Obamacare: a disaster, but their *intentions* were good. Most of 'em, at least

I am indebted to one Charles Kirtley, who commented about Obamacare more or less as follows:

You mean if [Obamacare] makes hiring full time workers more expensive, companies will adapt by hiring more part-time employees instead?  Whoa, who'da thunk it?

Commenter "c5then" added,

Since Obamacare provides that the "penalty/tax" slapped on a business for NOT providing health insurance is less than the cost of health insurance, can anyone guess what will happen to most employer-provided health insurance? 

These two clearly have more common sense than three-quarters of Havahd PhDs.

But of course, "much good should it do them," because our self-proclaimed betters have managed to bribe, pervert, twist and distort the myriad arcane rules of modern lawmaking enough to pass the abominable piece of shit--and Repubs don't have the votes to repeal it.  (Not that they ever would if they *had* the votes, the spineless jellyfish.)

I will laugh my ass off when the first poor dumb sumbitch who voted for Obozo, only to get fucked by Obamacare, finally wakes up and realizes what he or she lost.  I'll be buying drinks for all my conservative friends who not only knew this was gonna be a disaster (a prediction, I must admit, far less difficult than rocket science), but also warned everyone how much of a disaster it was gonna be.  To no avail, of course.

To my Democrat friends (and I do have a few):  I know that for most of you, your hearts were/are in the right place.  The media trotted out story after tragic story about people without health insurance who were financially devastated--forced to declare bankruptcy--by a medical crisis.  And it was just SOOOO sad!

Hey, *I've been there* and I fully agree it's *awful!*  Absolutely sucks.  But if you keep working hard you can fight your way out of it.  Even a medically-caused bankruptcy.

But y'all felt it was unfair that some people didn't have health insurance, so you agreed with Barky and Harry and Nancy and the rest of the Dems that the government could--and should--give health insurance to poor folks.  In fact your Dem leaders said it would be easy:  All we had to do was....destroy our semi-free market in medicine by forcing everyone (even the young) to buy health insurance; destroy the last vestige of the notion of personal responsibility, turn the industry over to all-powerful bureaucrats, declare amnesty for 30 million illegal aliens and VOILA!!  The U.S. would be a far better country.

Republicans warned that there was no such thing as a free lunch--that giving "free" health insurance to roughly 40 percent of all U.S. residents would bankrupt the government.  But being Democrats, you didn't believe that.  And to be honest, most of you wouldn't have cared in any case.  Your mantra was "There IS such a thing as a free lunch, because Barack (pbuh) and Harry Reid and Nan Pelosi said so!!  We can give "free" health insurance to the uninsured by simply cutting the crappy, greedy insurance companies out of the middle, and having gummint and businesses pay docs directly.  See?"

It sounded so totally plausible, dinnit?  I mean, everybody knew insurance companies were making a killing on health insurance.  They cashed your premium checks and then almost never paid a dime in claims.  People had to meet some ridiculously high deductible (that almost no one ever met) before their insurance would pay a dime.  Yeah, I know.

So your solution was to turn the whole rice bowl upside-down, and command everyone to "buy" health insurance.  And if you made less than X, the gummint would give you health insurance.  Very elegant.

If you're a bit more cynical you may have suspected, deep down, that Obamacare would bankrupt the government.  But you really didn't care because you know the poor sumbitch is dead anyway.  Plus, all your leftist friends have been wanting to bankrupt the U.S. for decades because they thought the U.S. was the source of all evil in the world anyway.  So it was gonna be a good thing. 

Plus if you made less than the unspecified limit you wouldn't have to pay that awful health-insurance premium anymore.

God, I love you guys!  You're the best!  You had the courage of your convictions:  You analyzed all the factors, pondered the likely costs and possible problems, and emailed your rep asking him to vote for it.

Just kidding!  Forgive me if I suspect you didn't give it much thought after "Democrats favor..." and "Obama supports..."   Oh, and..."free."

So now that Obama has just decreed a delay in the law's requirement that businesses implement the *cost* part of this wonderful law until after the vital midterm elections next year, you probably think that was entirely due to prudence:  Hey, wouldn't wanna rush into a possibly-flawed implementation, right?  I mean, rushing into stuff is almost always risky--like passing a 2200-page law that absolutely no one but Harry and Nancy had had a chance to read, eh?  So...let's do be prudent.

And about that word "decreed":  A lot of laws have "may be delayed" or "president may temporarily waive" provisions in 'em, to allow for extenuating circumstances.  Did Obamacare?  I don't think that's in there.  Cuz, y'know, if they'd put in the customary loophole provisions it would have called unwanted attention to the sheer *size* of this monstrosity, and the trillions of dollars of new gummint expenditures it was authorizing. 

Which might have cost the Dems one or two crucial votes.

And it would never, ever...never...ever...occur to you that the delay Obie just ordered might have been less an admission that they couldn't be ready in time, and more to keeping y'all happily voting Democrat in the midterms.  Don't want to let voters find out the real cost of this monstrosity before the midterm elections, eh?

Nah, y'all don't think that way.  If a Democratic pol--let alone one as brilliant as Obozo--says something, no matter how bizarre-sounding, it must be true, right?

I love you people!  You remind me of certain very earnest college freshmen, who are absolutely sure they know how everything works.  Oh, and your intentions are good--hearts in the right place and all.  And that really, really is important.  Bad intentions can't help but have bad outcomes, while naive folks with good intentions--well, once in a great while mighty forces intervene to save their naive asses.

Surely...surely...that will happen in this case.  Cuz your intentions are good.  Just as they were back when Obie and the Chicago gang were bribing senators to get this piece of crap passed.  Cuz free health insurance for folks is a great end...and we all know that it's okay to use...unusual...means if one wants to achieve great ends, right?

In fact, didn't the Founders discuss exactly this principle--"the ends justify the means" or something?