Right now much of the commentariat, both left and right, are focused on the abysmal performance of the Healthcare.gov website, the arrogance and self-satisfaction of HHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius, and the improbability that the Slacker-in-Chief had no clue as to what was going to happen.
This is all fun stuff but the epic incompetence of this administration isn’t news. A year after the fact, the recovery from Hurricane Sandy has stalled. A victory was given away in Iraq. Guns were provided to Mexican cartels for grins. American citizens were killed in Benghazi. A friendly regime was given away to islamists in Egypt. Intervention in Syria on the side of al-Qaeda was seriously contemplated. The tax and spend Cargo Cult economics practiced has prevented a recovery. That this bunch of rubes could screw up a very complex IT project is hardly unexpected.
We need to beware of making a big deal about this. Rest assured that eventually Healthcare.gov will become operational and when it does the media will revert to two narratives: that of course there were glitches and that the difficulties were caused by the GOP opposing Obamacare.
If there is anything that we should have learned from the past five years it is that the media will not cover the incompetence of the administration because they are both sympathetic to the goals of the administration and they are afraid of being called racist for calling a black president incompetent. They are never going to abandon the cool guy with the perfect pants crease.
The Achilles heel of Obamacare, and of the regime, is the brutal and arbitrary nature of the law itself. It creates a series of perverse incentives for employers to reduce work hours and eliminate health insurance for their employees. It infantilizes Americans by making it illegal for Americans to decide how to spend their own money and to select an insurance policy that meets their health needs and financial situation. It is making medical care more difficult to come by for people on Medicare. It seeks to have the federal government to act in loco parentis for every American citizen when it comes to obtaining health care. It represents the cutting edge of a full scale assault by the administration on the very idea of religious liberty.
Don’t be distracted by the shiny object of Healthcare.gov. Don’t invest a lot of capital in this story because it will pass. Focus on the real issue, the anti-democratic nature of Obamacare.
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