Sneakiness was the death spiral for Obamacare, the legacy of distrust that was the predictable result of a law that from the start was not honestly portrayed by the President and that relied on the President's ability to lie and spin until such lies and spin were seemingly impossible in the face of reality, like the keep your plan, everyone will save $2,500 in premiums, calling Obamacare group insurance, single risk pool, or even describing the number of people who benefited from the scheme. Heck, Obama became so confident in lying because the law had several years before its most onerous consumer exploitations kicked in that he even tried to lie post the big reveal of benefits season 2014, claiming at times that we had universal healthcare in the US and being corrected by none other than Castro on his visit to Cuba during his ridiculous bend-over foreign policy trip.
Obama was the death of the Democrats, spending every bit of their built-up political capital that created life-long Democrats and a platform that Obama relied on to put him in office and ultimately who were the very Americans Obama despised.
Obama sneakily rode the old ideas of the Democratic Party before eroding the party's credibility to the point of the massive defeat in the election of 2016 and a rejection of all things "New" Democrat. Before Hillary Clinton unwisely jumped on his bankrupt bandwagon of "we mean well even if we're screwing up" politics that had worked so well for Obama, Americans were noticing, not only the relentless lies and misery of Obamacare but the growth in income gap , the slashing of food stamps, the increased payroll tax, the moral depravity of the Obama family spending versus the unemployment, and the slashing of long-term unemployment benefits, and the "calculation" that resulted in no Social Security cost of living increases more than any other period of time in history.
And now, Sean Spicer, an equally charismatic speaker to Obama, perhaps, seems to think that he can duplicate the lying of the Obama years with the same political results, successful re-election even in the face of a miserable reality. Not so, for very obvious reasons.
First, Sean Spicer is Press Secretary, not President. Second, today's nutty Republicans, including Paul Ryan, are part of the reason that the political one-party vacuum enabled the Obama years' New Democratic policies with their policies that alienated large swaths of Americans. The Republicans have no built-up capital that they can spend on lying to the American people, the American people begin with a healthy distrust, in no small part fueled by the lies of the Obama years.
So it was a HUGE misstep which though reported, was not emphasized enough when on March 8, 2017, Sean Spicer attempted to SPIN, aka lie about public employee entitlement benefits.
The question, widely reported was, "The individuals involved in the health care situation right now, the debate, no matter how it plays out, can they really have the kind of sympathy and empathy for individuals who may not benefit nearly as much when they're negotiating this -- all these plans, Sean?"
It's the question this site applauds, because it addresses the root problem of Obamacare and other laws being made for us by lawmakers whose premium entitlement monies are up to 72 percent paid by us for them.
Harry Reid, the Democrat created the opportunity for this legitimate question when Reid, the Democrat defended the loophole that focused on public employee "employee" status which meant that the government was their employer and therefore could create far superior plans for them that bypassed the very restrictions being placed on the rest of us by Obamacare instead of focusing on their PUBLIC status, that we PAY for those benefits by and large. It was stunning but not unexpected that the Democrats argued in defense of their sneaky de facto exempt status as "legal."
And so Sean Spicer bungled, fumbled and attempted to mislead as he defended public employee entitlements and explained that "…federal employees make a contribution to their health care plan as well." Yeah, not an accurate answer when we're paying for your premiums up to 72 percent (in some cases I've read up to 75 percent) and not an accurate answer when you're talking about begrudging citizen "entitlement spending" when public employees protect their own.
The question was THE question, the primary protection that we as citizens require, that our fellow citizens who are financed by us, the public employees be held to the same rules that we are. Be clear, the Republican plan STILL omits that basic rule of fairness, they're still protecting their entitlements which makes listening to the likes of Paul Ryan, frankly nauseating.
But the question also reflected our distrust stemming from the deception of Obamacare that so sneakily protected public employees at the expense of the citizens who put them in office and pay for their entitlements, which is CHARACTER. And it is the character question that pervades our healthcare industrial complex.
Sean Spicer might have but didn't use the traditional answer to the question about his superior benefits, that a brain surgeon can do brain surgery even if he hasn't experienced it, and therefore similarly lawmakers can create health law even if they're not bound by it. It's not a great answer, but it's truthful, competence is not dependent on experience. However, by lying, Spicer proved that bad character continues to permeate the sphere of public employment--Can these smug publicly paid for stooges work on our behalf? And to that question, Spicer's answer indicated, "No."
Sure a brain surgeon CAN (supposedly) treat a patient successfully even if he hasn't had brain surgery himself. But the question about empathy is one about character and today's physicians, like Sean Spicer, often reveal a stunning lack of character.
Today's medical field is spotted with doctors who embrace a role as making a public service announcement, advising people on what to do and not to do instead of using their well-compensated time to do what they're hired to do…Fix a problem. The reason these physicians behave this way is the same reason Sean Spicer behaved that way--Protect themselves, maximize their benefits by singling out others as less worthy because of their social status, habits, background.
Rather than take on that challenge, some physicians slip into the insurance company style of blaming the patient, demanding patient behavioral changes or simply refusing certain patients, because it complicates their job and allows them to use the escape valve of "Well, it's the patient's fault," ignoring the human condition and their own flaws, to make pronouncements or lecture, which is sadly more a measure of their limitations than of their patients'.
Similarly Sean Spicer fell into that same abyss, "I deserve more than you."
There are no perfect humans and the low-hanging fruit of treating the least sick and the most obedient patients may make physicians wealthy, and is certainly encouraged in today's partnership of government and insurance companies, but in no way makes them talented or empathetic.
The Republicans have missed the MOST significant consumer protection available which is that lawmakers' laws first apply to them. There's no cleaning this up. Sean Spicer stood up there defending his entitlement while begrudging American citizens. This tells us what we knew, Obamacare was NOT just a Democratic mistake for citizens, it was a GOVERNMENT mistake for citizens, because when it came to CHARACTER, the sneakiness of "selling" the law was that it was a law made by government to protect government at the expense of the American people.
