...Plus ten for whoever gets the movie reference.
The Obama Administration thus far has been marked by many "features," (it's not a "bug," we did it intentionally... It's a feature!) such as broken promises, international diplomatic gaffes, spending that dwarfs any seen before by any government in human history (bonus: does not include ObamaCare,) and willingness to ignore the law in favor of their agenda.
But my FAVORITE part of the Obama Administration, by far, is the turnarounds.
You know, the kind where he promises to bring home troops from Iraq and Afghanistan (bonus:video,) and then, "realizing" that the War on Terror actually does need to be fought by SOMEONE, sending even more troops overseas than were there in the first place.
The kind where he promises to close the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba detention facility for unlawful combatants and other dangerous scuzzballs, and then, "realizing" that those guys are in fact too dangerous to simply let go in the US, decides not to bother.
The kind where he promises to have said detainees tried in American civilian criminal courts, rather than in the established military courts, and then, "realizing" that that doesn't actually work - thus the tribunals in the first place - decides to leave them to the tribunals after all.
The kind where he promises greater government transparency than ever before, and then, "realizing" that that just plain doesn't work for him, decides not to bother.
The kind where he promises to pursue green energy technologies, and then, "realizing" that most of those technologies aren't actually well-developed enough to be useful, decides to have the power companies build bunches of 50's style Chernobyl reactors, instead.
The kind where he promises to ensure Americans don't have to kill themselves working until they're in their 80's, only to find the cupboard (and their checking accounts) bare anyway (sorry for the annoying, slow .pdf,) and then, "realizing" that they have to pay for all this crap somehow, decides to go after our 401(k) plans.
The kind where he promises to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and then, "realizing" that foreign oil is better than domestic, anyway, and who are you to complain, decides to tax ONLY domestic oil, so it'll be cheaper from the Arabs and Hugo Chavez again.
The kind where...
...He vetoes parts of his own healthcare bill (this being the Affordable Care Act,) when he realizes that the CBO isn't kidding when they say it's going to cost a fortune?
I wish I was fucking kidding.™
Let me tell you a story.
My lovely fellow chef and frequent comic relief, Rosworms, fainted last night. She'd been sick, taking cold medicine, and sleeping, but not drinking enough water.
So she fell over.
I took her to the - desperately misnamed - "Emergency" room at the hospital last night; we got there at 7 pm, 1900 to those of you who can read a proper clock.
We signed in, and when they asked what brought us there, we told them that she had fainted.
We waited an hour or so, and finally got seen by the frantically overworked triage nurse, a very nice woman named Nena G., who attempted to check Ros' blood pressure with an automatic sphygomanometer.
It didn't work, which we quickly discovered was because Ros' blood pressure was too low for the machine to read.
Nena tagged her folder, and we returned to the waiting area.
Where we waited for another two hours.
(As a side note, during which time, we encountered a group of three 20something girls who were LITERALLY making a list, in the waiting room, loudly, of all the nurses they wanted to "report." One of which was Nena - apparently because she asked one of them to be quiet so that she could talk to the one who was actually sick. Finally, the other people in the waiting room asked them to be quiet, which resulted in security having to come and tell them to be quiet and move. If you get security called on you by everyone else in the waiting room, you're doing it incorrectly, and should go back to whatever rock you crawled out from under. Bonus points? "I'm an adult, I don't have to listen to you.")
Finally, after a total wait of four hours, we got called to go to an actual room, where we waited another half hour.
A doctor came in. Hallelujah! He took Ros' blood pressure again, noted that it was better, and told her to drink more water.
Waiting for three and a half hours didn't help, doc.
He apologized, and said that they were simply swamped - which, looking around, was clearly true.
He then went out, and came back with a paper which told us that Ros had fainted, which we clearly didn't know, and that she shouldn't do it again. Also a prescription for a pill to keep her from vomiting, so she could keep her fluids down.
I'm not sure what the point of that was, since she wasn't vomiting in the first place.
At any rate, that was all the time we could be spared, and the doc took off.
I'd like to note here that giving a patient, who came to the hospital because she fainted, a paper that says "you fainted!" does not constitute adequate medical attention.
She's fine, by the way. Thanks for asking.
So.
Obamacare, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges, and the Department of Health and Human Services, will cause a shortfall of over 150,000 doctors in the next fifteen years.
It seems like we're already a bit short-handed to me.
It will also result in most employers dropping their health insurance coverage, and forcing their workers to buy from the exchanges, despite all the rhetoric about people with employer-based coverage remaining unaffected.
Neither of those factors is a problem, according to the Obama Administration.
But community health centers? That's a veto, bub.
Man of the people, my ass.
