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Monday, December 30, 2013

Affordable Care Act for the people, despite Fox News - letter by Jack Kligerman

Reproduced here for fair use and discussion purposes. My comments in bold.
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What you find here is a typical Leftist approach to an issue. You will find scapegoating, misdirection, non sequiturs, and general confusion-sowing in the name of "refuting" a position. In this case, the critics of the ACA. Read on:
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 If you had been watching Fox News (Note the first scapegoat, Fox News. The fact that ACA was a disaster seems only to be related to Fox News in some way.) 

during the troubled rollout of the Affordable Care Act, the emotion you would have seen and heard repeated ad infinitum was glee; glee at the trouble the website was having (So Fox News commentators are represented as being filled with was glee. No documentation of this is provided, but more to the point, what problem is there with adversaries of ACA being happy that the failure they predicted turned out to be correct?)

(mistakenly assumed and presented to be trouble with Universal Health Care itself). (This is a curious statement. ACA isn't universal healthcare. In fact, the statistics show that more people have lost their healthcare as a result of ACA as have obtained it. But this misses a key point. The advocates of ACA are not interested in stopping here. They fully intend to use ACA as a stepping stone to a complete takeover of health care. Of this there is no doubt. So any criticism of ACA in the context of a government takeover of health care is perfectly justified.) 

You might elsewhere have caught one of the news clips about the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, the last words being “the government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.” Glee and “for the people,” however, never were put together on Fox News because Fox News can hardly be said to ever be “for the people” at large. (What is with these people about Fox News? Is Fox News [or any news organization for that matter] supposed to be advocating for some sort of "for the people" situation as described by President Lincoln? Are commentators on Fox News or anywhere else supposed to be taking a position that aligns with some sort of preconceived view of "for the people?"

What is even more strange is that the Gettysburg Address was a speech given by Lincoln decades after the Constitution was ratified by a previous generation of American heroes. It seems to me that the Constitution governs the operation of the country, not the Gettysburg address.)

The glee was for what Fox News and all those Republicans who voted unanimously against the Affordable Care Act wanted the government not to do for the people. (Ok, so now we move on to the eeevil Republicans. Apparently, ACA is part of doing things "for the people," and it's the Republicans' fault it is failing. That makes total sense...) 

From the very start, when the joint committee did its work together and then the Republicans on the committee voted against the bill they had framed, and then the House or Senate Republicans refused to modify the bill in such a way as to perfect it and make it work better for the people, (Whaaa? How many times have we heard that the Republicans have voted to repeal or modify the ACA 33 times, 37 times, 40 times? Prior to that, during the time leading up to the passage of ACA, every single modification of the bill offered by the Republicans was shot down. The intent by the Democrats was clear: The bill was going to be passed as-is, whether by hook or crook, deception, wee hours of the morning, promise anything to anyone [Bart Stupak, anyone?], whatever it took. Of course the Republicans opposed it, but that is completely irrelevant. The Republicans were [and are] powerless to affect the ACA. They don't have the Senate or the Presidency.) 

what the government could do for the people was forgotten (Actually, it's what government can do TO the people that is problem.) 

in the animosity the Republicans bore against the first African-American president this country had the nobility to elect. (This is total crap to bring race into this. There is no evidence whatsoever that Republicans in Congress are acting out of racial motivations. None. Indeed, 53% of the country voted this man into office, and 51% voted to re-elect him. Race is and always has been irrelevant. He is a poor president, and he is leading the way into financial oblivion. The opposition has always been about his policies. His policies are bad for the country. Period.)

What is for the people are terms within the bill, particularly those which would prevent healthcare-related bankruptcy and loss of homes, would disallow insurance companies from canceling policies because of the very illnesses the policies were designed to protect against, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. (This is the laundry list of supposed benefits repeated ad nauseum by the Left. Such things could be dealt with in about a page of text in the ACA legislation. But the ACA is 2000 pages long. This issue is what is in the other 1999 pages, and we are discovering little by little that these is some bad stuff in there indeed.) 

But, to repeat, the glee was for the difficulties Obamacare was having to protect the people; it was never “for the people,” as Lincoln envisaged the role of government. (Lincoln again, as if Lincoln's view should override the founders. 

The more I re-read this letter, the more puzzled I am. I've examined his letters before on this blog. Mr. Kligerman seems to be losing his mental faculties somehow. Really, who writes a letter like this and sends it off to the newspaper to be published? Where is the logical procession of ideas? Where is the references? Where is the systematic critique of concepts? Did Mr. Kligerman really intend to say nothing more than Lincoln is good, Republicans are bad, and it's about the glee of Fox News and Republican racism? 

Again, I must say this is so strange. He says nothing, gives us nothing, and makes a case for nothing. He seems oblivious to all the substantial problems the ACA brings to the table. He apparently loves good intentions, but doesn't much care [or even know about] the huge problems of the legislation.)

Jack Kligerman

Bozeman

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