Two snares stand in the way of conservatives' fervent desire to dismantle Obamacare: 1) a possible perception that its problems are limited to the technical issues with the rollout and 2) the GOP's potentially suicidal impulse to bail Obama out.
Though the problems with the rollout are far more than website "glitches," they can and will be fixed. But once fixed, substantive problems will remain that will only be corrected if Obamacare is undone.
Both the technical and substantive problems with Obamacare reveal a disgraceful level of deceit and incompetence born of the conceit of a ruling class that doesn't afford the people it serves the respect of medieval serfs.
Remember the jaw-dropping admissions by congressional supporters of Obamacare that they hadn't read the bill and didn't know what the bill contained? Rep. Nancy Pelosi's statement — "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it" — ranks as one of the most appalling statements ever uttered by a congressperson.
This arrogance emanates from the top, with President Obama making claims about the bill that he divined out of whole cloth in order to pacify the masses just long enough to get it passed. It's obvious he didn't have the faintest idea about the particulars of Obamacare or its abominable website.
Obama repeatedly guaranteed us that if we liked our health insurance plans and were satisfied with our doctors, we could keep them. He said an average family of four would save $2,500 on a health insurance plan and assured the Congressional Budget Office the legislation would be essentially budget-neutral, costing the government some $900 billion in 10 years.
Those statements were outrageously false. People are losing their plans left and right without their consent; many will lose their physicians; it has been estimated that an average family of four will see health care premiums increase by $7,400 rather than decrease by a third of that amount; and Obamacare will easily cost the government between two and three times what Obama promised the CBO and us.
This pattern of administration and Democratic Party arrogance has manifested itself in the rollout, as well. The Wall Street Journal reports that there were many different groups in various cities involved in the formation of the HealthCare.gov website but that no one was responsible for overseeing the implementation of the website.
Please stop and go back and reread that sentence. Even for Obama, this is staggering.
This is what happens when the liberal media and others refuse to hold politicians accountable. It leads them to believe they can do whatever they want and get away with it. They didn't bother to think through the complexities of the launch website or the falsity of the promises they made. Their mission was to get the bill passed and deal with any flak later.
Now back to the main point. Long after the website problems are corrected, the substantive problems will survive as long as the law remains on the books.
People will still have lost their plans and doctors. Individual and government costs will continue to greatly exceed Obama's guarantees. (Even liberal professors are becoming hapless victims of Obamacare's "sticker shock.") The quality of health care will crater. Access will decline. The young and healthy will be forced to take it in the shorts. And statists will have in place a frighteningly complex and intrusive infrastructure to control heretofore unimagined areas of our everyday lives.
Add to all this the administration's enormous hurdle of conning 7 million people to sign up for this nightmare by the end of March and dealing with the angst of people paying penalties for refusing to fall for the con.
Obamacare is the worst self-inflicted assault on American liberty in my lifetime, so genuine patriots must remain committed to doing everything within their power to end it.
The problem with this is many of the same people on the right who told us that Sen. Ted Cruz was leading a fool's errand in trying to defund Obamacare and that we should let the law implode on its own will next be urging that we bail out Obamacare by helping massage the law to mitigate its damage. Otherwise, we'll be punished for being partisan saboteurs. Afraid of the wrath of liberals who will criticize those Republicans who actually stand up for their own principles, our moderates will tell us to stand down. "Wait until the next election."
But by that time, Obamacare will have metastasized throughout the system and harmed countless people.
We must not be falsely frightened into collaborating with the Obama statists to save this law, a gesture that would be tantamount to assisting him in consummating his fundamental transformation of the nation.
David Limbaugh is a writer, author and attorney. His latest book, "The Great Destroyer," reached No. 2 on the New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction. Follow him on Twitter @davidlimbaugh and his website at www.davidlimbaugh.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
