Good Afternoon to Everyone!!!! by John Hayward

[Patricia M. McBride]

I just couldn't help myself on this one.  I even laughed a few times reading it (which I think is what Mr. Hayward was hoping for) until I got to the last sentence which made me mad enough to chew nails in half.  Mr. Hayward is a senior writer for "Daily Events".

 

GOOD AFTERNOON TO EVERYONE! 

The White House is said to be pleased with HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius' performance before Congress yesterday, which is... curious.

She launched a thousand Internet memes by sighing "Uh, whatever" to a question about whether President Obama bears any responsibility for the disastrous ObamaCare launch. She filled the hearing chamber with laughter by trying to defend the absurd mandates that require maternity coverage for men. She dropped jaws across the country by claiming Healthcare.gov has never crashed... when it was completely down as she was speaking, a fact news networks emphasized by split-screening the error message with video of her testimony.

She claimed ignorance about the law she is charged with enforcing dozens of times, and said a few things that were either completely wrong, or deliberately false - notably her claim that she'd just love to sign up for ObamaCare, but is legally barred from doing so. Republicans, who have clearly studied the Affordable Care Act far more clearly than either their Democrat counterparts or Secretary Sebelius, pounced. When one of the buffoonish Democrats trying to obstruct the hearings suggested Sebelius should just go ahead and fill out an application to get critics off her back, Sebelius was caught on a hot mike muttering "Don't do this to me" under her breath.

Congressional Democrats contributed to the Sebelius debacle by callously dismissing the millions of Americans losing their health insurance because of ObamaCare as "red herrings." A thousand GOP campaign commercials will bloom from yesterday's hearings.

So why would the White House be truly satisfied by such a gruesome day, assuming the President isn't just saying that as part of his customary refusal to admit error or responsibility for anything? Probably because he thinks he just needs to play for time. The brouhaha over Sebelius will buy him a week, maybe another week if she resigns.

Meanwhile, the one part of ObamaCare that's really working - the part that kills existing insurance plans - is working just fine. The "new and improved" Affordable Care Act plans are only "affordable" with huge government subsidies. The President is comfortable in his belief that it won't matter how much the rest of ObamaCare fails, or how much people hate it - even how much they hate him - as long as wealth redistribution through taxpayer subsidies is a success.

John Hayward
Senior Writer
On Twitter: Doc_0