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Freedom Watch
Exclusive: Grand Inquisitor Endorses Obama Health Plan
Michigan congressman discovers President Obama is channeling Dostoevsky. From our new July-August issue.
WASHINGTON, D.C.— Breaking his half-a-millennium media silence from eternal damnation, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor joined a chorus of presumed conservatives to endorse President Obama’s health care reforms.
Resplendently stooped beneath a banner reading “Enslave, But Feed Us!” the Grand Inquisitor commenced with a veiled shot at former President Bush: “The present fate of men may be summed up in three words: unrest, confusion, and misery! The bulk of humanity could never be happy under the old system, it is not for them.”
Inspired that Obama has made government capable of “saving mankind a millennium of useless suffering on earth,” the Grand Inquisitor averred that “only now has it become possible to us, for the first time, to give a serious thought to human happiness.”
Not renowned as an expert in wellness, the Grand Inquisitor is best remembered for last appearing as the heavy in The Brothers Karamazov and for fighting food insecurity with his “Bread for Souls” program. He was compelled to endorse the Obama plan because it matches his core principles for social justice: “There are three Powers upon earth, capable of conquering the conscience of these weak rebels—men—for their own good; and these forces are Miracle, Mystery, and Authority.”
Legendary as a master of abstruse statutory interpretation, the Grand Inquisitor praised the Obama plan’s specifics. “Receiving their bread from us, they will clearly see that we take the bread from them, the bread made by their own hands, but to give it back to them in equal shares. They will be only too glad to have it so.”
Regarding the dicey issue of patients’ choices, the Grand Inquisitor was dismissive. “Oh, never, never, will they learn to feed themselves without our help! No science will ever give them bread so long as they remain free, so long as they refuse to lay that freedom at our feet.” The goal, he said, was to find a universal health care plan “all others will believe in, and consent to bow down to in a mass.”
He said he empathized with the burden Obama selflessly carries upon his strapping shoulders. He urged critics to find common ground, but the grizzled visage lashed out at a Fox News reporter: “You have no right to add one syllable to that which was already uttered before!” The wizened wag then subtly positioned Republicans as the party of “no” in the health care debate by deriding its plans for patient-centered health care: “They have saved but themselves while we have saved all.”
Impishly, he turned to the assembled press corps and posed a Jesuitical query: “Would you go into the world empty-handed? Would you venture thither with [the GOP’s] vague and undefined promise of freedom?” Those assembled erupted in laughter and agreement.
Acknowledging that Republicans were being publicly smeared on the health care issue, the polished proselytizer outlined the left’s political strategy with refreshing honesty: “We will deceive them once more and lie to them once again…for we must lie eternally, and never cease to lie!”
Pressed on the morality of such an approach, the Grand Inquisitor launched a volley of verbal pyrotechnics: “Who can rule mankind better than those who have possessed themselves of man’s conscience, and hold in their hand man’s daily bread? Did we not show our great love for humanity, by realizing in such a humble spirit its helplessness, by so mercifully lightening its great burden?”
Ultimately, the anile prelate proclaimed the left would bring “reform” to Americans’ health care: “Know then, that now, and only now, people feel fully sure and satisfied of their freedom; and that only since they have themselves, and of their own free will, delivered that freedom unto our hands by placing it submissively at our feet.”
Ever the cool, detached problem solver, the Grand Inquisitor ended on a note of hope: “Our work is but in its incipient stage, but it is nevertheless started. We may have long to wait until its culmination, and mankind have to suffer much, but we shall reach the goal some day, and become sole Caesars.”
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Tenn Slim| 7.1.09 @ 8:43AM
Did not get much here, but Sen Bernie Sanders speech may bring a light to the trodden, however CHECK CLOSE his conclusions.
end
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Share Print CommentsAs a member of the Senate health committee, one of two Senate panels dealing with health care reform, it has become apparent to me that real health care reform must address the billions of dollars in fraud and abuse that comes from the major corporations in the health care industry.
What we have seen over the last several decades is the systemic fraud perpetrated by private insurance companies, private drug companies, and private for-profit hospitals ripping off the American people and the taxpayers of this country to the tune of many billions of dollars.
The rampant fraud is another reason why our current health care system, dominated by private insurance companies, is the most costly, wasteful, complicated and bureaucratic in the world. Its function is not to provide quality health care, but to make huge profits for those who own the companies. With 1,300 private insurance companies and thousands of different health benefit programs designed to maximize profits, our country spends an incredible 30 percent of each health care dollar on administration and billing, exorbitant CEO compensation packages, advertising, lobbying and campaign contributions. Public programs like Medicare, Medicaid and the VA are administered for much less.
In recent years, not only have we seen massive fraud by the health care industry, but we also have been paying for a huge increase in health care bureaucrats and bill collectors. Over the last three decades, the number of administrative personnel has grown by 25 times the number of physicians. Doctors and nurses in Vermont have described to me in painful detail the amount of time and money they are forced to waste negotiating with insurance companies about how they can treat their patients.
Not surprisingly, while health care costs are soaring, so are the profits of private health insurance companies. From 2003 to 2007, the combined profits of the nation's major health insurance companies increased by 170 percent. And the top executives in the industry are receiving lavish compensation packages -- averaging $14.2 million for the top seven companies.
On top of all of this, a review of court records and other public documents shows that billions more dollars are being lost to fraud and outright corruption. Importantly, this is not the case of "one bad player" acting illegally. This is a situation where fraud appears to me part of the normal business model. It is the rule and not the exception.
There is example after example indicating that virtually all of the major pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies and private hospital chains have been involved in massive health care fraud over the past decade.
Health and Human Services Department investigators earlier this year found that 80 percent of insurance companies participating in the Medicare prescription drug benefit overcharged subscribers and taxpayers by an estimated $4.4 billion.
There also have been major criminal and civil cases against many of the leading corporate health care providers in the country, including:
In 2004, Warner-Lambert, a division of Pfizer Inc., pled guilty to two felonies and agreed to pay $430 million for fraudulently promoting the drug Neurontin.
In 2003, GlaxoSmithKline paid $88 million in civil fines for overcharging Medicaid for its anti-depressant Paxil.
In 1999, Hoffmann-LaRoche paid a $500 million criminal fine for leading a worldwide conspiracy to fix prices for certain vitamins.
In 2009, UnitedHealth, a leading insurance company, paid $350 million to settle lawsuits brought by the American Medical Association and other physician groups for shortchanging consumers and physicians for medical services outside its preferred network.
In 2009, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services barred WellPoint, a major insurance company, from participating in Medicare Part D because WellPoint has "demonstrated a longstanding and persistent failure to comply with CMS's requirements for proper administration..."
In 2000, the Hospital Corporation of America agreed to pay $745 million to settle civil charges that it systematically defrauded Medicare, Medicaid and other federally-funded health programs.
It is absolutely imperative that real health care reform prevent major insurance companies, drug companies and hospital chains from perpetrating fraud and abuse on government health care programs and individuals, which are driving up health care costs in this country by billions of dollars every single year.
To me, the evidence is overwhelming that we must end the for-profit private insurance company domination of health care in our country and move toward a publicly-funded, single-payer Medicare for All system.
Bernie has Vermont in his pocket, well and good. BUT the rest of us will indeed come under the Grand Inquistor spell, unless we eternally are vigilant
Semper Fi
end
Liberal Reader| 7.1.09 @ 9:13AM
This article betrays little knowledge of health care and little knowledge of the great (but deeply flawed) Russian novelist.
Look, folks:
If you are in the middle class, you are one illness away from bankruptcy, despite your level of health coverage.
The people financing the attacks against health care reform are wealthy and need fear no disaster or misfortune when it comes to their health. But you do.
