Trickle Up Poverty (22 page)

Or, is it possible, that ObamaCare isn’t just about socialized medicine? If you look closely, you’ll find it’s really about the redistribution of wealth.

Yes, now that ObamaCare has passed, the sheeple, who were previously too busy grazing in the colorful fields of Sports-Land or were glued to their iPhones, are beginning to comprehend this nasty reality: the Democrats circled the wagons around our Socialist Medicine Man because many of them also believe in the redistribution of wealth—not in genuine healthcare reform. You better read that again. ObamaCare isn’t about health care, it’s about the government stealing from the “makers” and giving it to the “takers.”

Take, for example, Demoncat Senator Max Baucus who described ObamaCare as “an income shift” designed to help the poor. Speaking to the press after the bill passed, stumbling like a drunken man after an extended bender, Baucus made the following incongruous statement:

Too often, much of late, the last couple three years, the maldistribution of income in America is gone up way too much, the wealthy are getting way, way too wealthy and the middle income class is left behind. Wages have not kept up with increased income of the highest income in America. This legislation will have the effect of addressing that mal-distribution of income in America.86

Baucus’s affinity for spreading the wealth was echoed by the former Democratic National Committee chairman, Howard Dean who, thank God, lost his bid for president. Because Dean is a classic Obamanic, he was likewise upbeat about the use of ObamaCare to redistribute the wealth:

The question is, in a democracy, what is the right balance between those at the top … and those at the bottom? When it gets out of whack, as it did in the 1920s, and it has now, you need to do some redistribution. This is a form of redistribution.87

Upon passage of ObamaCare with its redistribution of wealth provisions, David Leonhardt, one of the many hard-left columnists at the Old York Times, was as giddy as a junior high school girl getting her first kiss. He wrote, “The bill that President Obama signed on Tuesday is the federal government’s biggest attack on economic inequality since inequality began rising more than three decades ago.”88 Tell me, Mr. Leonhardt, where in the Constitution does it state that the role of the Congress is to redistribute the wealth? Where is it written that correcting economic inequities is the job of government?

Joining the socialist faaaaaairness squad is Vice President Joe Biden who said, “The top 1% of earners get 22% of all income made in the U.S. Taxes have been lowered for the wealthy considerably over the years. It’s about time we get a little tax equity here.”89 I must point out that the “earners” he is speaking of don’t “get” wealth. Nobody hands it to them like candy at a parade. They work damn hard for it. I resent the notion that a hardworking American should be punished for being industrious. That’s number one.

Second, while it’s true that the top 1 percent earn 22 percent of income, Biden conveniently left out the deeper issue. As Curtis Dubay of the Heritage Foundation points out, these top performers “also pay more than 40% of all income taxes”!90 Or, put another way, as the Tax Foundation points out, “the share of the tax burden borne by the top 1% now exceeds the share paid by the bottom 95% of taxpayers combined.”91

Look, while I disagree with Joe Biden on many issues, it’s clear to me the man doesn’t pay homage to a poster of Lenin at bedtime. And yet, regarding the charge that ObamaCare is a scheme to redistribute the wealth, the vice president is more comfortable mincing words and splitting hairs than admitting the truth of the matter:

It’s a simple proposition to us: Everyone is entitled to adequate medical health care. If you call that a “redistribution of income”—well, so be it. I don’t call it that. I call it just being fair—giving the middle class taxpayers an even break that the wealthy have been getting.92

No, sir, everyone is not entitled to health care, or houses, or cars, or a college degree … not even a chicken in every pot. Nowhere in the Declaration of Independence are such things guaranteed. What it does say is that Americans are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Fairness isn’t on the list.

This push by Obama for socialist medical care doesn’t come as a surprise to me. After all, as a student of history, I know that Job #1 for any radical Marxist-Leninist like Obama is to seize control of health care. He wants to revolutionize everything from within and the seminal battle is health care. Why? Because it gives him total power over the people from cradle to grave. The government now has access to all your health and medical records, including your psychiatric or psychological records.

