You are right. No exceptions. Yet you will be cast as the villain for speaking truth to consequence, if only because discussion of the real causes of the current reality is implicitly & explicitly confusing if not out and out forbidden by the very real, totally toxic influence of political correctness. Healthcare was the last thing the spiritual and mortal enemies needed to gain control of in order to ensure America's demise from Republic of Liberty to just another third world/first world hybrid, internationalist outpost of collectivist tax & debt slave zombies.
"The Communist Takeover of the America -45 declared goals, Congressional Record 1963"
http://www.uhuh.com/nwo/communism/comgoals.htm
RIP America. b July 4, 1776 d Nov 4, 2008. It lasted ~230 years or so there. A good run. It was really hanging on to its last feeble breath for several decades, though. Pathetic to behold. It was long past time for it to pass away.
Its every man (and feminist woman) for themselves at this point. Good luck and best wishes to everybody...every one of us is going to need it for what is coming down the Pike [continuation of this slow yet utter ruin laid at our feet by the preceding generation(s)].
"From a theoretical perspective, it is important to recognize that all forms of economic organization are ultimately based on an explicit or implicit understanding of human nature and that both capitalist and communist economies are based on fallacious accounts of human nature. On the Right, champions of free enterprise in unbridled pursuit of capital and unfettered consumption presume that people are completely autonomous and entirely self-interested individuals who enter the world with different talents and that anyone who tries hard enough is likely to succeed. Furthermore, this success is purely the result of individual effort, unencumbered and unassisted by other people and social institutions. The Horatio Alger story of a poor shoe-shine boy becoming rich by hard work and perseverance, and the story of the Marlboro man, the lone cowboy apparently running an entire ranch by himself, are deeply embedded in popular culture and clearly reflect this vision of human nature.
On the Left, communists presume that people are naturally industrious and altruistic, are content with having their material necessities met, and are like lumps of clay molded by their environments. Self-interest is hence an unfortunate byproduct of a dysfunctional economic environment. People are not naturally selfish but become that way through exposure to a specific set of economic arrangements. The goal is thus to foster "equality" by constructing a social order that emphasizes participation in the community and encourages the obliteration of individual differences and self-interested behavior.
However, both the free-market and communist view of human nature are wrong; or, rather, each is only half right. As living creatures, we have individual biological needs that must be actively met to ensure survival; there thus must be an inborn element of self-interest as standard equipment in the human animal: If I'm hungry it doesn't help me to watch my sister eat a hotdog, regardless of my sincere interest in her welfare. Human beings are also fundamentally social creatures; we are not biologically constructed to function independently, and the same gregariousness we see in our primate precursors exists in us. Thus, we have a biologically based propensity to affiliate with and care for others.
So a proper understanding of human nature recognizes the simultaneous desire to pursue individual self-interest and competitively distinguish ourselves as superior to those around us (to "stick out") and to cooperate with others as members of a broader social order that serves our social interests (to "fit in"). Becker (1973), following Rank (1932), called the simultaneous desire to stick out and to fit in the twin ontological motives. (See also Brewer's, 1991, optimal distinctiveness theory for an independent articulation of these motives.) Rank postulated that the fear of death motivates the urge to distinction in pursuit of immortality, as it does the desire to be comfortably embedded in a death-transcending collective. A number of mortality salience studies have supported the role of these two motives in terror management. For example, following a mortality salience or control induction, Simon et al. (1997) told participants (on the basis of recently completed personality assessments) that they were either very similar to or quite different from their fellow students. Participants then completed a social projection measure assessing themselves in terms of their perceived similarity to others. We predicted and found that being told one is very similar to others would instigate a compensatory reaction to differentiate oneself (to "stick out") in response to mortality salience (and relative to control conditions), but that being told one is very different from others would result in an increased desire to "fit in" in response to mortality salience (and relative to control conditions) and thus rating oneself as more similar to others.
Accordingly, social institutions in general, and economic institutions in particular, should be constructed so as to balance harmoniously these needs. Institutions that foster the development of one need, "sticking out" or "fitting in," to the exclusion of, or in opposition to, the other need are doomed to fail because they each amputate half of what we are.
Capitalist economic orders are based on the lopsided assumption that people are solely self-interested, competitive, independent individuals trying to stick out. The result is economic behavior driven by pure greed. The primary goal is the infinite accumulation of a death-denying abstraction: money. Capitalists are more concerned about the "health" of the economy than the health of people or the planet. A healthy economy is one with a low deficit and high gross national product, even if people are miserable and unhealthy and the natural environment is polluted and depleted to the point where it can no longer sustain human life.
Communist economic organization is based on the equally lopsided assumption that people have minimal physical needs and desires that can be directed and regulated by central authorities. By the totalitarian imposition of rigid controls over all aspects of life, individual expression is stifled, motivation is crushed, and innovation is trampled. Decisions are made by a relatively few inept bureaucrats or (even worse) a single monomaniacal leader (e.g., Stalin or Mao), always (at least to date) with disastrous results: stagnant inefficiency and wholesale plundering of natural resources."
http://cmsauthor.skidmore.edu/fye/summer_reading/upload/Lethal-Consumption.pdf
John Meynard Keynes said:
When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues. We shall be able to afford to dare to assess the money-motive at its true value. The love of money as a possessionas distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of lifewill be recognized for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of the semicriminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease.
Aristotle said:
There is, for example, no sense in producing or acquiring more shoes than can possibly be worn. This is self-evident. With regard to money,
however, which has become exchangeable against everything, the illusion arises that it is good to accumulate it without limit. By doing so, man
harms both the community and himself because, concentrating on such a narrow aim, he deprives his soul and spirit of larger and more rewarding experiences.
The problem long-term is that the insurance companies will lobby congress, which will allow them to keep increasing costs. You might say, "Well, then someone will just open up an insurance company to compete against them". The way the exchanges are setup, they do not have to compete at a national scale, but only at state level. This limits competition and does not prevent these companies from setting up barriers from entering the market (look at Texas and an example of this). With the ACA, you will be required by law to have coverage (unless you are poor or want to pay a fine). They will make bank and you will lose money - I guess eventually all of us will be so poor that we will get insurance for free...yay!
