Posted by
Bullfrog on Monday, August 17, 2009 6:10:04 PM
The good news is that flag-at-whitehouse.gov is dead. Remember that little inbox for people to snitch to the government on their friends, family and neighbors who didn't want Obamacare rammed down their throats? I call it "Snitchgate."
From Politico, we have:
The “flag” service was introduced Aug. 4, with a White House blog post
saying: “There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform
out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life
care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails
or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of
them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an
email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.”
"Snitchgate" had serious potential for abuse, and not just because the White House kept every email address along the whole forwarding trail in a database. My biggest issue was that it essentially gave everyone, citizen, or not, the opportunity to rat out anyone they disliked like a first grader blaming some other innocent student for starting the food fight in the lunch room. It would have been impossible for the WH to check out and dismiss false allegations, yet the person's name and email became part of the database. Can you say "grudge wank"?
Following a furor over how the data would be used, the White House
has shut down an electronic tip box — flag@whitehouse.gov — that was
set up to receive information on “fishy” claims about President Barack
Obama’s health plan.
E-mails to that address now bounce back with the message: “The e-mail
address you just sent a message to is no longer in service. We are now
accepting your feedback about health insurance reform via http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck.”
Good. Not that anyone in his or her right mind would contact this White House about anything, mind you.
The bad news is that the semantics have changed regarding Obamacare. What used to be called to as a "public option," which clearly was designed to move everybody into a nationalized heath care system within a few years, is now being called a "co-op," funded by the government for at least five years. The difference is in name only. If the government funds this "co-op," it is the owner that makes the decisions.
There's no guarantee this entity would ever be turned over to its participants after five years. How many promises has this administration
already broken in a mere seven months? One of two things will happen after five years: 1) the government will retain control, or 2) another administration will be in place, potentially to scrap it. Where would option 2 leave us? With another overhaul, of course.
Michael Cannon's article puts it in fairly simple language:
it does nothing to change the administration's dangerous plan for
health reform. Rather, it is a tactic designed to change the debate –
one that fits nicely within the administration’s broader strategy of
deception.
[. . .]
It is an empty gesture, because the administration can now push for
Sen. Conrad's "co-op" proposal as a substitute. And a
government-chartered health care "co-operative" is simply another
government health program.
The definition of a cooperative is a health plan governed by its
enrollees. Since a government chartered co-op won't have any enrollees
at first, it will be governed by—guess who?—the Secretary of Health and
Human Services, just like any other government program.
Do. Not. Want.
So even if Democrats promise that someday the new program will become a
co-op, what they mean is: "We're going to create that new government
health program, just as we intended all along. But we will turn it
over to the members in, oh, five years or so. We promise."
As they say in Minnesota, "you betcha!" In other words, uh-huh --
sure . . .
To top it off, we have Rep.
Eric Massa (D-NY), who plans to vote for a single-payer plan, stating:
I will vote adamantly against the interests of my district if I actually think what I am doing is going to be helpful.
Can you believe it? Those who voted him into office by a very slim 2% margin deserve him, and his "I know what's better for you than you do" philosophy, but the rest of us in this country don't.
Here's
the link to the video in case the embed doesn't work: