Many conservatives believe that the principal difference between
traditional liberals and contemporary progressives is that the
latter lack a sense of humor. In this, however, we do our
left-of-center friends an injustice. Progressives are, in fact, a
plentiful source of sidesplitting humor. Indeed, for irrefutable
proof that they possess a genuine gift for comedy one need look no
further than the claims they make for ObamaCare. In their
increasingly frantic attempts to justify that big-government
boondoggle, they routinely produce thigh-slappers that would have
been the envy of any old-time Vaudeville comedian. As the late
Jimmy Durante would have phrased it, they got a million of ‘em.
Among the most hilarious ObamaCare justifications is the
claim that it will reduce the federal budget deficit. No less a
jokester than Paul Krugman produced this gag in a recent
blog post, “the Medicare actuaries believe that the cost-saving
provisions in the Obama health reform will make a huge difference
to the long-run budget outlook.… All the facts we have suggest that
health reform was the biggest move toward fiscal responsibility in
a long, long time.” The comedy writers from whom Krugman got this
quip are the CMS bureaucrats who produced the latest Medicare Trustees
Report, which claims “reform” will control Medicare spending
enough to keep the program solvent while easing upward pressure on
the deficit.
Alas, not everyone appreciates this brand of humor. One
such stick-in-the-mud is Richard Foster, Medicare’s Chief Actuary.
On August 5, Foster became the first Chief Actuary in the program’s
history to openly question the plausibility of a Trustees Report.
In fact, Foster authorized an eighteen-page
memorandum whose introduction contains this astonishing
passage: “[T]he projections shown in the report do not represent
the ‘best estimate’ of actual future Medicare expenditures.”
Foster’s memorandum was a response to the report’s absurd
assumption that Medicare physician payment rates will be reduced by
30% over the next three years, an assumption that fails… well… the
laugh test.
And Foster is by no means the only fuddy-duddy who fails
to see the humor in the Medicare Trustees Report. Michael O.
Leavitt, former Secretary of HHS and a member of the Medicare Board
of Trustees from 2005 to 2009, also
questions its plausibility: “Despite the report from Medicare’s
trustees… Medicare is no better off than it was a year ago.”
There are even fussbudgets on the left who find this particular
joke in poor taste. One high-profile progressive consulting outfit
has advised Democrats and their allies to avoid it altogether. In a
recent presentation organized for Families USA and other
pro-ObamaCare advocacy groups, the Herndon Alliance admonished them
to stop claiming that the Democrat health care bill “will reduce
costs and the deficit.”
Nonetheless, progressive wits still have plenty of good
material, including the claim that ObamaCare will create hundreds
of thousands of new jobs. This howler has long graced the
repertoire of that talented comedienne, Nancy Pelosi, who advised
the public last February that the health care bill would
immediately create 400,000 new jobs.
And it is still being told by a variety of ostensibly nonpartisan
farceurs. National Journal, for example, plans a September
policy
summit in which various participants will be asked to maintain
straight faces while discussing ObamaCare “as an economic engine”
and whether it will “serve as a jobs creator and accelerate growth
in health-related industries.”
If it seems self-evident that the $1 trillion “reform”
bill will create jobs in the health care sector, you might want to
talk to Patrick Muldoon. He is the CEO of HealthAlliance Hospital
in Leominster, Massachusetts, which was forced to eliminate
50 jobs as a direct result of ObamaCare’s passage. Muldoon
explains that the staff reductions are necessary because “health
care reform is expected to result in the loss of $24 million in
Medicare reimbursements.” Thus, the effect of Obama’s “economic
engine” on that hospital has been to add many of its employees to
the ever-growing rolls of the unemployed. This is a story that will
be repeated over and over again throughout the hospital industry as
ObamaCare ramps up.
The loss of productive jobs in the health care sector will
inevitably be accompanied by similar losses in the health insurance
industry. As ObamaCare’s perverse incentives herd privately insured
patients to Medicaid and other government-subsidized coverage
programs, many small insurance companies will find it necessary to
lay off employees. Among the first victims are the employees of
HealthMarkets, which provides insurance plans to the self-employed,
individuals, and small businesses. The Texas firm just
laid off 70 employees and will need to eliminate 180 more
positions in 2011. Why? Its SEC filing cites “national healthcare
reform and related legislative developments.”
Presumably, these unemployed health and insurance workers
will be a “tough room” for progressive comedians telling their
ObamaCare jokes. And the mood of the crowd will not be elevated
much by the presence of their employed brethren. The latter will
not be amused, for example, to hear the hoary “you can keep your
health plan” yarn. That routine increasingly dies on its feet, even
when the comedian-in-chief himself
tells it. All successful humor contains a kernel of truth, and
that feature is conspicuously absent in this particular jape. This
reality has become all too apparent to workers who stand to lose
their current coverage because it
doesn’t meet the requirements of the new health care
law.
And yet the jokes keep coming, proving that progressives
do have a very real — if somewhat malicious — sense of humor.
Indeed, the very name they have given the health care law is a
study in snide humor. The “Patient Protection and Affordable Care
Act,” which manifestly fails to protect patients from anything —
except the ability to make their own health decisions — and
actually renders health care more expensive, is a cruel joke at the
expense of the electorate. But the voters get it, and opinion
surveys increasingly suggest that they are preparing to issue a
scathing review on November 2. They will, in effect, paraphrase an
old Henny Youngman gag by telling Congress, “Take ObamaCare…
please.”
