Obama’s “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan” is one of the most recognizable and prominent things he’s said in his entire career. In terms of a dictation of policy, it’s easily the top one. It is a stark, unambiguous claim, and that’s what gave it its punch. That it was clear to Barack Obama in 2010 that it wasn’t true makes it an absolutely stunning betrayal.
Yet there are still fawning sycophants rushing to the defense of their slighted god-king in the comments of the story cited above.
A good many of them are coming with the time-honored tu quoque fallacy. Some are parsing the “grandfathering” language and letting The One off the hook that way. (They’re apparently too lazy or in the tank for their hero to realize that the grandfathering language is written so restrictively that nearly nothing qualifies. If a copay goes up $10, or a deductible $100, that’s a “new plan” and therefore ineligible for grandfathering.)
The most alarming defense, to me, is the one that goes something like “well, people were getting ripped off with inadequate or deceptive plans, and this gives them a much better product. So it’s a good thing.”
That is failure to value self-reliance. And that particular myopia is what the entitlement state seeks to foster in its electorate above all else. And if we don’t get it checked, it’ll be the end of the country.
Folks, dig:
- If an insurance company and a consumer enter into an agreement, that’s no one’s business—including the government’s—but the company’s and the consumer’s.
- If your insurance company wants to sell me a policy that covers only major injury or illness, and then only once a $10,000 deductible is satisfied, that’s no one’s business—including the government’s—but mine and yours.
- If your insurance company wants to sell me a policy that covers only Jumping Frenchmen of Maine, and my premium is 14 goose feathers and an ounce of coyote saliva every two months, that’s no one’s business—including the government’s—but mine and yours.
The government may have a role if I do something I said I wouldn’t do, or if the insurance company does something it said it wouldn’t do. Judicial recourse is a legitimate governmental function.
What is happening here instead is the very worst of “nanny state”-ism. You, the American people, are too stupid or ignorant to make choices about your own lives. So we, Your Betters, the ever-benevolent federal government, shall make these choices for you. Decreased choice? Increased costs? Simple side effects of finally doing it properly. And it shall be the law of the land.
Your liberty is an inconvenience to be ceaselessly managed, and thwarted whenever possible.
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A perfect post. Thanks, Bo. You nailed it. Again.
Thank you, Terri! Very kind.