The American consumer long ago fell under the spell of the Madison Avenue marketing gurus who dazzled us with promises of instant gratification. “Charge it”, “No payments until…”, “Buy now, pay later” are phrases that we all have readily taken advantage of at one time or another. But there’s a new wrinkle out there these days, coming not from mid-town Manhattan, but from that bastion of fiscal creativity, Washington DC.

The latest shade of lipstick being put on the pig that is healthcare reform is an embarrassingly nauseating one: In order to pay for the increased costs of “the government option” or whatever they’re calling it now, the American taxpayer gets the stick first with promises of the carrot to come.

AP reported thusly, “Under the Democratic bills, federal tax credits to help make health insurance affordable for millions of low- and middle-income households won’t start flowing until 2013 — after the next presidential election. But Medicare cuts and a sizable chunk of the tax increases to pay for the overhaul kick in immediately.”

So tell me again why it’s so important that a bill – no matter how well or ill-crafted – gets passed in such a huge rush when we aren’t going to see any of the changes that are so desperately needed for at least three years. How can all those poor uninsured souls possibly continue to exist FOR THREE MORE UNINSURED YEARS???? Or how about all those pre-exisitng conditions that won’t be covered for THREE MORE YEARS???? Or all the frustrations caused by insurance coverage denials FOR THREE MORE YEARS????

From a political standpoint, it just doesn’t make any sense. Higher taxes now and nothing in return for The Won to campaign on in 2012. How does that make any sense?

It took me a while to figure this out, but I think I’ve finally got it.

If there’s one lesson to be learned from the 2008 Obama campaign, it’s that having a record to run on is not all that important to this President. He’s quite comfortable projecting smoke and mirror intimations onto the electorate and letting them conjure up the candidate they want to see and the promises they want to hear. Maybe Obama, or maybe someone on his staff, is sharp enough to understand that if healthcare reform were actually implemented next year, by 2012 the reality of reform would be all too clearly experienced by the public – and after that, the chances of Obama’s re-election sink deeper than the Titanic. Sure, the Republicans will attack them on the issue of higher taxes – but let’s face it – most of the people who would vote for Obama either don’t care or don’t pay taxes anyway.

The Democrats can buy votes with promises of something for nothing – they’ve been doing it for decades. As long as their candidates can assure the voters that they’ll get more stuff after the election, they stand a good chance of being returned to office. Obama needs to be able to say to the voters in 2012, “We passed healthcare reform and next year all that HOPE you’ve carried around these last THREE YEARS is about to CHANGE.” And the Progressives, the liberals, and the terminally naive will believe that – at last! – they have the perfect healthcare system they’e been waiting for.

It will only be after the 2012 election that stark raving reality will set in and Americans who bought into Obama’s rhetoric will find out that they’ve been bamboozled. Only in fairy tales does everybody live happily ever after. In the real world, you get higher taxes, fewer choices, and less control to show for the money you pay to the government to provide the services that used to be provided by the free market.

Despite all the fancy talk coming from the Democrats in Congress and the Administration, politically designed healthcare will cost more and deliver less. There is no way that they can provide full coverage to 47 million more people for the same amount of money. America’s new healthcare system – whatever it ends up looking like – will be an ugly monster. And whether you like it or not – and whether you call it “death panels” or not – someone besides you and your doctor will be deciding who gets what care:

No matter how we “reform” health insurance, there will still be close calls, where it’s not clear that a costly procedure will actually do any good. There will have to be someone, either in government or in the private sector, to decide which operations and treatments should be covered and which should not. And there will be patients who will die after being refused.

Health care “reform” won’t eliminate such incidents and may produce more of them.

But no health care measure can alter the fact that our resources are not unlimited. We may not want to hear it, but no matter what kind of insurance system you have, sometimes someone has to say “no.”

Obama can’t afford that reality to be a part of the debate in 2012. Ergo – pay now, buy later. We’ll have to see how it works out for him. Stay tuned.

In the meantime – here’s a little ditty to bring it all home….