Big Picture Political Chess [Reader Post]

Most of us are focused on the wrong things. Of course, Republicans and governors need to object to the requirement that we purchase government-approve products (i.e., from a government-approved insurance program). We do not have any choice but to challenge that and win, because otherwise, the federal government can require us to do anything. However, do not think this worries Obama or Pelosi. They could care less. There are several economic points of dishonesty in the healthcare bill that was just passed. It does not concern the President or the Speaker of the House what happens financially because of this bill. If we are not required to carry insurance, fine. They can live with that. They do not care if this is paid for. Don’t think for a second that being financially responsible is a part of their thought process.

Almost every contract I have signed has a severability clause, which means, if paragraph 4c of section II is determined to be unenforceable (or, in the case of this healthcare bill, if the government cannot force us to buy insurance), the rest of the contract remains intact. Democrats, for the most part, were not concerned about paying for this bill in the first place (hence the phoney claim that a half trillion would be taken out of Medicare in order to pay for half of this bill), similarly, the requirement that we buy insurance as a means of paying for this bill is not of any concern to them. That was how they got the private insurance companies onboard. “Look, we are going to make 30 million people buy your product; you like that, right?” So the insurance companies, for the most part, signed onto Obamacare, despite all of Obama’s angry anti-insurance company rhetoric.

Combined with this mandate are low fines; and, according to at least one source, the enforceability of the insurance mandate is weak, and perhaps non-existent (I have heard it both ways here).

Here’s the end game—encourage people to drop their insurance, encourage employers to drop their insurance, put budget busting requirement on insurance companies, so that, in less than 5 years, most of them will be put out of business.

What does the government do then with the remaining handful of insurers? They take them over. “Listen, you obviously do not know what you are doing; free enterprise has failed again; so we need to take you over. Besides, here is a lot of taxpayer money.” It is what the government did to FNMA, FHLMC, and to GM. Obama’s end-game is for the government to get its fingers into everything it can in just a few years.

There is something else in this bill which is essentially being ignored—the CBO claims that, in the second 10 years, there will be a trillion dollar plus going into the treasury. Now, if, in the first 10 years, there is only $138,000 increase to the treasury for approximately 6 years of benefits (a phoney number), how can this healthcare bill do better in the second decade? How can that be?

Easy—the costs are shifted over to the states. So, we will be dramatically taxed by the federal government for this healthcare bill; and then, the cost will be laid upon the states as an unfunded mandate, so that we will be taxed by the states to pay for this! Essentially, we will be double-taxed to pay for this bill. The state taxes will have to kick in when the states assume the cost of Obamacare.

What happens next? The states cannot borrow to pay for these new costs. They either raise taxes way beyond what we are used to (doubling our state taxes could happen); or they throw themselves at the mercy of the federal government, which is still taking in all of the taxes originally set up to pay for this.

State governments will go broke, drive their constituents broke, and private insurance companies will fold like we have never seen before.

What’s left to do? The federal government steps in to rescue the states, and moves toward a single-payer system.

Anyway, that is the plan, and that is why President Obama was able to sign Dennis Kucinich and the rest or the radical left onto this bill—they know the end game.

What I have described here is, what would happen as long as the Democrats maintain control of all of this. Obviously, this chess game becomes more complex when the other size moves its own chess pieces. The hope is, on the Democratic side is, Republicans do not repeal this bill; and Republicans fund the programs in the bill. When they don’t, they will be portrayed as being on the side of the insurance companies and not on the side of the people.