Opposing Socialized Medicine
During the 2008 election, conservatives who dared to call Obama a socialist were shouted down by every Obama supporter in earshot. And yet for all of their promises about a President who would embrace America’s capitalist roots, we have witnessed massive federal intervention into private industry– from the nationalization of major car manufacturers to almost ever influencial sector of the financial services industry.
And, once again– against all odds– and against the clear facts of the situation, many on the left have opposed characterizations of Obama’s government-sponsored healthcare proposal, which would, in effect, socialize the medical industry of the United States, as “socialist”. Why? Because, for better or worse, “socialism”, while not the same as “anti-Americanism” in the literal sense, still carries with it a stigma of anti-Americanism.
But what are we to call the continued battle against free market principles– a battle that is being waged almost solely by Barack Obama? And what are we to call the champion of such policies but one with socialist tendencies? How many industries does one have to push out of the free market before one is a true “socialist”?
Today we learn that the American Medical Association is opposing Obama’s newest healthcare plan before it has even been considered by lawmakers in any meaningful way. They seem particularly worried about the erasure of “private markets” under the new plan– no doubt images of GM’s CEO being ousted from his own company by government regulators are at least part of the calculus behind such a specific fears (as are the here-and-now nightmares of Medicare/Medicaid).
The AMA is standing purposefully and indignantly against one simple thing: socialism. Obama’s healthcare plan is, to put it simply, socialized medicine. It is a continuance of the Federal Government’s intervention in U.S. markets– intervention that, it seems, is worsening, rather than helping, the current economic downturn. The AMA, like most Americans, is not comfortable with socialized medicine, nor are images of doctors being controlled by the byzantine bureaucracy of Washington something that almost anyone outside of the White House and the Democratic Party are comfortable imagining. And yet somehow, Barack Obama, political messiah, thinks that such a clear coaltion against his policies is something to be ignored and trampled over.
With promises of tax cuts, reform of a bloated Washington machine, and widespread change in the status quo (which, under George W. Bush, had expanded more than almost any other President in American history), Barack Obama cast himself as a kind of political hybrid: in the guise of a “forward-thinking”, multicultural, liberal outsider, he would pursue what amounted to traditional conservative policies. His critics pointed out that his embarassingly small record in government was evidence that such promises were not trustworthy, but went unheeded and were not listened too. Now, instead of helping change Washington, Barack Obama has given hundreds of billions of dollars to the financial elite, employed the very lobbyists he so often demonized in his campaign, and begun enacting a radical, leftist, and, yes, socialist agenda. Barack Obama has broken his promises.
So, as more groups like the AMA (which has a long history of supporting healthcare initiatives that involve significant government intervention) begin to rise up against Obama’s version of “change”, we can expect more and more people to notice exactly how many of those promises, explicit and implicit, Obama has broken. His supporters are going to have a difficult time confronting their defense of Obama during the 2008 election, and may find themselves at a loss. How to square their statements that critics calling Obama a socialist were wrong against the clear evidence that he is? How to defend the opposite of what they supported in the summer of 2008? How to mount a campaign to turn the words ”dishonest and manipulative” into ”liberal and forward thinking”?
Barack Obama is fond of “calling for debate”. Soon he is going to learn how poor a tactic that is– especially for a politician so dishonest.