Lloyd: ‘Now I’m Mad!’

OK, now I’m mad.

I’ve tried to make it a point in this column not to take political sides but I can no longer sit quietly by my computer and not place myself in one corner or the other. And my corner is not the president’s. Now that the financial facts about Obamacare are coming out, we see a totally different picture than what was painted by President Obama and the Democrats who voted for that legislation. Seems like the cost will be just a tad more than first reported.

According to the president, the 10-year cost was $938 billion. Now the Congressional Budget Office reports that the cost between 2013 and 2022 will be $1.76 trillion, and annual costs after that are more than $125 trillion every year until the end of time. (Who would have thought that if the world does end Dec. 21, 2012, like the Mayans predicted, it would prove to be a financial savings?)

Oh, by the way, we are more than $16 trillion in the hole already. But then, what’s a few zeroes here and there.

But there’s more. Obamacare and birth control, for example.

Catholics, and other religions, of which I am a member of one, are forced to provide medical insurance guaranteeing birth control, tubal litigation and morning-after controls despite their opposition to birth control. Obama is nothing if not slick, however. When public opinion went against him in the religious arena, particularly with the Catholic Church, he changed the directive so that birth control would be provided independently and for free. Of course, this is not going to be done by churches but by their insurance companies.

So, what does this mean? It means that churches must hire an insurance company to do exactly what they oppose. You have got to hand it to the politician who never let the truth get in the way of bad policy.

But there’s more. The real issue is who says this is the way it has to be. Why does the tab for this free service have to be paid by taxpayers, churches and everyone who opposes it? Did I miss the vote? I suppose that vote came when Mr. Obama decided this would be the policy. Now for the real question: Who is he to decide this? Because the president says something is right doesn’t make it right. This is bureaucracy gone way wrong. This is how Big Brother gets started.

But there’s more. This is an attack on individual rights. What you have is the government telling people who do not have insurance that they MUST buy it. And let me tell you, once the government starts taking rights away, what’s to stop it from doing so at all sorts of levels. After all, the government will say, “We’re just doing what is good for you.” Read George Orwell’s “1984” or “Animal Farm,” Ayn Rand’s “Anthem” or Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.” In each of these dystopian novel the government explains it is doing things for our own good … at our expense, of course. The expense: our freedoms.

But there’s more. Just recently it was reported that the president’s oldest daughter went on spring break to Mexico and, due to the ever-present Secret Service, she was never in danger during a shooting incident. That’s good to hear but I began to think about my own daughter who is in her first year of college. She wanted to go on spring break to Panama City, not as glamorous a spot as Mexico. Of course, I told her we couldn’t afford it because, well, we couldn’t afford it. Then I thought, I’m paying for the Secret Service by paying my taxes. So essentially, I helped pay for Obama’s daughter to go on vacation while mine couldn’t.

Hmmmmm.

Seems to me that Obama wants all of us to be equal, except him.