Sorry that it’s taken so long to return to writing. I’ve been standing all alone in a field … trying to learn patience and how to suppress feelings of frustration when the world doesn’t seem to be listening. I figure these skills will become a virtue now that the Health Care Reform Bill has passed.
Speaking of which, I’m pretty excited. Health Care Reform is the most significant legislation of our time. I have it on good authority. Nancy Pelosi said so!
I do think it is a brilliantly crafted piece of legislation. Sure, some people may be concerned about a 2,700+ page bill that impacts one-sixth of our Nation’s economy, constructed by individuals who have little to no background in health care (other than having gone to the doctor on occasion), but I think I know why President Obama pushed so hard to accomplish this in his first year on the throne … uh … I mean, in office! In one single act, he affected a “course correction” for health care, Social Security, population control, the environment, economic recovery, unemployment, immigration, government reform, and the list goes on. Let me explain.
The impact on health care is obvious. We all know that fat-laden meats such as ham and bacon can promote arterial sclerosis and may also have carcinogenic components; and that heart disease and cancer are the top two causes of death in the United States. Well, the new Health Care Reform Bill has so much pork in it that we can assume that the supply available to the general public has been reduced significantly. Score one point for an almost immediate improvement in health. But wait, there’s more!
Now that everyone gets health insurance (or gets fined for not having it … or for having too much), we will have increased patient demand without having increased the supply of health care professionals. Okay, I know what you’re thinking: when demand exceeds supply, costs naturally rise. To overcome that, we’ll just have to pass legislation that caps medical fees. In turn, I’m sure that will encourage a greater number of individuals to invest twelve years of their lives to attend college and med school (plus residency) and sacrifice time with their families every year thereafter, so that they can become firmly entrenched in Middle America as their economic reward. Better yet, maybe we can restrict their incomes to a point where they need to accept welfare. This will make them better physicians as they will have more empathy for the plight of the poor. In the event this doesn’t work, we can all just learn to practice patience (remember me in the field?) as we wait inordinately long periods of time to see a physician or get treatment.
Even this latter scenario creates advantages. Without prompt treatment, a certain percentage of our senior citizens will die more prematurely than might otherwise be necessary. If the number is significant enough, Social Security may be saved since we won’t have as many old people collecting benefits. If this isn’t enough, our Congressional leaders can create the SGA (Soylent Green Agency) to decide how aggressively we should provide medical treatment for this segment of our population.
We can even work the other end by funding public abortions. No, I don’t mean Congress … I mean “public abortions” in the tradition sense! This will teach our young adults to further abandon any sense of responsibility for their actions which, in turn, will prepare them to lower their aspirations more in alignment with the long-term goal of establishing a society that rewards mediocrity (think “big labor” on a national scale). There’s even an environmental impact: the fewer the people … the lesser the carbon footprint. This is change that Al Gore can believe in.
Here’s another benefit. If you can’t afford health care or can’t seem to get it when you need it, you only have one alternative: take better care of yourself! Eat healthy and exercise regularly … it’s your only option. By reforming health care in a way that may render it non-functional, the President may have created the necessary incentive to recapture our health at the individual level. How cool is that?
The new Health Care Reform Bill is projected to cost less than $1 trillion dollars. Given the current Administration’s proclivity for spending, this is quite a deal. Even if this estimate is on the low side, it means approximately $1 trillion will be plowed back into the economy. That’s got to cause job creation which, in turn, will reduce unemployment. Why, this legislation alone creates 159 new government agencies that will have to be staffed by the proletariat. Sorry! I meant to say, the American Worker! Keep in mind that under the Obama Administration, government wages have soared to the point where government jobs now pay 45% more than their private sector equivalents. Luckily, this will help us as well as small businesses (which presently constitute 40-50% of our GDP) begin to fail. As their fat-cat owners return to middle-to-lower income strata, we’ll need the higher-paid government “bureaupaths” (my term for pathological bureaucrats) to pick up the tax burden as they become an increasing percentage of the dreaded class of the “wealthy.” Otherwise, how are we ever going to pay for the benefits of this great reform?
This brings us to immigration reform. How, you might ask, does the Health Care Reform Bill contribute to immigration reform? You are just so naïve. It’s simple really! Immigrants want to immigrate to a country that offers them a better life. These poor, misguided individuals chose to come to the United States because it was the “land of opportunity” (as both sets of my first-generation grandparents used to impress upon me during my formative years). Until recently, I believed this. I’ve now learned that the Eurasian model is far preferable to ours and that we need to emulate it in every way. The President told me so as did his Minister of Propaganda, Heir Glib. Oops! That should have been Press Secretary, Gibbs! I can see the logic. Initially, all the “freebies” will attract a surge in immigration. We’ll grant amnesty to those who enter illegally because it’s a “moral imperative.” It also creates a base of cheap labor. This is important because, as ambition erodes, these may be the only jobs that will be left (other than the high paying government positions we already discussed). Besides, these immigrants will be beholden to party in office, which means it can count on their votes. The longer they’re in office, the more they can increase taxes and socialize our country so we can become more “Eurasian.” The Eurasian-socialist model hasn’t attracted a great deal of immigration in the last few centuries, and the same could be said for South and Central America, which have followed similar paths. After a while, people aspiring for a better quality of life will look at their countries and ours and have a hard time distinguishing between them. As a result, they’ll just give up and stop immigrating to the United States. Immigration problem solved! And all because of Health Care Reform. Mexican companies will probably even begin setting up plants in the United States because of the cheap labor pool that will be available. After all these years, NAFTA will finally work in our favor!
The Health Care Reform Bill is also almost synonymous with government reform. We were promised “transparency,” and we finally got it. It is now “clear” that all new legislation will be created unilaterally and with utter disregard to public opinion. It is also now “clear” that “political favors” (in which massive sums of money are exchanged for votes) do not constitute bribes in the current Congressional lexicon. It is also “clear” that unqualified zealots, who behave as if they’ve finally won election to their junior high school student councils, may not measure up to the intellectual prowess and real-world experience of the Framers of the Constitution, but they make up for it in their juvenile enthusiasm for party politics.
President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Reid, et al. are true geniuses. While many of us may not have recognized the expansive impact of Health Care Reform, may we now be enlightened to the cataclysmic potential it offers to address such a wide bandwidth of social problems. All hail the King and his Court.
Yes, anyone who thinks that running the United States is more complicated than organizing a community obviously hasn’t planted an acorn in recent years … only to watch it rise into a mighty twig before someone runs over it with a lawnmower. Good news: there’s plenty of time between now and November to tune up your lawnmowers. Happy mowing everyone!
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© 2010 by Dr. T.J. O’Hara. To support viral distribution, this article may be copied, reprinted, forwarded, linked, or published in any form as long as proper attribution is given to the author and no changes are made.