Doesn’t anyone understand this?

Once you centralize medical control in the federal government, your medical records, including your psychiatric history—anything you shared with a therapist in privacy—will not be private but held in a government databank. It can be used against you by the government. It can be used against you by people who infiltrate the computer data.

It can be used against you by the bureaucrats who hold the data.

It can be used against you to manipulate and control you.

It’s about power. It’s about stealing the money from the middle class.

There are a few “winners” in the ObamaCare bill: the IRS, the unions, and the lazy, money-grubbing slackers who don’t work and don’t pay taxes and who live off the public dole. They are the biggest beneficiaries of this monstrosity. And, of course, the illegal aliens who will continue to get free coverage at their local hospital while you stand in line behind them.

Given the fines and penalties for the rest of us, I predict the number of people on Medicaid will explode. Think about it. Why should you bother to work if everything is handed to you on a silver platter. You’ll actually be better off working “off the clock” and then claiming to be impoverished, rather than holding down a job and paying your share of the newly imposed taxes.

Doctor, My Eye

The other day after working long hours on this book, I bicycled down to the mall for some fresh air. In the distance, I happened to notice that the farmers’ market was set up and open for business. Yes, even in San Fransicko the local farmers come and sell their fruits, vegetables, eggs, meats, and cheeses directly to the public right from the back of their trucks and car trunks. Some sell flowers or homemade baked goods. Many offer free samples in hopes of attracting customers. All of them are just trying to make a living selling their wares.

There’s something very primal, very earthy about the whole affair. Everywhere you look there are crates and boxes piled high with fresh produce, mason jars of canned goods, and people milling about. In short, my kind of environment. I love to mingle with the merchants, talking about whatever, while buying a little of this and that to take home for supper. You can tell by their simple mannerisms and warm smiles that they’re regular people, unlike the lunatics running the city. So, I pedal my bike over thinking I’ll savor a few enjoyable moments in the open-air market. That’s when it all fell apart for me.

As I walked through the place, I couldn’t help but notice the disgusting drifters and liberals eating for free from the poorest of the poor. Everywhere I turned, I’d see the pig liberals going from stand to stand sampling free food with tiny little forks like insects at a picnic. They’d smile at the farmers pretending they would buy something, all the while shoveling another freebee into their tubby faces.

I’ve seen this before and it bothered me then.

This particular afternoon, I tried not to engage, but at one point I just couldn’t remain silent. Twenty feet off to my left I spotted a large woman in her seventies, wearing a cotton moo-moo dress. She had a craw on her that could devour a school bus. She was knocking down as many free samples as she could, moving from booth to booth like a cow grazing in the field.

I’m watching her as she moved closer and closer until she almost collided with me in front of a meatball booth. She starts packing away the meatballs like a squirrel shoving nuts in its cheeks, stocking up for winter. One after another, she’s chowing down as if she’s at a bar mitzvah. It was disgusting. That’s when I had to speak up. I said to the owner, but loud enough so others around me could hear, “Do you sell anything or do you only have these people eating for nothing?”

The cow in the moo-moo kept stuffing her face.

The owner said, “Oh, you’ve got to give samples in order for them to buy.”

I said, “Yes, but do any of them actually buy, or do they just eat for free?”

At that point, the woman stopped eating like a hippopotamus with food hanging out of its mouth. She stopped long enough to give me a dirty look and then said, “Ah, he must be from New York”

I said, “Wherever I’m from, at least I pay for my food, unlike you.” She was already shoveling in another meatball. Stunned at my directness, or stunned by the truth, she opened up her trap to say something smart. That’s when half a meatball fell out of her mouth and onto her huge, Coney Island bosom. Here’s the connection to what’s wrong with health care in America.

