From the Editor

No ObamaCare for Me

By:  David Deschesne,

Editor/Publisher, Fort Fairfield Journal

October 16, 2013

I’ve heard Volvo is a pretty safe car to be in if you’re in a car accident.  But, my wife and I will likely never be able to afford one so we don’t bother worrying about buying one.

   Speaking of safety, I do a lot of outdoor sound system contracting in the summer.  I place speakers on telephone poles at the fairgrounds both in Presque Isle and Houlton.  To climb those poles I use an aluminum extension ladder.  I’ve gotten pretty good at programming my internal gyroscope to keep my body level and plumb from the waist up while the wind blows and makes the pole and ladder sway beneath me.  Now, surely a “cherry picker” bucket truck would be much safer for working off the ground, mounting speakers on poles and running wires, but I do not have the $75,000 or so that a new truck would cost—or even the $15,000 or so that a used truck would cost so I have to make do with what I have.

   We live within our means.

   My wife and I do not buy things we cannot afford and do not buy on credit because that always makes the purchase more expensive than it would be if we’d just saved our money until we could buy what we want or need.

   Another thing that is good to have but we cannot afford is health insurance.  With premiums ranging from $500 to $1,000 per month, there is simply no way we would be able to pay for that luxury—and health insurance is a luxury item—and still be able to pay our taxes (so government bureaucrats can have health insurance as part of their benefits package), buy food, buy gasoline, and cover the necessary expenses of attempting to run our businesses in town.

   Now, I know you all were sold a bill of goods on Obama’s so-called “affordable” health care program.  The truth is, it’s not affordable.  It was written by insurance companies for insurance companies.  You all thought it was going to be free, nationalized health care where everybody gets to go to the hospital for free.  Sorry, that’s not the truth.

   The reality is it’s a mandate that forces everyone to buy the still expensive health insurance under penalty of an I.R.S. fine.  Not only is the health insurance not affordable, it doesn’t cover most of what we’ve come to expect from health care and the health insurance companies have figured out a way to use the power of the government’s guns and jails to force us to buy their product.

   For example, if you have cataracts, you’re not going to get surgery, you’re going to get a cane with a ball on the end.  If you need hip replacement, you’re not going to get new hips, you’re going to get a wheel chair.  The only entities who benefit from the ObamaCare are health insurance companies who will no longer have to cover the expensive side of health care costs and politicians, who benefit from large political campaign contributions from those health insurance companies.

  I can’t afford a Volvo.  Even if Volvo teamed up with the feds and got a law passed that everyone must buy their car, I still would not be able to afford it—I.R.S. penalty or not.

  I can’t afford a bucket truck to safely work on speakers on the telephone poles.  Even if the bucket truck manufacturers teamed up with the feds and got a law passed that said all sound system contractors must buy their trucks, I wouldn’t be able to afford one—I.R.S. penalty, or not.

   Even if the health insurance companies teamed up with the feds and got a law passed that said I have to buy their health insurance, I would not be able to afford it—I.R.S. penalty or not.  Oh, they already did that!

   I do not buy things I cannot afford.  I also do not commit to making monthly payments on a product when I know I’m not going to be able to keep up those payments. 

   Just because the feds with their scary black ski masks, I.R.S. penalties and liens, bloated, politically-run “court” systems and jails tell me I have to buy something, the bottom line at the end of the day is still the bottom line; I do not have enough money to buy health insurance—Obama’s illegal mandate to do so notwithstanding.  So, I’m not going to buy what I cannot afford.  If Obama wants to send an I.R.S. goon squad after me for failing to help pay the greens fees for the overtly rich and wealthy health insurance company executives, then so be it.  I don’t have the money to comply with that illegal mandate, so I’m not going to comply.  Even if a thousand federal goons came after me, I would not have any more money than when I started.

   Maxim:  You can’t get blood from a turnip.

   You might be tempted to compare the health insurance mandate to the mandate to purchase car insurance as a requirement to register your vehicle.  I know that’s an easy out for those who want to support Obama’s illegal mandate, but it’s not analogous.  You see, you do not have to buy car insurance if you choose not to drive a car.  You can still walk, ride a horse, or a bicycle and avoid purchasing car insurance.  However, there is no out for the ObamaCare.  

   The health insurance companies operating in collusion with the armed and dangerous feds are telling us we have to buy their product and they have offered no “out” from it.  Whether you can afford it, or not, you have to give them your money every month, or die or go to jail trying. 

   So, why was such an illegal, untenable mandate passed?  Well, it’s because these people hate America and all that it stands for.  They designed the health insurance “law” to destroy businesses (except for those large, multi-national corporations like Wal-Mart, McDonalds, and others who have been granted exemptions from ObamaCare) and turn the U.S. into a third-world country.  They want to destroy our health care system so they can convince us to allow government to come in and “fix” it under a nationalized system.  The only thing government is really efficient at is stealing money and killing people—not good attributes to have when you want to entrust them with your health care.

   After our businesses have been destroyed, health care dismantled and all private property confiscated in the form of liens and penalties and handed over to the banks who run the health insurance companies, we will be converted into a slave-class society living in squalor while the rich Democrat and Republican elite live in their ivory palaces counting the trillions of dollars they have siphoned off the backs of the citizenry (yes, Republicans also supported this illegal, communist health care mandate).  They will then offer their brand of communism as the “solution” which history has shown never works.

   Look at every other communist country in history.  Do you want to live in North Korea?  Be patient, the Republicans and Democrats are working diligently to get us there.  

More Editorials by David Deschesne