Could Herman Cain Have Survived Obamacare? 9-9-9 Man With A Plan Speaks Out

Herman Cain gleefully shouts to adoring crowds that he now has a target on his back. Amazingly, this non-pol has vaulted to the front of the back, leapfrogging over career politicians who have been running for president and other political offices for years. Can Cain go the distance? Does he have the right stuff? With a ‘wink’ toward Genesis, is Cain ‘able’?

Herman Cain gleefully shouts to adoring crowds that he now has a target on his back. Amazingly, this non-pol has vaulted to the front of the back, leapfrogging over career politicians who have been running for president and other political offices for years. Can Cain go the distance? Does he have the right stuff? With a ‘wink’ toward Genesis, is Cain ‘able’?

He is derided over his 9-9-9 plan by folks who are scared that his bold and innovative reform proposal is attracting voters. They are more frightened that his plan may actually work. Critics point out or invent flaws in his proposal, trying to chip away at the edifice. Carping is a lot easier than constructing.

I’m not an economist and I have no idea if the 9-9-9 plan should be championed or stuffed into a pizza box and recycled. Increasingly, the public believes that whatever flaws and inadequacies 9-9-9 may have are preferable to the deficiencies and abuses of the current tax system.

Reform threatens the status quo whose agents will push back hard for all the wrong reasons.

A Whistleblower reader could use the above statement to challenge my numerous posted arguments against Obamacare, claiming that I am the hypocritical whiner who is clinging to the status quo and attacking medical reform.

This argument would have some merit if I accepted that Obamacare was truly reform, which I do not. Simply (mis)labeling the law as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, doesn’t make it so. Over the years, I have been amused by the labels that legislators assign to the laws they sponsor. These names are often sanitized sheep’s wool covering up rotting carcasses.

Here are some other labels for Obama’s health care reform law that just missed the cut.

• Phase 1 Government Takeover of Health Care Act
• Medical Malpractice Attorneys Protection Act
• Medical Private Practice Unaffordable Act
• Medicaid Expansion Act
• Pandering to Medicare Beneficiaries Act
• Government Rationing of Health Care Act
• Hassle Doctors Out of the Profession Act
• The Democratic Party Protection Act

Of course, nothing is all good or all bad. There are elements of Obamacare that I do support. I do not think folks should be discriminated against for pre-existing medical conditions. I agree that everyone should have access to medical insurance coverage. I zealously support comparative effectiveness research, which I don’t think has a prayer to succeed against the medical industrial establishment. I support the objective of improving medical quality, but reject the pay-for-performance and related charades that will diminish quality and demoralize and punish doctors.

Herman Cain, like his GOP rivals, all promise to bury Obamacare if elected. Cain, a Stage IV colon cancer survivor believe that had Obamacare been the law of the land when he was ill, that he might have ascended prematurely to heaven.

If I had been under Obamacare, and a bureaucrat had been trying to tell me when I could get that CT scan, that would have delayed my treatment. I was able to get the treatment as fast as I could based upon my timetable, and not the government’s timetable. That’s what saved my life.

While Cain’s pronouncement may be hyperbole, patients should be concerned about the intended destination of today’s medical ‘reformers’. While the law is called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, I think the law will strive for affordability at the expense of patient protection.

The government wants to shrink the pie and yet promises that we will all be satisfied. Which candidate today understands pies best?

This post is not a political endorsement. Herman Cain has not yet earned my support, but I’m glad he’s at the table. The ferocity of attacks against him convinces me that he has a valuable voice in the conversation. At the very least, it has forced the other candidates to defend their policies and positions. Competition breeds excellence. Let the games begin.