Here are a couple of dumb "Obamacare" signs for your perusal.


Photo: Ken_Mayer


Photo: xavierla


The extreme right is in a tizzy over "Obamacare," and they are allowing their most primal fears paint a bizarre picture of this perceived monster. However, there is one huge problem with this that most people throughout the political spectrum haven't addressed: Obamacare doesn't exist.

President Obama has largely been an absentee landlord over the whole healthcare debate. He's let the Senate's Phonycrat leaders decide the substance of the proposals with disastrous results. Instead of producing a real healthcare reform bill (a.k.a. Single Payer) or a compromise bill (a.k.a. the Public Option), there has been an incredibly corrupt wealthcare bill for the HMOs, the health insurers, Big Pharma, and their wealthy investors. Obama has very few fingerprints on the actual legislation.

Obama campaigned on a Public Option, not taxing employee health benefits, and on no fines for people who can't afford astronomical health insurance premiums that exceed actual healthcare costs by enormous margins. Yet, the final bill was just the opposite. It also included devastating cuts for Medicare and unconscionable restrictions on abortion.

President Obama's failure to make his own healthcare proposal and his refusal to involve himself in the substance of the Senate debate created huge political problems for himself and the Democrats. The final bill was even worse than what we have now, which is no small accomplishment. Also, letting the Senate's deal making culture decide the substance of the legislation meant that ordinary Americans had no way of knowing what would be in legislation that would have a huge impact on their lives. The reason many people felt the process was moving too fast is because nobody has been able to calmly and slowly say what the bill was going to contain.

Grassroots Democrats in Massachusetts stayed home en masse because Obama and the Senate Democrats governed so much like Republicans on healthcare and so many other issues that a clear message was sent that the votes of liberal Democrats simply do not matter. If the Democratic politicians don't start governing like Democrats, November will be a disaster for them.

The next time someone in the media or politics rants about "Obamacare," they should be facing universal ridicule and scorn. "Obamacare" is as fake as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster.