“Opportunity” for Government Dependency: Obama’s Orwellian Doublespeak

After the release of Tuesday’s CBO report, it’s official. Barack Obama’s ridiculous health insurance scheme, deliberately designed to destroy private insurance and usher in the Left’s 100-year-old dream of a government-run single payer system, provides disincentives to work, to marry and to be personally responsible about one’s health. In short, it is the cure for that revolting, 1950’s-style, unfair America with its overrated work ethic and myth of rugged individualism. That’s precisely the country Obama and his friends set out to “remake,” as in destroy. 

The reason that Obamacare creates a disincentive to work is probably obvious to you, regular Clash Daily reader, but just in case some drunk on Kool-Aid Obama supporters have wandered over here, it’s worth explaining. As Avik Roy, who has consistently provided excellent reporting on the (Un)Affordable Care Act, notes in Forbes:

Several economists, like Harvard’s Kate Baicker, MIT’s Amy Finkelstein, Texas A&M’s Laura Dague, and Northwestern’s Craig Garthwaite have found that rising unemployment is associated with an expansion of Medicaid. “Taking that research into account, CBO estimates that expanded Medicaid eligibility under the ACA will, on balance, reduce incentives to work.”

More significantly, as Casey Mulligan has warned, the new subsidized insurance exchanges will allow low-income workers to work less while maintaining the same effective income: what economists call the income effect. [emphasis mine]  In addition, because the subsidies decline on a sliding scale as you make more money, that sliding scale means that as workers work more, they make less per hour worked: what economists call the substitution effect. [emphasis mine]

I know what you’re thinking. “You mention ‘disincentive to work’ like it’s a bad thing.” As the New York Times explains, it’s actually “liberating” to be dependent on the government. To subsist on the crumbs from the government’s table is apparently the new American dream, at least if by “American” you mean the dream of a left-wing demagogue, hell-bent on payback for this country. By this standard, the citizens of North Korea are the freest people on the planet. It’s not a coincidence that under Obama’s watch both the food stamp and disability rolls have skyrocketed.

Barack Obama has “liberated” Americans from their “substandard” insurance policies, which they thought were an exercise of their free market choices, from their “greedy” doctors, whom they liked, and soon from their annoying full-time jobs. They may miss the income and the dignity of work at first, but soon will learn to enjoy sitting on the couch, waiting for their government checks to arrive. Legalized marijuana should ease any discomfort. Still unclear: just exactly who will pay for all these new government wards, with their grasping hands out and their gaping mouths open. Fewer productive workers means less economic growth and a much smaller pie, but as Lady Thatcher so cogently observed, the Left would rather have the poor poorer, provided that the rich were less rich. If Obama were even a bit honest, he would admit that that sentence captures his philosophy to a T.

The CBO report was not good news to vulnerable Democrats up for election in November. While Obama regime mouthpieces spin like tops trying to position this latest shoe to drop from the Obamacare centipede as all about “choice,” they must also confront stories like this one, from Emilie in Tennessee. It’s not like she doesn’t have a choice. Her choice is to work a second job to pay for insurance that may not allow her to see the doctor who has been treating her for a chronic condition. 

Take a deep breath, Comrades, and enjoy the joy of being liberated by our majestic, Dear Leader!

Politics, Pop Culture, the Hottest Issues of the Day, and Your calls. The Teri O’Brien Show, featuring America’s Original Conservative Warrior Princess, Live and in color, Sundays 4-6 pm Central time  at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Teri-OBrien. Daring to Commit Common Sense, Fearlessly, and More Important, Cheerfully, in the Age of Obama.

Image: Courtesy of: http://drmartinsurvey2.wikispaces.com/Banksy