The lessons from Obamacare's flawed Web launch … As the president has recognized, the failure of his administration to deliver a functioning website that Americans can use to enroll in Obamacare represents an inexcusable error. Having succeeded after more than a century of failed efforts in achieving the progressive dream goal of legislating universal health insurance in America, it is tragic to be falling short on the mundane task of allowing Americans to actually enroll in the healthcare exchanges. Even if the goal of getting the health insurance exchanges working by November 30 is achieved, and this cannot be regarded by objective observers as a certainty, a shadow has been cast on the core competence of the federal government. – Lawrence Summers, Reuters editorial
Dominant Social Theme: The Obamacare website rollout is tragic and future governmental tragedies must be avoided before the perception of government competence is lessened.
Free-Market Analysis: From a freedom perspective this is almost a funny editorial.
Lawrence Summers, who nearly became head of the Federal Reserve, is worried not only that the flawed 'Net rollout of Obamacare is hurting the initiative but also that the government's obvious incompetence is aggravating people's cynicism about their ruling class.
Additionally, Summers provides us with a clear statement about Obamacare's unspoken rationale – as we can see from the excerpt with which we began this analysis:
Having succeeded after more than a century of failed efforts in achieving the progressive dream goal of legislating universal health insurance in America, it is tragic to be falling short on the mundane task of allowing Americans to actually enroll in the healthcare exchanges.
Summers, a consummate statist who was once Harvard's president, is blunt about the REAL reason for Obamacare. It is not so much intended to help people as it is to bring the nation closer to fulfilling the "progressive dream" of universal care.
There are many ways to take care of people, of course, and one of the best ways is to encourage them to take care of themselves. But this escapes people like Summers; if people took care of themselves they wouldn't need people like him. Thus, he blasts opponents of the Obamacare muddle:
Large-scale information technology projects in the private sector are hard enough with no organized constituency rooting for failure. It is no exaggeration to say … they have been eager to seize on any problems, highlight any controversial judgments, and create an environment in which failure becomes the expectation.
It is disingenuous for those who stood ready to turn any regulatory detail into an attack ad to profess outrage when guidance was not provided during an election campaign. It is hypocritical for those who held up confirmations of key officials with responsibility for managing federal healthcare programs and whose behavior deterred many able people from coming into government to lash out at the incompetence of government management.
And it is indefensible to refuse to appropriate money to carry out a program and then attack it for being under-resourced. There is a danger here that goes far beyond delays in access to health insurance. The risk is of a vicious cycle developing in which poor government performance leads on the one hand to overly bold promises of repair, and on the other to reduced funding and support for those doing the work.
This then leads to unmet expectations and disappointment, setting off the cycle again. In the end, government loses the ability to deliver for citizens and citizens lose respect for government. Our democracy is the loser.
The whole article is absurd but Summers manages to end it with a non sequitur. Having spent a good deal of time agonizing over the incompetence of government, he decides that "democracy is the loser." But exactly what is "democracy" losing? If the system is so incompetent it cannot provide basic services, then what is left to salvage?
There is another explanation for the current mess, however. And that has to do with deliberate incompetence. As Summers himself admits, Obamacare marks a vast step toward a US national healthcare program. And there are those in the alternative media especially who speculate that the goal of Obamacare is to make people so miserable that they will allow fedgov to bridge the gap and usher in a fully nationalized system.
Then there is the immigration angle. Is Obamacare meant to ease the way for Mexican workers to obtain US health care benefits?
Why would the government want to make Mexican immigration easier and more secure? Well … we've pointed out many times – along with others – that there is considerable speculation about a contemplated merger between Mexico, the US and Canada along the lines of the European Union. Right on time, Wikipedia tells us, Mexico recently achieved universal health care itself:
On December 1, 2006, the Mexican government created the Health Insurance for a New Generation also known as "Life Insurance for Babies". This was followed by a February 16, 2009, announcement by President Felipe Calderon where he stated that at the current rate of progress Mexico would receive Universal Health Coverage by 2011, and a May 28, 2009, announcement in which his administration made public Universal Care Coverage for Pregnant Women. In August 2012 Mexico installed an universal healthcare system.
Exactly the same system has been followed in the US as in Mexico. Gradually, the state has taken over more and more medical functions and payments. Medicaid, Medicare and now Obamacare … and sooner or later, surely, full-fledged universal care.
Call it the unseen hand, call it directed history. Or simply agree that a group, a cabal of top internationalists, are patiently guiding the world toward increased centralization one country and one continent at a time. Seen from this perspective, Obamacare is simply one more piece of the globalist puzzle. The next piece to be slotted in to the US sociopolitical system is to be "immigration reform."
Of course, perhaps such conclusions are overly "conspiratorial." But given Summers's open admission in this editorial that Obamacare is achieving a progressive's dream, we don't think its unreasonable to discern a semblance of a pattern.