Obamacare, Obamanomics ‘stimulus’ for parent move-ins with kids

Obamacare, Obamanomics ‘stimulus’ for parent move-ins with kids

DuckmanThe only “work” stimulated for non-government union employees by President Obama’s 2009 “stimulus” bill was for U-Haul to move adult children’s furniture back to their parents’ homes.

Obamacare will force children lucky enough to have full-time jobs to rent Ryder trucks to transport mom and dad’s stuff to their abodes.

Maybe President Barack Obama would consider issuing an executive order allowing adults to stay on their children’s employer-mandated insurance until a death panel deems them no longer insurable by Obamacare standards?

Full disclosure, when I was a young child in the early 1970s, my great-grandmother permanently resided with my maternal grandmother and my great aunt frequently resided with my paternal grandmother. Those experiences coupled with my revulsion at an all-encompassing cradle-to-grave had long caused me to bemoan the increasingly early placement of the elderly in the care of the state.

But that revulsion was borne of a highly taxed affluent society that seemed to have farmed out charity to a government monopoly. I’ll never forget an immediately regrettable statement I made to a United Way fundraiser that came to my law office soon after I had finished law school. I told them that I have already “given” to the IRS. My shame as soon as the young volunteer left my office inspired me to get personally and financially involved in the Homeless Shelter near my office as well as the charitable activities of my church.

But what we have been seeing as a result of Obamanomics is borne of the ongoing, five-year jobs and wealth-destruction depression, even if the Fed money-machine keeps GDP a pulse within the “official” definition of a “recovery”.

The lives of the young have continue to be destroyed, or at best, put on hold, thanks to government policies that declare wars on coal, other forms of cheap middle-class enabling energy, and full-time job creation; thanks to the paternalistic Obama Democrats that know best what insurance policies should cover and what economic activities best protect polar bears in the Arctic.

Robert Samuelson rightly points out that many transfers of what wealth is left for Obama to spread around, under current law have generally favored the elderly:

Two analysts at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis have produced an important study that should (but probably won’t) alter the climate for Washington’s stalemated budget debate. The study demolishes the widespread notion that older Americans need exceptional protection against spending cuts because they’re poorer and more vulnerable than everyone else. Coupled with the elderly’s voting power, this perception has intimidated both parties and put Social Security and Medicare, which dominate federal spending, off-limits to any serious discussion or change.

 

It has long been obvious that the 65-and-over population doesn’t fit the Depression-era stereotype of being uniformly poor, sickly and helpless. Like under-65 Americans, those 65 and over are diverse. Some are poor, sickly and dependent. Many more are financially comfortable (or rich), in reasonably good health and more self-reliant than not. With life expectancy of 19 years at age 65, most face many years of government-subsidized retirement. The stereotype survives because it’s politically useful. It protects those subsidies. It discourages us from asking: Are they all desirable or deserved? For whom? At what age?

But a funny thing happened on the way to “affordable” health care. Medicare got robbed, and now regulated via Obamacare’s full implementation so that the America Dream of a secure and independent retirement may soon turn into the nightmare that liberal Democrats made of “affordable” housing. The elderly are among those having, not just losing Medicare Advantage thanks to Obamacare, but also individual policies for those not eligible, or able to afford, to retire:

America can’t afford much more affordability schemes that are mainly jobs programs for government bureaucrats. But at least with Mama in the house, the meals taste better?

Mike DeVine‘s Right.com @ Joe For America.com

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

Mike DeVine

Mike DeVine

Mike DeVine is a former op-ed columnist at the Charlotte Observer and legal editor of The (Decatur) Champion (legal organ of DeKalb County, Georgia). He is currently with the Ruf Law Firm in Atlanta Metro and conservative voice of the Atlanta Times News.

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