Election 2016: The Con Person Dilemma and Obamacare

Intent--It's one of the hardest things to prove and that's why even when something smells dirty and you're pretty sure it was dirty, you'll hear con person after con person pleading--stupidity, they didn't know, it's not what they intended, and by the way go try to prove that you can read my mind and know that I intended to cheat.

But before jumping on the Trump-as-con-man train, let's look at Trump's most serious attacker--Hillary Clinton whose use of the stupid excuse (no bad intent) has reached heights previously unknown, even before we examine Obamacare--our most stellar example of the duping of America (but that's not what the President meant to do--the stupid defense).

Whitewater was a real estate scam that was lucrative for the Clintons and that took six years and "more than $50 million in taxpayer money" before it was decided that "The office determined that the evidence was insufficient to prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that either (the) president or Mrs. Clinton knowingly participated in any criminal conduct," http://www.cbsnews.com/news/whitewater-case-closed/. There it is KNOWINGLY--they couldn't prove they KNEW--the stupid defense.

Hillary Clinton revived her successful strategy with her email defense when asked if she wiped her server she responded “What, like with a cloth or something?” (https://www.buzzfeed.com/kyleblaine/hillary-clinton-on-if-she-wiped-her-server-like-with-a-cloth?utm_term=.rhrbyvmXJ#.gj4abErOA). The stupid defense.

Clinton used the same approach as Secretary of State with the failure in Benghazi and the red herring of the Islam video, etc., the stupid defense.

Same thing with "charitable" millions going to her friends? (http://www.wsj.com/articles/clinton-charity-aided-clinton-friends-1463086383).

OK, so she's "stupid," but does not have BAD INTENT--that's enough to avoid fraud charges, but creates a pretty stark counterpoint to claims that she'll responsibly exercise her role in government unless she takes the President Obama role of combining preachy claims of "doing right" with blaming Republicans for EVERYTHING that doesn't go right, ignoring his role in empowering those Republicans with his policies in his first two years of office.

Perhaps we'll buy into the latest Trump-as-con-man news with the fraud allegations that people who enrolled in his university were bilked out of their tuition with promises of making money that didn't pan out--I'm watching closely--That would be a terrific precedent for any tuition paying individual who also found themselves or the person they paid tuition for unable to earn a decent living with the diploma for which they paid.

It's good that we still have the fire to be infuriated at our system that favors the rich and powerful, it shows we retain the ideals of equality and fairness that mightily contribute to our humanity and that each year promise to maybe shift the tide in the uneven treatment that is part of our society. But the rich and powerful have always manipulated the system to their benefit. But manipulation of GOVERNMENT for their benefit should be a more serious focus of our scrutiny.

None of our candidates come to us without allegations of some kind of monkey business that fall short of criminality because INTENT can't be proven. But once in office, though we might hear the haunting words of leopards and spots, shouldn't we expect better?

Instead of arguing that "Everybody does it," when it came to a State Department report that YES SECRETARY OF STATE CLINTON DID NOT FOLLOW PROTOCOL, http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/25/politics/state-department-report-faults-clinton-over-email-use/, shouldn't we expect more from a candidate touting her wisdom and EXPERIENCE as the reason to vote for her?

But when it comes to avoiding responsibility, our most fortunate citizens use the STUPID DEFENSE to achieve best outcomes. Nowhere is this more evident than in Obamacare.

If we had been treated as purchasing consumers--which we are, instead of being coaxed into the victimhood of having legislation passed that applies to us but not the other party (government workers), wouldn't we demand recourse, getting out of a deal that was based on deliberate misrepresentation that worked to our detriment? The deal was based on fraud.

We were told we would save $2,500 a year in premiums--for most Americans we're paying more for health insurance. We were told we would have health insurance like Obama's family--Also untrue, the carve-out for Federal employees by this time should be obvious, if not, try reading this (Rob Schwab's post of 1/11/2016, https://robschwab.com/how-does-obamacare-affect-federal-employees/).

We were told we could keep our plans if we liked them--not true, never intended to be true because incentives in Obamacare discourage employers from providing "better" benefits and reward all the cost-cutting garbage that has resulted in among other things the first rise in death rate in the US in 10 years.

We were told there were 47 million uninsured and that there was an urgency to "fix" this problem, yet not only have Obamacare plan annual enrollments remained stubbornly low in relation to this number (this year between 9.4 and 11.4 million enrollees), but we also found out that number was inflated (“…somewhat fewer people are now projected to gain insurance coverage because of the ACA, because CBO and JCT estimate that fewer people would be uninsured in the absence of the ACA…” (March 2015, CBO, Pub. 49973 page 22).

This was a bad deal that we bought into based on MISREPRESENTATIONS of facts--the factual number of uninsured, the factual provisions of the law from the beginning requiring MORE consumer out-of-pocket expenses, the fact of the law incentivizing the demise of better employment plans, the fact that the very ideas embraced by the government and enacted by the government were created by the insurance industry, the fact that the government IN ACTUALITY has exempted itself from the provisions of Obamacare.

And Hillary Clinton intends to further erode the "promises" made by allowing even illegal immigrants the right to buy into Obamacare and its selective payouts to people and she promises to add to those government benefits for enrollees with a new $5,000 tax credit (see her webpage), even as fewer and fewer Americans have access to sufficient health insurance to protect them against physical and financial jeopardy in the event of illness.

Obamacare is not the answer. That conclusion doesn't depend on whether or not we can imagine, create or manipulate the facts into explaining why it's better than other ideas--On its own, it's not working and that should be enough for us to demand substantial change or get rid of it regardless of the claims that its harms were INTENDED or not.