Live Long and Prosper,----- as long as Obama will let you

Did Spock of Star Trek fame have a first name? If he did, I don’t know what it is or was but I could make one up if only I spoke Vulcan. It would have to be the equivalent of “Big Ears” but that would get the Obama cultists outside my house tonight complete with pikes and flaming torches. And I only have 3 cloves of garlic and 80 rounds of 40 caliber ammo to fight ‘em off.

Anyway Spock once said that “Diplomacy is all about prolonging a crisis”. See, I like Spock because he’s a logic-based person. If you ever followed the series and/or the movies you would know that he is the product of a Vulcan father and an Earthling mother.

With the scene set, let’s look at the Commander’s hypothesis and accept it for a moment or two at least. A couple of months ago the whole healthcare “thing” looked like a done deal. The Democrats had a big majority in the House. After the selection of Al Franken they had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and they had Obama in the Oval Office. And he would sign anything that had his name on it and the words “health” and “care” appeared anywhere in its text.

Well Obama and his fellow-travelers must be extraordinary diplomats because they’ve managed to extend the crisis for weeks and there’s really no end in sight.

I suppose that cause isn’t helped by the idiocy of their people like Harry Reid, the majority leader in the Senate, who over the weekend pronounced that, “He was in favor of the ‘Public Option’ but only if it’s privately run”.

Way to go Harry!!

And it becomes clearer every day why Obama, Reid and Pelosi were, and are, pushing for quick passage because, the longer it takes; the more dirty little secrets are found. Ignore for now the “End-of-Life Counseling and the Rationing and the Access to financial records and consider Dirty Little Secret Number 4.

Here’s the primary problem. Medicare is bankrupt and so is Medicaid and Social Security. Though boomers have paid into these programs via their taxes for decades, there are not enough benefits to offer them now -- and even less in the future.

The problem is compounded further when one learns that the number of people in the United States who are 65 or older is expected to double by 2030, and so is the amount expected to fund their retirement and health care in their twilight years, which relatively few are prepared to handle themselves.

So what is the U.S. government to do, especially when it already is projected to have $20 trillion worth of debt in 2019? (Let alone what it will be in 2030!) That reform is needed in healthcare is not a question, but Obamacare in its present form is not the answer. Yes, it would cut the care for baby boomers in the future, if not through the reductions and costs of private options then through the mandatory benefit cuts the government would have to make in Social Security and Obamacare (formerly Medicare).

Think about it. If government can't handle the costs of the elderly now in retirement via its Medicare and Social Security programs, do we really expect they will offer the baby boomers better (and more costly) benefits in the future?

According to a CBO report called "Baby Boomers' Retirement Prospects": "Present trends are unlikely to persist indefinitely, however, because total payments to retirees are expected to grow much faster under current law than either the total incomes of workers who pay Social Security and Medicare taxes or the revenues earmarked for those programs. That widening gap will place increasing stress on both programs. Narrowing the gap could involve slowing the future growth of benefits."

Notice the words "under current law" and "slowing the future growth of benefits"?

That is key. The only way around this future financial dilemma (according to this administration, at least) is to change "current law" and to "slow" or lower the benefits for baby boomers. That new law (or basic legislation upon which such changes can be amended) is Obamacare.

Now, look closely at the political prescription from the CBO's same boomer report:

"The extent to which baby boomers are providing for their own retirement -- and have time to react to policy changes is thus an important consideration in evaluating proposals to reform the Social Security and Medicare programs."

The only way the boomers will "have time to react to policy changes" is if they are enacted before they go into retirement! Obamacare is designed to force retiring baby boomers into a much cheaper version of socialized medicine than Medicare, which is already being positioned to be cut by of $500 billion.

Obamacare is not merely about reforming healthcare to aid 47 million Americans who are uninsured. It is about reforming "current law" to axe 72 million retiring Americans, whom the government can't afford to support over the next two decades.

Actually, it turns out that Commander Spock did have a first name after all but it turns out to be unpronounceable by humans. Kinda’ like ObamaCare is unfathomable to thinking people.


Or putting it another way, “Its not logical Captain”.