The Real Story Behind Universal Healthcare – Hint: The Money Goes to the Banks

Barack Obama ran for the U.S. Presidency on a passionate but simple premise that he alone embodied the so-called change America desperately needed. Probably the coolest political player to come along since John Kennedy, Barack Obama, savvy to the bone, quietly side-stepped the Clintononian political wrecking-ball as he tip-toed his way into the Oval Office with nary a public scratch, let alone any substantive toe-to-toe confrontation, the kind that exposes the true candidate behind the public charade. Face it, we elected a guy based on a catch-word and a nice smile. His underlying agenda will only become known as events unfold. He gives great speech though. Change. Smile for the camera. What the hell were we thinking?

Watching my country fall from its last vestiges of global respect as this economic train wreck careens into the station is humbling to even the most casual observer. Maybe humbling isn’t the right word, perhaps a more appropriate word is, embarrassing. It’s like watching Reagan claim he didn’t recall Oliver North ran coke for the Contras. Or maybe Bill Clinton swearing up and down on national television, “I never had sexual relations with that girl.” And don’t forget Weapons of Mass Destruction – I think old George W. is out in that Iraqi desert right now, making good use of his retirement years scouring that oil-soaked wasteland with a metal detector he bought on Craig’s List, “I know they’re here dammit, I just know they’re here.” There are some things in our American cultural past that are downright embarrassing. Think Nixon, Watergate, “I am not a crook.”

The only thing of which I am convinced is that from the ashes of this calamity will rise our next national embarrassment. Will the bearer of this cross be Barack Obama? Maybe. Although I think Ben Bernanke is the most likely character. Geithner is the obvious third choice with Paulson and Bush bringing up the rear. Come to think of it, Glass-Steagall was repealed under Clinton, Rubin, Summers, and Greenspan but they’re out of the spotlight now and besides, the ill-informed apathetic American citizenry hasn’t passed a history exam since 1913, so those three boomers and their four-eyed grandpa will get a hall-pass for sure. Most Americans don’t even understand the rudimentary building blocks of this crisis other than the manufactured snippets they remember from some glossed-over CNN report on how great a job the new President is doing and how he brought our nation back from the brink of martial law. Ironically, the only thing that prevented us from collapsing into anarchy was the quick printing Fed. Kudos Ben – at least for now.

The problem with Americans today is that we think like Americans of old. We desperately cling to the idea that people in government fight for our best interests. While this may have been true back in the days of Jefferson or Jackson, the modern truth is that politicians exist for one reason and one reason only, to get re-elected so they can keep being politicians. We are oblivious to the fact that in a global and domestic sense America is simply a marketplace. We are voters, consumers, and taxpayers. Pawns to be manipulated at the whim of people in authority. Where are the leaders who watch out for us?

The oligarchs in this country figured out decades ago that goods assembled overseas with cheap labor could net higher profit margins back home. Bankers netted their windfall financing the front end of this tectonic transition then earned a double-whammy on the back end in the form of consumer financing for goods whose price tags were out of reach for the average American household. Enter the thirty-two percent APR credit card, the zero-down home loan, the HELOC, the Liar Loan, the Get-A-Free-Mercedes-If-You-Buy-This-House-Now-Rebate. I mean, come on, banks shoved every imaginable leveraged financing option down our collective American throat then jacked us on the interest rate if our FICO scores weren’t high enough. And finally, behind it all stood the Fed and U.S. Government repealing laws and printing money to get the party rocking.

Let’s admit a simple truth here. If it weren’t for quantitative easing, ZIRP, and the bailout printing press this nation would already be holding fire-sales on everything from commercial buildings to entire states. “Buy Arizona for a thousand bucks!” We’re so in debt we owe debt on top of debt. And to make matters worse our government robs from the public trusts of Social Security and Medicare and now they want to set up Universal Health Care. Why don’t they just take out an ad that reads, “Most Powerful Western Government Would Like to Leverage Your Paycheck To Then Provide Shitty Medical Services As We Pillage Yet Another Public Fund.” Obama promised transparency. In my opinion he’s delivering.

Bankers are obvious crooks. Our government however is much more sly than their money-peddling counterparts. Our government partakes in every chicane of trickery and public accounting shell-game so as to perpetuate their control over the public domain. On the surface this may not sound so bad. However, when government treads on private toes, their boundary is exceeded. If they are allowed to implement universal healthcare it will lead to a diminished quality of life for every American (except Goldman Sachs employees) and yet another compounding fiscal mess for future generations.

We just watched Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exposed as the frauds they are – public troughs at which the richest and wealthiest people in the world gorge themselves. Now we’re supposed to believe that government can take over healthcare and magically deliver better service than the private sector? Please. The repeal of Glass-Steagall notwithstanding, had Fannie and Freddie never existed we would not find ourselves in our present quagmire. The same will play out for government run healthcare.

Barack Obama has one motivation and one motivation only in implementing universal healthcare. Money. Obama set aside in his 2010 fiscal budget a “reserve fund” of $634 billion as a “down payment” on the costs of universal healthcare coverage over 10 years. This amount is precisely two-thirds of the anticipated $1.0 trillion dollar price tag over ten years. Think about this for a moment. Our government has never gotten anything right with respect to any fiscal prediction they’ve ever made – ever. What makes you think the cost is going to stop at $1.0 trillion? On that note, why does anyone need a “down payment” of two-thirds in the first place? Could it be the money has already been earmarked for something other than its ostensible purpose? Say for instance, to use it as collateral against which to repay the Fed? Sounds plausible to me.

Let’s consider that the two biggest public trust funds (Social Security and Medicare) are already bankrupt, which they are, and let’s further agree that the two biggest GSE’s (Fannie and Freddie) were mismanaged under the supposed watchful eye of our government and these too, are bankrupt. Now let’s assume that the Federal Reserve, after gobbling up a few trillion dollars in worthless assets by the time this whole fiasco is over, wants their money back. Who do you think they’re going to get it from? The banks? Good luck. They’re bankrupt too. So the Fed will turn to the U.S. taxpayer. However, the U.S. government is going to be too squeamish to raise taxes to pay the Fed back directly by way of a “Fed Repayment Tax”, so what to do? What to do? I know, create another public slush fund under the guise of a tax-based healthcare system and skim a few trillion off the top over the next decade to pay back Guido the bankster. That’s it! Problem solved.

For anyone who doubts our government’s intention in creating another public trust fund read the following report – The Wegelin Report. Then read this article – The Real Crisis Yet to Unfold.

The public fund that will surround universal healthcare will be no different than a blank checkbook for which government can first deplete, then overdraw, again, and again, and again. That’s what they do.