in human history. Obamacare, like all socialism, was generated and organized by a gang of people, along with their politically connected hired hacks, who ultimately hold no accountability, and can never go out of business, so long as they remain politically favored and don’t say or do the ‘wrong’ thing.
It’s more than a little amusing to watch Obamacare fall flat on its face. No, health care is serious business and there’s nothing funny about letting even more of it fall into the hands of glorified Mafia men and women whom we elect to move trillions of dollars around our nation’s capital.
But it is worthwhile, at least, to see another truism proved true: What goes around, comes around.
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