He promised “universal coverage” but delivered a plan in which that was impossible. Consequently, whereas 85.4% of Americans had coverage in 2008, only 87.7% have coverage today, far short of the promised 100% – though 100% coverage is the norm in industrialized countries. The reason: Universal coverage requires that healthcare be treated as a right not a privilege, but doing that would cut billions from profits to healthcare stockholders, who include most of the aristocracy – and America is run for the aristocracy’s benefit, not for the public’s.
Eric Zuesse
Obamacare started being available on 1 October 2013 and has now been available for 16 months. When candidate Obama was running for the Presidency, he promised “universal coverage,” which is what exists in virtually all other developed countries: 100%, everyone insured, no citizen lacking health insurance for ordinary and life-preserving needs. (Medicare-for-everybody would have been this.) Now that his Obamacare has been available for 16 months, is every American citizen health-insured; did he provide what he had promised? Is America no longer the lone outlier that has a lousy system of funding health care – overloading emergency-rooms, which is the costliest way to deal with healthcare (and one reason why all other advanced countries pay far less and yet obtain better healthcare results than the U.S. does)?
When Obama ran for the Presidency and started to make this “universal healthcare” promise, the insurance-rate was 85.4% (or 14.6% uninsureds); and, today, according to the Gallup poll released on March 4th, it is 87.7% (or 12.3% uninsureds).
In an article at Huffington Post on 16 June 2014, I headlined “Obama Lied About Obamacare, Now Wants Political Lying To Be Legal,” and there were only 35 reader-comments to it; so, it seems that not many people then thought that either part of the headline was especially interesting. The subheads summarized that report, and there were three:
“Obamacare fails to come close to meeting candidate Obama’s promises:
“Mr. Obama never even tried to fulfill on them; he was opposed to them.
“Obama now openly supports legalizing lying during political campaigns.”
Each one of those three sub-heads was fully documented, but probably few people clicked through to the documentation. Anyway: few commented.
At washingtonsblog on 9 January 2015, I headlined “How Obama Lied About Obamacare,” and provided a different account of his lying, also fully documented, but this time there were only 11 reader-comments. (That site has a smaller audience though it’s perhaps the best American general-news site of all.)
Americans apparently don’t much care about being lied-to by politicians, not even when it concerns the candidate’s most-central campaign promise.
How can a democracy exist under such a circumstance? It can’t – not really. If only few people demand honesty from their political leaders, then having an honest government is impossible. And democracy without an honest government is impossible.
Obama now is basing his over-arching foreign policy on pure lies; and it’s bringing us closer to a nuclear war than ever since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 – and this time the U.S. is clearly the aggressor. Obama lies to say that Russia is the aggressor.
Americans seem to accept being ruled by a psychopath who is bringing the world closer to nuclear war than in 70 years.
Similarly, George W. Bush, who lied Americans into supporting a catastrophic invasion in 2003 that produced hell in Iraq and over $3 trillion in costs to U.S. taxpayers (and that started ISIS in 2006), is a fairly popular former President, to the people he deceived and cost so much.
Something’s wrong with American values – this country’s real values, not the ones that all the politicians profess.
Americans live in a fantasy-world of lies (“equal opportunity” and all the rest), until the fantasy ends, however it does, which probably will turn out to be very ugly indeed.
They just don’t much care. They certainly aren’t enraged against the liars.
Lying is the way to succeed in America: the most-gifted and well-financed liars rise to the top.
Anyway: Obama has moved the insured-rate up from 85.4% to 87.7% and is nowhere close to 100% or “universal coverage” – not even in a single state.
And Americans tolerate a lying government. Even one that lies on big things, like Obama and Clinton and Bush do.
Hillary Clinton’s proposed healthcare plan when she was running for President in 2008 was virtually identical to Obama’s except that Obama’s didn’t have the individual mandate and hers did – and, as President, Obama’s added the individual mandate: Obamacare is actually Hillary’s plan. It was also John Edwards’s plan. All three Democratic candidates offered the same “reform.” The United States is too corrupt to allow universal coverage – healthcare as a right not a privilege. The United States is an aristocracy, not a democracy: it’s rule by the monied elite and their servants.
If Americans tolerate lies in politics, then that’s what Americans will get, because lying will be the way to win, and America will then have a lying Government. Even on the big things. It’s dangerous. But for aristocrats it is very profitable.
Oh, and regarding that U.S. Supreme Court case in which the White House argued that lying in politics is a fundamental free-speech right, the Court agreed, 9-to-0, 100%. (The decision is summarized there.) All 9 “Justices” represent the aristocracy. The Republicans merely represent it more, but all of the “Justices” represent the aristocracy, not the public. America’s Revolution, against the aristocracy itself (which then happened to be British), has become overthrown.
That’s how corrupt America has become. A nation that was founded for rule by democracy (rule by the public) has become what it was intended to overthrow: aristocracy (rule by wealth) – it is one dollar one vote, instead of one person one vote. It is the protection of wealth, not the protection of persons. The American counter-revolution has won, the aristocracy has been restored to power. The corruption and lies are now systemic. The work of America’s Founders has been destroyed.
Obama is part of the problem, but so too are virtually all other successful politicians in this country. They protect the aristocracy, not the public.
All of the successful Democrats were promising “universal coverage” but denying its very foundation, which is that health care is a right not a privilege.
The rot in America now runs very deep.
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.