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Jewish World Review July 4, 2012/ 14 Tamuz, 5772 Live free --- and uninsured By Jonah Goldberg
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
In the wake of the Rovner seemed to struggle to find losers. She came up with insurance companies that want the so-called individual mandate -- now a punitive tax, according to the So, Obamacare creates no losers except where it fails to tax people sufficiently and where It is an interesting perspective given that this is arguably the most controversial law in our lifetimes. It nearly sparked a constitutional crisis, largely caused the Democrats to lose their majority in the House and, despite herculean efforts by the president to "sell" the law (more than 50 speeches, formal statements and national addresses on it during his first year), it has never been popular with most Americans. And yet, according to Rovner, the law creates only winners if properly implemented. Why on earth are opponents so stupid? For the record, there are losers under Obamacare. Here's a short list: (1) taxpayers who will carry the load of what the Congressional Budget Office says will be a Obamacare defenders have responses to these objections, and critics have responses to those responses. Still: Serious people do believe that the law creates -- or just might create -- losers, a fact Rovner might have mentioned. I don't mean to pick on Rovner. Her views on Obamacare don't strike me as exceptional so much as typical -- typical of a liberal Hence the Beltway fantasy that Obamacare's unpopularity reflects nothing more than a sales problem. Indeed, the new mantra is that the Only a third of Americans fully supported the law when it was signed, according to a But why is the only legitimate opposition to the law one that creates "losers" in some actuarial or accounting sense? Even if I thought we could afford a vast new entitlement, I'd still be opposed to Obamacare. Whether it's called a tax or a mandate, the federal government has never opted to compel citizens to purchase something as a condition of breathing while American. Obamacare represents a major advance for the old FDR vision of turning sovereign citizens into clients of the state. It empowers an army of Bloombergs to do what they think is for your own good and to redefine your rights as mere perks of the system. I admit I have an old-fashioned conception of what our country is supposed to be about, which is why people like me are losers under Obamacare too.
© 2006 TMS |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||||
