Obamacare—it’s about control, stupid!

If you want to understand progressive politics, you need to read Noam Scheiber’s article, How Obamacare Actually Paves the Way Toward Single Payer. What’s great about the article is that it lets you be a fly on the wall during a strategy session concerning the biggest progressive weapon in over fifty years—Obamacare.

It begins with progressive documentary-maker Michael Moore (let’s call him Darth Vader) chomping at the bit to obliterate the last vestiges of the Resistance, and ranting about how the Obamacare Death Star has turned out to be a water pistol—it hasn’t annihilated the Resistance, and what’s more, it doesn’t even hold water!

Then comes Noam Scheiber, special apologist for the Emperor (and you know who the Emperor is), who instructs Darth in the ways of the Dark Side more perfectly. Obamacare is not a run of the mill Death Star—it’s a Trojan Horse Death Star. It’s a gift that’s meant to disappoint by failing to deliver. What’s the good of that? Just this: It lays “the groundwork for its own fixing.”

Progressives know that it won’t be long before residents in Resistance Red States start demanding that their leaders make good by giving them what Obama promised, and of course the “only way” to do that is to go whole hog into an Empire-run single payer system. At that point, it is only a matter of time before Resistance leaders (who are politicians, after all) capitulate to their constituents’ demands. And there you have it—total victory from the inside out.

There is much we should learn here about the goals and strategy of the Empire.

First, we should learn that a failure isn’t a failure when it is intended to fail, because its real goal is not its stated goal. Got it? Let me put it another way. Obamacare is a failure in the same way the public school system is a failure—which is to say, not at all—for the real purpose of both has nothing to do with healthcare or education, but is to accomplish one thing—control. Once you understand that control is the real goal, you will see that Obamacare is a raging success. As with the public schools, the answer to every failure will be more laws, more taxes, more bureaucracy, and correspondingly a more dependent and compliant citizenry. Mission accomplished. That is the progressive dream. So when you encounter progressive politics, no matter what the issue, repeat after me: “It’s about control, stupid!”

Second, we should learn that progressives are an inherently religious folk; it’s just that they adhere to a different faith—faith in the Empire to overcome the all the ills of humanity. Listen as Scheiber catechizes Vader and other progressive adherents:

For-profit health insurance is on some level morally offensive—at least when it’s practiced the way we Americans practice capitalism. With a few tantalizing but mostly unrepresentative exceptions, the longstanding aim of health insurers has been to weed out sick people, and to weasel out of paying for treatment if they somehow get insurance, so that the companies could boost their share price, lavish income on their executives, and plow money into annoyingly saccharine TV adds.

Let’s just grant Scheiber’s premise for the moment. Let’s ignore the fact that the majority of healthcare insurance, until Obamacare, has been provided by employers, so that employees and their families are pretty much covered from stem to stern, including preexisting conditions. Let’s also ignore the fact that over 80 per cent of Americans were happy with this “immoral” system. And let’s assume there are many greedy, unscrupulous power brokers in the insurance industry (an assumption you already make, if you are a Christian, about every industry). The question remains: How will this “immoral” system suddenly become moral by turning it over to the biggest money grubber and power monger of all—the Empire?

Ah, here is where the progressive faith shines through. Simply by moving from the private sector to the government sector one crosses the River Jordan and washes one’s sins away. One is no longer a greedy profiteer; one is now an angelic bureaucrat. Progressives have not jettisoned regeneration, they have just relocated it.

But if money grubbing and power mongering are the problem, as progressives allege, why don’t we give individuals control over their own healthcare through options such as unlimited, tax-exempt healthcare savings accounts? Insurance would play a much smaller role, being reserved chiefly for catastrophic needs, and the cost of healthcare in general would plummet. What’s wrong with that idea? Oh, I forgot, it’s about control, stupid!

Third, we should learn that, unlike the Christian religion, which teaches that both the ends and the means must be good, the progressive religion teaches that any means to the desired end is good. So Scheiber buoys Vader’s flagging faith by jubilantly assuring him that Obamacare is “a deceptively sneaky way to get the health care system both of us really want.” So you see, there are good lies and bad lies (a bad lie being one that doesn’t work). Obama’s lies (“If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.”)—these were good lies, for they secured the passage of Obamacare. Feel better now? But still, why would it be good for the President to lie to secure legislation the majority of the people don’t want? Oh, I forgot again—it’s about control, stupid!

Finally, we should learn that progressives love to give “gifts”, and we should remember the lesson of the Trojan Horse—beware of bureaucrats bearing gifts! Gifts from the Empire kill two birds with every stone. First, what they “give” to some, they take from others (for in case you didn’t know, the Empire doesn’t have anything except what it takes). Second, what the Empire “gives” to some creates dependency in the some. Every group that receives “gifts” becomes, according to Scheiber, the Empire’s favorite type of citizen—a “sympathetic and organized constituency … with an actionable grievance.” But why would the Empire want a bunch of organized citizen groups with grievances? Wouldn’t that just create political chaos? Oh, slap me, would ya? It’s about control, stupid!