The word "paternalism" has been bandied about concerning the various pathetic defenses of Barack Obama's now infamous claim that "If you like your health care, you can keep it. Period."
Well, yes, you can actually keep the health care you had before Obamacare was crammed through Congress. The caveat that was always unstated by the president, by any and all Democrats in Congress or the administration and by the mainstream media was that you could keep it if, and only if, it complied with every aspect of the new (Orwellian) Affordable Care Act.
Certain people who might generally be viewed as conservative have noted with mild horror that this is governmental paternalism.
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In terms of the ironically named Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare, it appears that our government has settled somewhere between Stage IV and Stage V paternalism. If you resist their persuasive "suggestions" that you really should just ignore the health insurance that you have, and spend in many cases twice as much for something that you don't want, you will be punished. A penalty is punishment, not a tax, regardless of what the Chief Justice thinks. The longer you resist their suggestions, the more onerous the penalty becomes. You might ultimately be punished by being denied health care under any circumstances. No one knows for sure, since regulations on that subject have yet to be written.
In any event, when you get to Stage IV or Stage V paternalism, it should no longer be called paternalistic at all. It should more properly be called totalitarian, or perhaps dictatorial, tyrannical, or even authoritarian. But a word such as paternalistic is much too gentle a word to describe the behavior of the Washington elite…
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
