Reichstag 2014

During the healthcare debate President Obama claimed that passing his 'reform' would lead to the typical family's health insurance premiums falling by $2,500 by 2013.  Instead they have risen by $3,000 for a net negative swing of $5,500.  Pretty bad, huh?

Well not nearly as bad as what is going to happen next.  Read this piece by Matthews and Litow.  In it they cite health actuaries from Oliver Wyman who point out that overall ACA will immediately drive individual and small group rates up another 40%.  In fact, all responsible (e.g. those not working for the Federal superstate or its enablers) health actuaries agree that the community rating and guaranteed issue provisions, when coupled by expanded coverage mandates virtually guarantee a massive increase in rates that effectively wreck the health insurance market.

Matthews and Litow (rightly in my view) predict that this massive increase in rates will lead to an enormous backlash against the insurance companies who will be pilloried by our leaders and an ideologically compliant press.  They will call for a 'single payer' system and once they get that they will call for detailed regulation of health care delivery to help reign in the out of control costs caused by the single payer system.

It's pretty obvious that this was the President and the Democrat leadership's plan all along - indeed, the President frequently admitted that he preferred a 'single payer' model but he couldn't persuade the country to go along.

So he followed what I call the "Reichstag Fire" strategy.  If you recall, the Nazi's had won control of the Reichstag or German Parliament.  But they didn't have complete control and their opponents remained very powerful, so they engineered the burning of the Reichstag building and used the ensuing public and press furor to round up their opponents and destroy their political power.  This despite the Nazis never, ever having the support of the majority of the German people.

While I am not claiming that Obama is a new 'Hitler' or anything remotely close to that, I do believe that the Obamacare program follows the Reichstag Fire model.  The Democrats, with a supermajority passed a law that they knew based upon the experience of states they ran (NY, NJ, MA, etc.) would drive massive cost increases and wreck the health insurance market.

In essence they have organized a conspiracy to burn down the insurance markets and blame it on the insurance companies.  They plan to use the uproar caused by this to ram through measures that take complete control of the health care financing and ultimately delivery systems.  This despite the Democrats never, ever having the support of the majority of the American people to do so.

"Everything in the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state."