Healthcare is in peril. Whether it is from spiraling costs, the effort to curb same; a vicious program of exclusion or a dunderheaded attempt to baby-proof the globe we can all agree, the benefits of our current system and whatever medical promises held in the future all hang by a thread. Here agreement ends, however. The concept of polarization doesn’t begin to describe it. The Arctic and Antarctic have more in common than the warring factions that promote and oppose the thing we are not supposed to call Obamacare.

First a note on matters taxonomic. Romneycare still encumbers Mitt Romney to no complaints on form, as does Hillarycare Hillary, although it never did get out of the barn. Reaganomics is yet a pejorative in some circles though the name Reagan, less so, while there is no effort to scuttle the association. But we are informed that the term Obamacare is a scurrilous one. With a logic-bending power even the divine do not possess the formulation “Obamacare” slanders both the man and the Act although neither are objectionable. Rather than risk immersion in an intellectual black hole mining this paradox let us stipulate that we are discussing the Affordable Care Act which we will refer to by a handy acronym: ACA. Whether this name will be recorded in glory, ignominy or obscurity let events decide.

And events are in motion. Two Federal District courts have struck ACA down. Of course two also declined to do so, so we have a stalemate, right? The ACA supporters certainly seem to think this is so but it is not. For now though we seem to be in a legal limbo as the courts do not press enforcement of these orders that they probably should have stayed pending higher (if not highest) review. The speedbump here is “The Mandate”, that is the criminalization of the debt one would incur in not paying the premiums to federally prescribed medical insurance.

Seat-of-the-pants this seems pretty cut and dry. Does anyone think that a new regime of debtors prisons (or prisoner debtors in existing prisons) is American, “Progressive” or laudable in any fashion? If they do they don’t say so. Of course what they say is that no such thing is ordained or implicit in ACA though on other days they say that this element of compulsion, which is not such, is a crucial element of ACA because it brings everyone on board: from each according to their ability etcetera etcetera etcetera… Fluent double-think is hard put to keep up, but is it Constitutional? Is it legal? Worthies as prominent as Howard Dean and Barack Obama (not to mention, ugh! Sarah Palin) thought not as recently as 2008. Indeed, Dean probably did more harm to ACA in its infancy than anyone by threatening to share a cell with the first citizen jailed for this infraction. I mean, who would risk that?

Well, it’s not for us to reason why, but it is for the Supreme Court. Presumably both sides are engaged in battlefield preparations but only Team ACA is visible. Boldly they go where few have gone before: FDR hoped to pack the Court with friendlies but no one seems to have the stomach for that, rather the ACA-ites seek to un-pack the court of hostiles. Or one anyhow. Prominent lawyers on the ACA side have publicly called for the recusal of Justice Clarence Thomas in this matter.

Why? He shares a bed with a paid mouthpiece for that seditious scrum, also a three-letter acronym, blighting the path to A More Perfect Union. We speak of those who declare that they are Taxed Enough Already. This may or may not include you.

But it does include Virginia Thomas. So recuse Clarence Thomas? Sure. While we are at it, why not recuse Scalia as well? If the ACA-ites knew his views on the Commerce Clause they might not go along with that but let us give until it hurts. Recuse Chief Justice Roberts. His offense? Latent Bushism. Good enough. Kagan was Solicitor General for Obama, presumptive ACA supporter (though I don’t want to speak irresponsibly) and Sotomayor of course owes her position to Democrats who were authors of ACA. Shall they be recused or asked to recuse themselves? No, not by my assessment. Not at all. Were you expecting some appeal to “fairness” or some other shibboleth from a well-forgotten age that, anyhow, never did exist? In the fabled words of Bugs Bunny, he don’t know me very well, do he?

As should be plain, you are deep in the ranting of a dedicated ACA foe, an enemy so enraged that he has abandoned all rules of civility or even of decency. The boy has done gone nukular! And how? Simple. No longer shall I (or any other savvy opponent of infinite government) expend a single calorie trying to subvert or even oppose the plans of Progressives so-called because the only solution to our ever more rapid careen towards a Soviet America is to stand firmly on the gas and to get off the brakes.

I propose to present no roadblocks to ACA or any other socialistic plan or policy. None of these contrivances need my help or yours to go shimmying off into the ravine. Let us all recuse ourselves and let us see how either the Administration makes this contraption work on the public stage or it explodes in their grasp. Which is most likely? Let the babies have their bottle, might sum up the calculus. If you still have a bit of heartburn; consider if you look out into your backyard and your eight year old has constructed a cruiseliner from Legos and milk jugs. You may have many reasonable fears but the necessity of flying your kid back from Portugal is not among them.

It is long past time for our self-declared benefactors to put up or shut up.  Before it was ever enacted some saw the absurdities of ACA and its numberless siblings. The response was dismissive to say the least. Now every institution that does not explicitly benefit from this so-called “reform” is being destroyed by it if they cannot get a waiver and YOU, no, CANNOT get a waiver. We are told this is a matter of minor tuning. Perhaps. So leave them to their work. Wish them, sincerely, the greatest possible success because success, in this context, is the worst possible scenario for ACA and its enthusiasts. Success takes us out of the realm of theory and bombast into good old fashioned not-to-be-denied reality. Yes there is a criminalization of your very existence. No there is no benefit to the treasury. Yes there is a literal take-over of medicine. No there will be no improvements to access, quality or cost; quite quite the reverse.  Foremost, yes this was all foreseeable with a modest but serious effort at understanding ACA or even simply reading it and no amount of re-branding or distancing or diversion can protect even Obama from these ever more evident facts. This is the doomsday weapon. We didn’t want to go there but in the end we have no choice.

Tweet  Print This Post

Tags: health & medical, on the law, politics & government // 1 Comment »