In order to be a big-government liberal, mental gymnastics and verbal tap-dancing must come naturally. In an impressive display of verbal flexibility, a Health and Human Services official explained that Obamacare is really just a benevolent feature of a loving government that is completely incapable of coercion or force.
According to Joanne Grossie from the HHS, no one is being “forced” into the public exchanges. She even insisted that people who have found themselves kicked off their previous healthcare plans are actually quite lucky; because their previous plans were obviously inadequate clunkers that catered only to their gullibility and stupidity… Or something. According to the National Review Online:
“If you got one of the notices that your policy was going to be discontinued because it didn’t adhere to the law, it meant that now you could go into the health-insurance marketplace,” HHS’s Joanne Grossie told Republican state senator Jeff McWaters. “So, I just want to remind you that you weren’t losing insurance you were just losing that insurance plan and were now being invited to go into the health insurance marketplace,” Grossie continued.
Nifty. It’s nice to know that when the IRS threatens to fine anyone who fails to get a new insurance plan through the government-run website (which I’m pretty sure is made from tinker-toys and an Atari), they’re really just inviting us to take part in Obamacare. I’m glad we cleared that up, because it would be easy for normal people to see that as coercion. </SarcasmFont End>
Of course, Joanne wasn’t done there. She insisted on pointing out that people who are losing their insurance are actually getting a blessing in disguise. “They were getting very poor policies before,” she justified, “and now they’re getting much better coverage.”
Oh… Thank you, Big Brother. Another blessing from the Federal Government in the form of life-disrupting regulation. So when you lose the health insurance that you prefer, just remember that a bunch of technocrats in DC are actually doing you a favor. And, apparently, they’re hoping that when the IRS steps in to help them execute their compassionate regulations, you might consider accepting their invitation to take place in a public exchange.
Joanne even managed to attempt an analogy during her remarks. She explained that losing “inadequate” coverage was similar to being “invited” to upgrade your car from a Ford Focus to something more adequate. (Wow… Take that, Ford.)
But Joanne’s tortured analogy is incomplete. After all, in the world of Obamacare, we wouldn’t be getting advertising leaflets in the mail from our nearest Chevy dealer “inviting” us to upgrade our Focus. Instead, the government would determine Ford Focuses were inadequate for the luxury requirements of average citizens, and they would be outlawed. Then, Ford dealers would involuntarily repossess the wildly popular economy cars, and the IRS would tax anyone who failed to replace their Ford with a Chevy Volt by the end of the year.
Yeah. One heck of an invitation, right?
By Joanne’s rationale, we actually have a very benevolent government. We’re invited to abide by speed limits. We’re invited to pay our taxes. (That's not too outrageous... Harry Reid once told us taxes were voluntary.) We’re invited to go unarmed throughout much of America… And, just because the government loves us so much, if we decide not to accept some of these invitations we’ll get an armed escort to public housing. Heck, they might even throw in a new orange-themed wardrobe for us. Isn’t government regulation a great thing?
It’s probably about time we “invite” some of these politicians, bureaucrats, and technocrats to join the unemployment line.