Millions of Americans who believe themselves to be insured are actually under-insured, and they only find this out when they are least likely to be thinking clearly.
Ignore the disc jockeys and frauds and blow hards.
A publicly financed health care system would force the private sector to reign in costs and the massive profits enjoyed by CEOS at YOUR expense.
Leave all this obscurantist nonsense about poor Ivan's poem aside while you think about a sensible way to ensure that you and your family are covered should someone -- God forbid -- fall ill.
THEN, go buy The Brothers Karamazov and enjoy one of the greatest novels ever written.
J.C.Eaton| 7.1.09 @ 9:37AM
Literary critic,vocabulary pretender, mouther of liberal bromides, maxims, and pomposity. Sure liberal, you've got the ticket and we should harken to you because you clowns have been right sooooo many times before. Read the book again.
Old Texican| 7.1.09 @ 11:10AM
Once again, Our resident Liberal denounces private enterprise, and throws a hail Mary pass to the government.
One thing he forgets is the SECOND word in the bankruptcy phrase..."protection".
There are only two alternatives for "bankruptcy protection"
1. Debtor's prison or indenture/garnishment.
2. Government stepping in with a "bailout".
Yes, the healthcare complex need some thourough-going reform...on an ongoing basis.
Second, tort reform to rein in the looter lawyers.
Nationalized health-care will lead to open revolution to overturn it, once in place.
Private sector healthcare can be tweaked and rationalized as we go along....and we can always back out of a mistake.
MikeF| 7.1.09 @ 11:18AM
Tenn Slim
I have been in the healthcare field for 31 years. all of them in non-profit community hospitals. I have never seen my organization, or any of those organizations around the ones I have worked for, bankrupt an individual or family over payment for services that they received either at the hospital, in one of our clinics or in one of our physician offices. I have also never known of any of the entities I just mentioned ever being accused of fraud, collusion or any other crime.
The solution to the examples you raise is the criminal courts for criminals, not a re-making of the system and patterning it after government programs that are already a disaster in their design, implementation and financing.
If you would do your homework a little more you could trace the decline and destruction of the system to when governments, federal and state, became involved which would take you back to 1966, which is the last time the liberals in this country had the White House and majorities in Congress that they have today.
The true beginning of the answer to true health care reform is for the government to get out and let those in the profession and the true market design the system.
Also, before you give us socialism and government-run healthcare, I suggest you go to Canada or Great Britain for 10-15 years and have the experience for yourself first. I am sure it will change your mind, unless of course you are one of the fortunate few who never have to access the system.
Old Texican| 7.1.09 @ 11:39AM
MIKE F
Thank you for that comment. Here in Texas, un-paid medical bills don't even affect a person's credit rating to any large degree.
Please read my commjent above. thanks
Ray| 7.1.09 @ 12:59PM
Liberal Reader, we are all just one "illness" away from death. What insurance against death will the Government offer us, and for "free" like the Universal Health Care proposals being offered today?
Pingback| 7.1.09 @ 3:38PM
ShortsandPants - Representative Thaddeus G. McCotter Uses Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Grand I links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Liberal Reader| 7.1.09 @ 4:14PM
Ray --
I didn't say we need insurance against death. Your snarky rejoinder doesn't hit the mark.
If you want to live without health insurance, be my guest. I think you'll think yourself a fool if you ever need a doctor.
Liberal Reader| 7.1.09 @ 4:17PM
I think part of what this article misses is that the Grand Inquisitor is a story made up by a nihilistic athiest (Ivan K.) who is attempting to convince the believer (Alyosha) to abandon his faith. The Grand Inquisitor can't simply be ripped out of the novel, even for what are obviously ironic rhetorical purposes, without losing its meaning.
Old Texican| 7.1.09 @ 4:28PM
Liberal reader
NoBODY GIVES A SHI* ABOUT YOUR LITERATURE KNOWLEDGE...STUPID DIVERSION ON YOUR PART!
