The Left is out for blood and turning against President Obama.
Wednesday night, Keith Olbermann delivered "as promised" (to the one half of one percent of the nation that was no doubt breathlessly awaiting) his verdict on the Democrat health "reform" as it currently is constituted.
It was So Important, that Keith dubbed it the Number One Story of the Day. This is interesting, as the intro to every Countdown begins with "Which of these stories will YOU be talking about tomorrow."
I was out and about today, and the world was hardly abuzz with talk of Keith Olbermann. In fact, when I mentioned to one fairly politically active friend at a meeting that Olbermann had come out against Harry Reid's bill, he looked at me and said, "Really, he said THAT on Sunday Night Football?"
In a rambling rant to wrap up the show, Olbermann questioned President Obama's courage, threatened him with a primary, held himself forth as the leader of a movement of future civil disobedience, and bizarrely recounted the exact place and time 5 YEARS ago of someone calling him a… liberal!
More on that in future segments. First, the bottom line. Olbermann joined Howard Dean in saying, "Kill the bill."
But he went much farther (rhetorically, at least) than even ultra-liberal Dean in stating his reason for not being satisfied with the Democrats' most recent efforts to shape by force major corporations and employers in this country to meet their social agenda.
OLBERMANN: The American Insurance Cartel is the Death Panel, and this Senate bill does nothing to destroy it… the implacable enemy of American society, the insurance cartel.
The ironic thing is, that the bill he opposes so vociferously, is apt to do just that—by inches.
The proposed law requires that everyone buy health insurance, or pay a fine to the federal government. The fine is far less than premiums would cost, so it's basically a tax to help with Congressional Budget Office deficit scoring.
At the same time, the bill outlaws turning someone down for a "pre-existing condition." This sets up the painfully obvious — to all but the most dense among us—incentive: Wait until you're sick — heck, wait until you're in the HOSPITAL — and buy insurance. You can't be turned down.
So, the feds have created the ultimate DIS-incentive to purchase health insurance while you're healthy. Premiums will either skyrocket, or the companies will go under. Either way, the proponents of socialized medicine have created a way to flood the system, or create a politically untenable situation for insurers.
If this bill is passed—and eventually kicks in down the road (in another weird twist) it will kill private insurance.
This is the same thing community activists and their lackeys in Congress did to the banking system.
- Make good business practices illegal
- Create incentives for everyone to abuse the system
- Institute a government takeover when the bubble bursts
But you have to admire Keith for the purity of his socialist convictions. He can't wait, and checks and balances and democratic processes are just too frustrating. We need dictatorial action on health insurance and we need it now!
Mr. Grassley of Iowa has lied, and fomented panic and fear. Mr. DeMint of South Carolina has forgotten he represents people, and not just a political party. Mr. Baucus of Montana has operated as a virtual agent for the industry he is charged with regulating. Mr. Nelson of Nebraska has not only derailed reform, he has tried to exploit it to overturn a Supreme Court decision that is, in this context, frankly none of his goddamned business.
They say they have done what they have done for the most important, the most fiscally prudent, the most gloriously phrased, the most inescapable of reasons. But mostly they have done it for the money. Lots and lots of money from the insurance companies and the pharmacological companies and the other health care companies who have slowly, deliberately and effectively taken this country over.
Which brings us to Mr. Lieberman … he has sold untold hundreds of thousands of us into pain and fear and privation and slavery, for money. He has been bought and sold by the insurance lobby. He has become a Senatorial prostitute.
And sadly, the President of the United States has not provided the leadership his office demands. He has badly misjudged the country's mood at all ends of the spectrum.
There is no middle to coalesce here, sir. There are only the uninformed, the bought-off, and the vast suffering majority for whom the urgency of now is a call from a collection agency or a threat of rescission of policy or a warning of expiration of services.
Sir, your hands-off approach, while nobly intended and perhaps yet some day applicable to the reality of an improved version of our nation, enabled the national humiliation that was the Town Halls and the insufferable Neanderthalian stupidity of Congressman Wilson and the street-walking of Mr. Lieberman.
Instead of continuing this snipe-hunt for the endangered and possibly extinct creature "bipartisanship," you need to push the Republicans around or cut them out or both. You need to threaten Democrats like Baucus and the others with the ends of their careers in the party. Instead, those Democrats have threatened you, and the Republicans have pushed you and cut you out.
Mr. President, the line between "compromise" and "compromised" is an incredibly fine one. Any reform bill enrages the right, and provides it with the war cry around which it will rally its mindless legions in the midterms and in '12.
Interestingly, Olbermann, the $7 million dollar a year man, euphemistically calls himself "Self-insured." Translation: I'm rich enough to pay for my own health care.
Then Keith makes the ultimate empty gesture:
And I hereby pledge that I will not buy this perversion of health care reform. Pass this at your peril, Senators, and sign it at yours, Mr. President. I will not buy this insurance. Brand me a lawbreaker, if you choose. Fine me, if you will. Jail me, if you must.
Whoopee! A thousand-dollar, or so, extra tax for mega-rich Keith. They don't make martyrs—or prophets for that matter—like they used to.
