By now, I am sure that everyone has become familiar with the story of the Emperor who was so misled by his lackeys about the quality of his new (non-existent) clothes, he failed to see that he was naked. The phrase, “The Emperor Has No Clothes” has become the go-to phrase for a wanna be potentate who fails to grasp even the most basic of his failures.
The story came to mind the other day when I heard that the oval office decorator-in-chief proposed sending health subsidies directly to individuals, instead of subsidizing the provision of insurance through “Obamacare”. The concept likely sounded great to him, even leading him to tweet his recommendation that the “hundreds of billions of dollars currently being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies…BE SENT DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE SO THAT THEY CAN PURCHASE THEIR OWN MUCH BETTER HEALTHCARE”.
Purchase from whom? Oh, yeah, those same money sucking insurance companies, but without any negotiating power. Or directly to doctors who don’t take uninsured patients??? Apparently, the temporary white house resident knows how to throw an opulent Great Gatsby themed party whilst starving hundreds of millions of poor people by cutting off SNAP, but, has never, actually, himself, had to negotiate with insurance companies, as an individual, to get health insurance.
It never occurs to him, because he doesn’t understand how healthcare is paid for these days, that doing what his randomly caroming mind suggests would remove all the restrictions put on those money suckers by a formerly functioning Congress and White House. By aggregating power to negotiate rates for the hundreds of millions of people who get their coverage through the ACA, it was possible, for instance, to bar those companies from turning away applicants who had a “pre-existing condition”, thus cherry-picking the healthy and leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves or pay through the nose.
Under his ignorant proposition, all Davids would, individually, have to face Goliath.
Is it remotely possible that he fails to grasp even the basics of what his proposal might lead to? Most likely, yes, as he never seems to connect his ideas and fiats with the likely destruction they would cause. A friend, in commenting on the now famous picture of him staring blankly into space while everyone else rushes to the aid of a man who just fainted in the oval office, remarked that his empathy and his expression resembled one your cat might assume while you’re choking to death. (No offense to cats, including the two sweeties in my house, that’s not their job). He’s the tin man, but he doesn’t even long for a heart, as well as the scarecrow, with no brain…well, you get it.
Endgame: believe that you are insulting the ACA and the insurance companies without understanding that your proposal would, instead, provide a great benefit for those corporate aggregates. And, by the way, how do you like my clothes?
Just Add Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha
For some unexplained reason, the LA Times decided, in a sudden Fair and Balanced frame of mind, to add the Trump trumpet columnist, Josh Hammer, to their mix of oped pieces. Not only is his voice an embarrassment to the Times, being nothing but regurgitations of Trump’s talking points, it also underscores how pitiful it is to see a writer fail to recognize the irony in his conclusions and blithely present them as though they make sense.
I realized I had to do something in order to be able to stomach reading his pieces in the future. So…
Last week, after reading his latest weak tea on Republicans suddenly realizing that dignity, resilience and affordability were things that resonated with the electorate, I concluded that the column could be most usefully read if one simply added “hahahahaha” after each new revelation. Clearly, he didn’t get the joke he had, inadvertently, presented, but that didn’t mean I had to treat it seriously.
Just one example. At the end of last Sunday’s column, Hammer writes, “Accordingly, the Trump administration and Republicans across the country must deliver real economic results on the real economic issues facing the American people. If they don’t present a compelling economic vision and execute that vision capably and efficiently, there likely will be even greater electoral damage next fall. That could all but doom the remainder of the Trump presidency. And what a disappointment that would be.” (Italics mine)
Hahahahahahaha.
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