Category: Bill Quick

by Smitty

Roughly three weeks shy of 343 years to the day after ersatz naval architect Ted Kennedy proved conclusively that a ’67 Olds does not a submarine make, but with the right name you can still be the Lyin’ of the Senate, the PPACA decision arrived, in a flurry of prestidigitation that defies reasonable analysis. That is, only an oxygen-deprived academic could find sense in it.
A lot of the smarter folk aren’t buying the country’s in the very best of hands argument about PooPoocACA (ObamaTax).

The point is, [elites] don’t care, and will be perfectly happy to engineer a “meltdown” of the American health care system by any means necessary, for the simple reason that they will then use that meltdown as an opening to push full single-payer, government administered socialized medicine into the breach.

Ted sure did put his concern about health care way ahead of politics:

Nixon had other reasons, beside his dead brothers, to support reform. Medicare had just been passed, and many Americans expected universal health care to be next.
“We had the same problems then as we have now,” Altman said. “A lot of people uninsured, and health care costs were considered too high.”
Ted Kennedy, whom Nixon assumed would be his rival in the next election, made universal health care his signature issue. Kennedy proposed a single-payer, tax-based system. Nixon strongly opposed that on the grounds that it was un-American and would put all health care “under the heavy hand of the federal government.”
Instead, Nixon proposed a plan that required employers to buy private health insurance for their employees and gave subsidies to those who could not afford insurance. Nixon argued that this market-based approach would build on the strengths of the private system.
“Government has a great role to play, he said, “but we must always make sure that our doctors will be working for their patients and not for the federal government.”
No one breathed a word at the time about Nixon’s plan being unconstitutional. Instead, it faced opposition from Democrats who insisted on “single-payer.”

More recently:

Ted Kennedy often said his biggest political mistake was turning down a health care deal with Richard Nixon and Kennedy’s old lament had Democrats yesterday thinking again about compromise on reform.
Kennedy said he turned down the universal health coverage plan offered by the Republican President in the early 1970s because it wasn’t everything he wanted it to be. He later realized it was a missed opportunity to make major progress toward his goal.

I guess the most galling thing about this is the bi-partisan quasi-ratification of FDR’s personal hooey-pile (emphasis mine):

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:

• The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;
• The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
• The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
• The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
• The right of every family to a decent home;
• The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
• The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
• The right to a good education.

Notes to Progressives:

1. This is an unratified Article V rewrite. Were you even a little bit righteous, you’d not have to resort to the parade of cheating evidenced the last few years.
2. The whole Progressive project has proven unaffordable. You can no more tax your way to Utopia than you can mainline your way to a stable heroin buzz. Economics and Biochemistry just don’t work that way.

Picking up on the Nietzschean Will to Utopia, I sort of eavesdropped upon a fellow who was interviewed by an apparently sympathetic female. This is from 28 Jun, across the street from the SCOTUS, mere minutes before Chief Justice John Roberts collected his 30 pieces of silver. The audio is trashy for the first 10 or so seconds, so I provide a transcription. I have no idea who the speaker is, but the sign displayed MoveOn.org prominently:

Man: . . .I think if we have a setback today, we’ll keep fighting. If we have a victory today, we’ll keep fighting. Whatever it is, healthcare for all is still a process, it’s a goal to be achieved, and we’re still a long way off no matter what happens today.
Interviewer: And you’ve got Senator Ted Kennedy’s image right behind you. What does that mean to you?
Man: Well, that was Ted Kennedy’s lifetime achievement. . .was this healthcare bill. It was something he crusaded for long before Hillary’s initiative in the White House. So he’s kind of the. . .moral icon of the movement, and he’s a man whose works I greatly admire. So I’ve got the sign up.
Interviewer: And what do you think as a senior of these people on the sidewalk. It actually seems the crowd has doubled in the last few minutes.
Man: Well, it belongs. . .it needs to be dealt with. I mean, this is the issue that is defining our moment. . .defining our age, so, in a lot of ways, I feel like all of America should be here today.

Fine, sir. I’ll allow that you stated a position antithetical to liberty as though it was religious dogma. And you can pry my liberty from my cold, dead Charlton Hestons. But this is precisely the rub on this election; Socialism or capitalism. Slavery or liberty. The country the Founders envisioned, or a zombie aristocracy that shakes with the right hand, while stabbing with the left.
I’ll sign off this post with something I haven’t found anywhere on the net, probably because it’s just so brutally funny, but apropos:

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