Hope and Change

Well, in spite of the objection of 70%+ of the population, we now have a "health-care" bill. And this bill, we are told, will save everyone a scazillion dollars. Maybe someone should tell AT&T that, since they just announced a $1billion write-off caused by the health care bill, and maybe tell Caterpiller as well, since they just took a $100 million hit, or 3M who just announced a write-off of $85 to $90 million. And this is all before anyone gets a nickle out of it, since benefits don't even kick in for 4 more years. And just wait until the 14,000 IRS agents get hired and start to enforce this bill.

Just a simple point....there can be no rejection because of prior conditions. So, I can go along without collision insurance, and then when I have an accident, I can THEN call the insurance company to cover me and they have to give me the coverage? I don't think we have to be financial wizards to see that such a plan will quickly destroy every insurance company. And yet this is what will be required of the health insurance companies. So of course, they will fold, and we will then have to turn to the gummint to "save us" by covering us with their insurance.

But aside from the obvious financial hits that we ALL are going to take, there is something even more basic. Where does the government get the power to force us to buy something? Where?? This is such an onerous and oppressive law that it literally boggles the mind. This law is something we might expect to see in a socialist or communist country, not in a free country. We have never, NEVER had a law like this in our entire history. ( And before someone jumps up and says, "Car insurance", let me point out that you do not have to buy car insurance if you don't drive, and in some states you don't have to but it at all, but everyone will be forced to have this abomination of health insurance). And if the pols in DC can mandate that we buy health insurance, then what else can they mandate? After all, if they can justify 1 mandated purchase, they can mandate any and all others, right? After all, it's for our own good!!!

And just as a question.......if this program is so super wonderful, why did the legislators specifically exclude themselves and their staff from it? Is it possible, just possible, that they know deep in their cold, cold hearts, that this program is really a piece of crap, and that they are just too good to have to lower themselves down to a program that is designed for the rest of us? Just asking!


Update on the above $ figures:
The substance of the disclosures to date: ".. AT&T's announcement that Obamacare will force it to take a $1 billion dollar charge — the most alarming (but entirely predictable) bad news in a parade that, the Wall Street Journal's editors note, "includes Deere & Co., $150 million; Caterpillar, $100 million; AK Steel, $31 million; 3M, $90 million; and Valero Energy, up to $20 million."