WASHINGTON — In cluded in President Oba ma’s latest stab at health-care reform released yesterday is one of the more astonishing admissions of political deception in recent memory.
After months of swearing that his health legislation would lower the skyrocketing costs of insurance premiums, Obama finally acknowledged that actually it would not.
So, instead, he has included a new provision that can simply outlaw premium increases his administration deems “unreasonable and unjustified.”
This, in lieu of literally years of promises and proclamations about transforming the American hospital-industrial complex in a way that would drastically lower the cost of medicine in this country and leave insurance companies scrambling to lower the premiums they charge customers.
During his campaign, Obama flatly promised to lower families’ health-insurance premiums by $2,500 every year.
Then, after he ascended to the throne, Obama repeatedly insisted without any reservations that all the health-care alchemy inspired by him would magically lower those premiums.
Even in the face of congressional accountants who repeatedly raised doubts about those promises, Obama insisted.
Now the comes the truth.
Of course, having so easily slid into the sordid ways of Washington, Obama does not admit this in so many words. In fact, the White House continues to broadly insist that the latest proposal lowers premiums.
So, why, then, create a whole new federal law to cap premium hikes?
There is only one reason: Even this White House can no longer keep up the charade.
Perhaps even more disturbing than Obama’s back-door admission here is his plan for fixing it.
The Democratic health-care bill — which deserves a cameo in the next “Night of the Living Dead” movie for its unkillable quality — actually causes insurance premiums to rise?
Well, then, we’ll just pass a law! Let’s pass a law to outlaw reality!
This sort of thinking is nothing new. This is the oldest trick in the Democratic playbook that gauzy-eyed liberals have been trying for generations. Remember President Lyndon Johnson’s “war on poverty”?
What a great society that gave us.
While he’s at it, Obama should go right ahead and outlaw unemployment. Then he could make foreclosures illegal. That would fix all our problems.
Heck, if any problems remain in health care after he has jammed his bill through Congress before his co-conspirators get run out of town, Obama could just make sickness illegal.
Maybe he could outlaw death. Then we can all just sit around in our rocking chairs feeling great and enjoying our Great, Great Society — the greatest since, well, Lyndon Johnson was president.
Man, those were good times.