Obamacare: Political courage or political suicide?

Say goodbye to our country?

The health care debate went into hyperdrive after the Senate, without a single Republican joining the majority, voted for cloture on the Reid-Pelosi-Obamacare bill.  The writing process has ended and now debate has begun.  It is currently scheduled to take place when the Senate returns from the Thanksgiving break.  This could very well be the defining moment of the Obama administration.  History will show if this was courageous to tackle health care reform in a recession or if it was the beginning of the end for his political career.  If you are a betting person, bet on the latter.

Obama has made some huge mistakes in this boondoggle of a bill.  First, he let Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the most left-wing group of his party dictate how this bill was written.  In doing so he alienated Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats who are seriously at risk for reelection next year.  It is a fact that the American people do not want these “reforms” to pass.  Only 38% of Americans want this to pass while a whopping 56% are opposed.  The 2010 elections were already going to give a huge margin back to the GOP.  Now they legitimately have a chance to regain control in the House.

Second, the bill doesn’t fix anything in health care.  The only real reform in the bill dictates to health insurance companies that they cannot refuse to cover preexisting conditions.  That sounds great and I think most people would be for that except that the only way to pay for the major influx of costs associated with doing so is to massively raise rates on all policy holders.  Health insurance companies don’t cover preexisting conditions because they’re evil despots who make Ebeneezer Scrooge look like Santa Claus, they do it because if the covered everyone then they would go bankrupt.

Furthermore, the public option simply could not cover everyone with preexisting conditions either.  In doing so they would run into the same problem as insurance companies and would have to increase funding from taxpayers to foot the bill.  Even if they were mandated to keep their costs low they would ultimately have to raise rates or taxes to prevent insolvency.  So now American citizens are faced with higher costs from insurance companies and a financial suckhole in the public option. 

Don't believe it?  Take a look at how well Medicare is run by the federal government.  The Obama Administration admits that Medicare, which already accounts for 15% of the federal budget, will be insolvent by 2017.  You think taxes won't go up or services will go way down to fix that mess?  Think again.

When Bill Clinton came to Capitol Hill a few weeks ago he told Democrats that they needed to pass something, anything.  He emphasized that if they didn't then they would be in for a world of hurt politically.  Well I suppose he would know, this is coming from the man who couldn't care less about the country if it got in the way of his ambitions.

It's ironic that Bill Clinton, who once allegedly sold vital top secret satellite technology to the Chinese in exchange for campaign contributions is now pushing this administration to go further in debt to them.

That brings us to the third point.  At some point China, like a Godfather-esque operation, is going to call in a favor to us that we will not be able to refuse.  They currently own $1 Trillion of our debt and have already signaled that they will be entitled to a big pay day at some point.  Chinese Premier said earlier this year, ""We have loaned a huge amount of money to the United States.  Of course, we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I'm a little bit worried. I would like for you [a Western reporter] to call on the United States to honor its word and stay a credible nation and ensure the safety of Chinese assets."

That's great that we now owe more money than we can pay back to the biggest violator of human rights in the world.  We are headed to bankruptcy and Democrats are proceeding with blinders on, failing to care about the coming onslaught.

Obama and his cronies in the House and Senate say they know what's best for the country.  They believe that they are being courageous by passing this bill, oblivious to the oncoming financial disaster.  They have the mindset that the country is too big to fail and that a nation like China will bail us out when we need them.  Such thoughts amount to very dangerous thinking.

Obama is in a lose-lose situation.  If health care does not pass then he will look weak for not completing one of his biggest campaign promises even with supermajorities in both the House and Senate.  If it does pass, then the country will be bankrupt in a few years, and voters tend to frown upon that.

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(AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)