If you want to know why America’s health care is out of control, I’ll tell you. And this will get a little touchy. I’m sure the seniors will get mad at me. But the fact is that we’re in the mess with the healthcare industry because you have too much health care. You’ve never had it so good. You have far too much access to doctors. You have far too much access to high-tech procedures. You have far too much access to premium prescriptions. And, in many instances, it’s been relatively “free” to binge on the care your plan affords.

Like the slob in the farmers’ market, you graze from one doctor to another for every little ailment. You’ve been taught to call the doctor if you have a headache, stomach-ache, eye-ache, earache, foot ache, nose-ache, throat-ache, ankle-ache, toe-ache, behind-ache, or private-ache. Whatever bothers you, you call a doctor, see a specialist, and run up the bill. Whoever had doctors like this for nothing?

Do you really think a $20 co-pay covers the cost?

My mother used to say, “Treat yourself, Michael. Don’t go to the doctor for every complaint. Don’t go for every ache.” Today, we have a totally different mind-set. You wake up with a touch of pain in the side of your ear, you run to an ear specialist when a $3 bottle of antihistamine or aspirin would probably have cleared things up. Every cringe, every soreness, creak and groan sends us to the doctor when much of it is just a part of normal living.

And there’s fifty quacks lined up to bill the government.

If only you had practiced some self-control. If only you practiced dietary control. If only you integrated some level of exercise. If only you practiced holistic medicine, you wouldn’t need as much of this expensive health care. Which is not to say it’s not life saving when you really need it. It certainly is. But it only makes sense to save those trips to the doctor for when you need it not for every little thing.

What’s more, you have been encouraged by the drug industry through endless streams of TV ads, to take six painkillers a day if you play sports. You know, take six or eight of these liver-killing, kidney-killing painkillers all day long, every day of your life because it’s good for the pharmaceutical companies. It’s certainly not good for your liver or your kidneys.

Personally, I’ve always paid for my health care. Even when I was a student, I paid for my health care for my young children and myself. It was always very expensive. But I managed to get good health care when I needed it. I only bought healthcare plans for the catastrophic illness, which so far, thank God, never came. And, I’ve done my best to take care of myself rather than rely upon a pill. When I was in the emergency room last year for an accident, they asked me right away, “How many drugs are you on? What medications do you use?” They figured a man my age would be on five, six, maybe seven. I said, “None.”

The nurse looked up and said, “I said how many medications are you on?” I said, “None. I don’t take medications. I don’t need them.” She about fainted. I was the one out of a million, maybe one out of ten million. Over-medication is part of the entire healthcare problem in this country. Americans have far too much health care and take far too many medications. If we’re serious as a nation to rein in the costs, start by reining in the misuse of doctors and prescriptions.

Chickens to Chicken Little: The Schecter Brothers

For the better part of his first term in office, Barack Obama behaved like the central character in one of Aesop’s Fables, Chicken Little. Remember that one? As the tale goes, an acorn fell on Chicken Little’s head who, in turn, ran around like a chicken with its head cut off shouting: “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” Her big mistake was to misinterpret the acorn (no relationship to the infamous ACORN scandal) as an omen of bad things to come. She, in turn, created a wave of mass hysteria among her friends.

Things didn’t end well for Chicken Little and company.

They all became dinner for Foxy Loxy.

In similar fashion, using a manufactured healthcare crisis, Obama spent a year whipping up the masses into a panic with his version of “The sky is falling.” He manipulated those fears to shove socialized medicine down our throats. And while it’s a bitter pill to swallow, it isn’t the first time big government has tried to force nonsensical, draconian regulations on the American people. Nor will it be the last, especially given this Marxist-Leninist president’s track record.

America saw the same sort of government intrusion in the 1930s under President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR). Like Obama, FDR skillfully leveraged the crisis of the day to usher in a number of “New Deal” socialist programs. As one reporter puts it, “The New Deal was a heady mix of redistribution, regulation, and rhetoric.”93 The operative word there is redistribution. That’s pure Marxist-socialism. Does the fact that FDR was Obama-lite surprise you? It shouldn’t. You see, in the 1930s, centralized government control was appearing around the world.