No Waiver from Reality for Rep. Weiner
Now that it’s done, proponents of socialized medicine have run into another problem: Reality. Not political reality, but plain hard facts. One hard fact is that you cannot get something for nothing.
by Michael J. Hurd, Ph.D.
Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) is one of the loudest proponents of ObamaCare, not to mention all things socialist. When he’s critical of Obama, it’s — incredibly — from the left, not from the right or the center. At the time of ObamaCare’s passage, Weiner bragged that he wrote the House portion of the bill.
Now Weiner has joined the thousands of people, businesses and entities seeking a waiver from ObamaCare. He’s seeking it for his entire New York district. Fox News reports that Weiner, who is likely to run for mayor of New York, said that because of the city’s special health care infrastructure, his office was looking into alternatives that might make more sense. Weiner is one of the health care law’s biggest supporters; during the debate leading up to reform, he was one of the last holdouts in Congress for the public option.
Now wait a minute. Weiner’s looking for alternatives that “make more sense”? Doesn’t ObamaCare make sense, at least according to people like him? Obviously not.
“The president said, ‘If you have better ideas that can accomplish the same thing, go for it,'” said Weiner. “I’m in the process now of trying to see if we can take [President Barack Obama] up on it in the city of New York, … and I’m taking a look at all of the money we spend in Medicaid and Medicare and maybe New York City can come up with a better plan.” New York is one of two states that pass on Medicaid expenses to cities and localities, so “the city winds up having an enormous Medicaid expense,” Weiner said.
In plain English, this really means: “All that matters is we make health care free for all. The ends justify the means.” Prior to Obama’s election, concurrent with the most socialist Congress in decades during 2009-10, the problem was primarily political. How could you pass socialized medicine? Harry Truman couldn’t get it done. Bill Clinton couldn’t get it done. Obama felt he had to get it done. It didn’t matter how; just so you did it.
Now that it’s done, proponents of socialized medicine have run into another problem: Reality. Not political reality, but plain hard facts. One hard fact is that you cannot get something for nothing. Medicare and Medicaid are already running into problems. They are socialized medicine programs — huge ones — albeit smaller in scope than ObamaCare. Politicians like Weiner are running into the reality that if Medicare and Medicaid are unsustainable, short of a 100 percent tax on everybody to fund them as they continue to explode in cost (in an economy that isn’t growing), then how in the world can government afford the promises of ObamaCare, i.e. national health insurance?
It’s ironic and kind of sad, even from the perspective of the liberals and socialists. Socialized medicine was finally passed in the United States decades after its inherent impossibility became plain for all to see. Everyone is aware that national health insurance turns government into a gigantic HMO, making arbitrary politically based medical decisions for everyone. That’s what happened in Canada and Britain, and on a smaller scale (more recently) in Massachusetts (thank you for that, Mitt Romney).
Less well understood is that Medicare is actually less dysfunctional than it otherwise would be thanks to the ability of for-profit insurance and for-profit medicine to keep doctors and hospitals from going bankrupt. Even that unstable scenario couldn’t have gone on forever, but the passage of ObamaCare has assured the medical field that its days of profitability and partial freedom from government control are over. Patients might think it’s good for them, until they’re confronted with doctors and hospitals that are now bankrupt and consequently government-run. It’s coming.
This, and much more, are what the socialists such as Rep. Weiner are facing in New York City and elsewhere. They brought it on themselves. But to the bitter end, they’ll scream that what they want is possible. It’s just that evil conservatives, Tea Party advocates, Sarah Palin, George W. Bush … it’s those evil people that won’t let it happen. Socialists give people like that far too much credit. Their true enemy is objective reality. They can’t turn an “I wish” into an “It is.” They can’t legislate into existence a society in which the quality and quantity of health care is unlimited. They cannot gain a waiver from reality.
Weiner’s request for a waiver from ObamaCare demonstrates more than the unspeakable arrogance of liberal socialist politicians. It shows how their hatred of, and indifference to, objective reality knows no limits. It’s truly madness, which by definition any break with reality is. When arrogance, madness and power-lust all come together, you get the spectacle of a dictator imposing his will upon millions of people and then expecting that he — and those loyal to him — be exempt from it. That’s what went on in Communist countries, Nazi Germany and now it’s starting to happen in the United States of America today.
Even ordinary people, when left free and self-responsible, are far more capable of confronting reality than politicians such as Anthony Weiner. That’s why government must get out of medical care and take the politicians out of medicine, for good.
Dr. Michael Hurd is a psychotherapist, life coach and author of Effective Therapy (New York: Dunhill, 1997) and Grow Up America! Visit his website at: www.DrHurd.com.
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