(STRAW MEN...ALWAYS STRAW MEN)
dUMBSH#T...Life insurance is written by many of the same companies who write health insurance...arseho##!
If you think I would trust for my life insurance to a bunch of bought politicians...you are too stupid to live...
POOF! you are dead...and nobody cares.
Liberal Reader| 7.1.09 @ 4:59PM
Old Texican,
In your response to my post above, you argue the following:
1. No one cares what I think about literature;
2. Life insurance is issued by insurance companies;
3. And I'm dead and nobody cares.
Fascinating as this dazzling display of learning, wit, and reason is, I'm not sure I follow your main points. Could you explain a little more clearly what you mean? I'd really like to have your thoughts on the current health care situation, and any thoughts you have on Russian literature, naturally.
Old Texican| 7.1.09 @ 5:22PM
Well Lib...
It does truly break my heart that for you...number 1...2...and 3 are just the truth. I'm sorry.
Heh!
Russian literature is wonderful! On page three hundred forty seven... or thereabouts...a main character loses a button.
Smartass:
Baylor U is one of the top ten Us in the country. I got to go there because I could throw a knuckle-ball.
How many #1 bestsellers have you had published?
Me?...2.
You...ZERO.
I have already written my prescription for reforming healthcare/insurance on this site...several times. You obviously cannot read, or do not pay attention to your betters...like me.
Wit?
Hmmmmm......"Be guiche deloach', Beowolf"
john| 7.1.09 @ 5:31PM
REF: OLD TEXICAN
Yadda, yadda yadda.
You sound like the squawky speakers at the State Fair of Texas on a hot, busy day. I am reminded of that big, empty creation at the front gates, you know, "Big Tex?"
Old Texican| 7.1.09 @ 7:42PM
Spectator Staff, how many names do you allow the same sub-normal trolls?
Do they get to come on here under any number of aliaiiii? sic
This particular "John" has a very familiar syntax.
Wait...is it turdinapunchbowl? heh!
The Reticulator | 7.1.09 @ 9:22PM
That is just excellent. I don't have time to read any Dostoyevsky tonight, and certainly not enough to improve my slight knowledge of Russian to read him in the original. So I went to Wikipedia instead, and so far it looks like a good application of what Fyodor Mikhaylovich wrote.
The thing is, even if it worked as advertised, nationalized health care would be a destroyer of liberty and humanity as it has already been in Canada and Europe.
Pingback| 7.2.09 @ 4:58AM
The American Spectator : Exclusive: Grand Inquisitor Endorses … « Toe Fungus links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 7.2.09 @ 5:08PM
Never Yet Melted » Grand Inquisitor Endorses Obama Health Reform links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
kingsmill| 7.2.09 @ 8:19PM
Dostoevsky loathed every aspect of secular liberalism.
Norris Hall| 7.5.09 @ 12:09AM
Best to ask people around the world..and in the US what THEY think of THEIR healthcare system.
Here's a Harris poll.
Read it and weep..Americans
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=2&url=http://harrisinteractive.com/news/newsletters/healthnews/HI_HealthCareNews2008Vol8_Iss6.pdf&ei=B45MSqa7LIyysgP6vsHpBQ&usg=AFQjCNGM1zYK2DPagCQo8YL3pcxQ1BqVxA&sig2=LI7fTuwMzp51R-jbby39SQ
Pingback| 7.8.09 @ 6:03PM
McCotter: Grand Inquisitor Endorses Obama Health Plan links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
gordon| 8.5.09 @ 9:22PM
you guys are windbags... i hate to say it
Ted Kelly| 8.16.09 @ 8:15PM
HEHE...oh wait...phew...had to compose myself
Oh goodie. I am so glad I found a new site for laughs. Comedy Central was getting stale anywho. Keep up the slapstick 'yall!
Diana | 2.17.11 @ 4:07PM
Oooohhh health plan when will we figure you out.... :/ .... thanks for the info!