There was a day when Americans understood there's no such thing as a free lunch.
They knew somebody always pays.
But thanks to Barack Obama and his party, which seek to build their voting constituency on a new government-dependency class, expectations about getting food and other stuff for free have risen dramatically over the last seven years.
This unsustainable economic phenomenon requires those of us who recognize both the danger of empowering government over our lives and the bankruptcy of redistributing wealth to call a spade a spade. That's what Dr. Lee Hieb, the former president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, did when asked about the trend: "You just can't keep giving everything away to people without them working for it," she told WND. "It's not capitalism when you let people who are able-bodied not contribute to society but take the spoils. I mean, that's just not capitalism. We have too many people that don't work to eat."
Her comments came in response to an Associated Press report noting food-stamp enrollment increased in 11 states between January 2013 and the end of 2014, the period during which Obamacare went into effect.
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Ten of those 11 states expanded Medicaid under the ACA, and six of them used new online enrollment systems that made it easy for customers to sign up for both Medicaid and food stamps at the same time. Such streamlined application systems were built specifically for the health-care overhaul.
In total, nearly 632,000 people were added to the food-stamp rolls in those 11 states during that period, at an estimated cost of almost $79 million a month to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the food-stamp program also known as SNAP. This came at a time when the national economy was improving and food-stamp enrollment declined nationwide.
Is it any surprise?
Dr. Hieb isn't the only medical professional seeing the connection between Obamacare and other "giveaway" programs.
Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, sees the phenomenon as part of a government attempt to place more Americans under its thumb.
"Self-reliant Americans are being crushed by taxation and regulation, directly and indirectly, and turned into government dependents," she said. "How can you resist if government can cut off your food and medicine?"
Want more proof?
In almost all of the 16 states that didn't expand Medicaid, food-stamp rolls have been decreasing as the economy improves.
Hieb, author of "Surviving the Medical Meltdown: Your Guide to Living Through the Disaster of Obamacare," said Obamacare's Medicaid expansion damaged the American medical system by dropping people from their private insurance and putting them on Medicaid.
"People think that all these people getting on Medicaid through Obamacare were uninsured," Hieb said. "That's not true. A number of those people had private insurance, but now, because they qualify under these new guidelines, why not have somebody else pay for your health insurance? So instead of paying for health insurance, they're taking Medicaid."
The concept of a free lunch – once scoffed at by even the least sophisticated Americans – is actually official Washington policy. It is so because such offers do two things – buy votes for Democrats and empower Democratic governments to run roughshod over individual liberty and self-government.
It seems what most Americans once knew intuitively – common sense, as we called it – has been re-educated right out of their senses.
And this is a viral contagion.
The more Americans see their fellow citizens – and even non-citizens – hitching their wagons to the gravy train, the less resistance there will be from joining the party.
As it turns out, that's just the point. This isn't just bad policy based on bad thinking. It's deliberate. It's what Obama promised when he talked about "the fundamental transformation of America."
Media wishing to interview Joseph Farah, please contact [email protected].
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