In his column “Sack Sebelius,” Jack Kelly makes the case that Kathleeen Sebelius should be be fired. Kelly frames his case this way:
One of the things for which I’m thankful this Thanksgiving is that I’m not Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
That Ms. Sebelius is still HHS secretary is remarkable. If they’d presided over a fiasco like the Obamacare rollout, the CEO of every corporation anywhere in the world would have been fired long ago.
Ms. Sebelius is fortunate she works in government, where there is no accountability.
And in the Obama administration, where there is no integrity.
Earlier this month, TV pitchman Kevin Trudeau was convicted of fraud for making health claims less obviously false than those Ms. Sebelius and her boss have made for Obamacare. Mr. Trudeau has been fined $37.5 million and could spend years in prison.
Ms. Sebelius won’t be joining Mr. Trudeau in his cell, as she would if there were justice in this world. But her luck may be running out….
It seems to me that the analogy to Kevin Trudeau fails with Sebelius. Say what you will about her, Kathleen Sebelius is the underling in the Obamacare fraud. She is an important underling, but just an underling.
Kelly is nevertheless on to something. The perpetrator of the Obamacare saga is Barack Obama himself. It was Obama who made dozens of fraudulent claims about his intended, proposed and enacted health care law like these over a period of years (collected with links here):
• Remarks at the American Medical Association, June 15, 2009: “I know that there are millions of Americans who are content with their health care coverage — they like their plan and, most importantly, they value their relationship with their doctor. They trust you. And that means that no matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.”
• Presidential weekly address, March 6, 2010: “”What won’t change when this bill is signed is this: If you like the insurance plan you have now, you can keep it. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. Because nothing should get in the way of the relationship between a family and their doctor.”
• Remarks on the Affordable Care Act Supreme Court ruling, June 28, 2012: “If you’re one of the more than 250 million Americans who already have health insurance, you will keep your health insurance — this law will only make it more secure and more affordable.”
Why focus on Sebelius? Because, as Kelly observes toward the end of his column, she would serve as a scapegoat for Obama. In our system, her job is to fall on her sword.
Sebelius can be sacked, but she is just a lackey. To repeat, Obama is the perpetrator. Obama is the indispensable fraudster of Obamacare.
Kelly’s analogy to Kevin Trudeau is intriguing. Trudeau is indeed a fraudster. The FTC fined Trudeau $37.6 million for deceptive marketing in fraudulent informercials. He’s back in the news, most recently, for his conviction on a charge of criminal contempt related to failure to pay the fine.
Compared to Obama, however, Trudeau is a piker. As Bernard Madoff is to finance, Barack Obama is to politics. See, e.g., Andrew McCarthy’s “The scheme behind the Obamacare fraud.” In the selling of Obamacare Obama perpetrated a massive fraud.
Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.