After spending years working to push their new rules for how the rest of us can access and pay for health care in America, it shouldn't surprise that many on the left are now seeking and getting waivers from those very rules for themselves.

In other words, ObamaCare for thee, but not for me.

This tracts with what we've always known about big government liberals.  They want to control and dictate how everyone else can live their own lives because they know better.  They're smarter than you.  Which of course means that they're also smart enough to be trusted not to have to abide by the same rules as you.

The latest offenders?  SEIU:

Three local chapters of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), whose political action committee spent $27 million supporting Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election, have received temporary waivers from a provision in the Obamacare law.

The three SEIU chapters include the Local 25 in Obama’s hometown of Chicago.

Despite the fact that they had to drop this idea from the original legislation...and despite the fact that promoters of health care "reform" promised that no such thing would ever happen, here it is, just months removed from ObamaCare being signed into law.

In case you missed it, the White House is planning to put forward regulations that will incentivize doctors to meet with patients and discuss their "end of life" options.

Via the NY Times:

Under the new policy, outlined in a Medicare regulation, the government will pay doctors who advise patients on options for end-of-life care, which may include advance directives to forgo aggressive life-sustaining treatment.

Congressional supporters of the new policy, though pleased, have kept quiet. They fear provoking another furor like the one in 2009 when Republicans seized on the idea of end-of-life counseling to argue that the Democrats’ bill would allow the government to cut off care for the critically ill.

The final version of the health care legislation, signed into law by President Obama in March, authorized Medicare coverage of yearly physical examinations, or wellness visits. The new rule says Medicare will cover “voluntary advance care planning,” to discuss end-of-life treatment, as part of the annual visit.

Over eight months after the passage of ObamaCare by a super-slim majority, party line vote, 57% of Americans still favor the outright repeal of the law, according to the latest survey from Rasmussen.  Further, about half of the public believes that the law will eventually force them to change their own insurance plan or cause them to lose it, which is of course what Obama (repeatedly) promised everyone would not be the case.

Again, this is over eight months after passage of the bill; a lapse of time that Democrats thought would allow the opposition to "settle down", especially after everyone saw all the wonderful things that the bill did for them.

Leave it to eighteen term Democrat Congressman Pete Stark to pretty much encapsulate what's wrong with the federal government.  That being that we have too many members of Congress such as himself who don't recognize constitutional limits on the power of Congress.

In the following video Stark is confronted by a constituent who proceeds to take him to school on the Constitution and the fact that it does indeed limit Congress to specific delegated powers, leaving others to the state governments or to the people.

For his part, Stark was faced with a pretty hostile crowd and does a poor job defending his position.

Of course, this was the same member of Congress who caught flack for telling a constituent at a previous town hall meeting that he wouldn't even bother to urinate on them, (yes, really), so maybe he was just trying to be low key.  Regardless, his statements underscore just how far beyond recognition liberals have misconstrued and perverted our Constitution.

All during the debate over ObamaCare, virtually everyone in the pro-life community told pretty much everyone who would listen - as well as those who refused to listen - that the new health care reform law would result in federal tax dollars somehow being used to fund abortion.

Of course Obama and virtually all Democrats poo-poohed the notion.

Well, now we know...

The Obama Administration will give Pennsylvania $160 million to set up a new "high-risk" insurance program under a provision of the federal health care legislation enacted in March.

It has quietly approved a plan submitted by an appointee of pro-abortion Governor Edward Rendell under which the new program will cover any abortion that is legal in Pennsylvania.

The high-risk pool program is one of the new programs created by the sweeping health care legislation, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, President Obama signed into law on March 23. The law authorizes $5 billion in federal funds for the program, which will cover as many as 400,000 people when it is implemented nationwide. ...

As you'll remember, all through the debate over the bill the White House and Democrats in Congress opposed strict language that would forbid any tax dollars being used fund abortion.

And now we know why.

***

As the weeks and months have passed since ObamaCare was signed into law, Nancy Pelosi's comment that "we have to pass it so we can find out what's in it" comment makes her out to be more of a prophet every day.  The devil truly is in the details, as they say.

The latest surprise is the fact that about one million low-income Americans could lose their health insurance coverage by September because some of its provisions will make it illegal (or at least impossible) to offer some limited benefits plans to the public.  (via Politico)

Part of the health care overhaul due to kick in this
September could strip more than 1 million people of their insurance coverage, violating a key goal of President Barack Obama’s reforms.

Under the provision, insurance companies will no longer be able to apply broad annual caps on the amount of money they pay out on health policies. Employer groups say the ban could essentially wipe out a niche insurance market that many part-time workers and retail and restaurant employees have come to rely on.

It's beginning to seem like one could write a book (or at least fill a number of pages comparable to the length of the original bill) with reports of how ObamaCare doesn't do what Democrats said it would, how it does do what opponents said it would, and how it's going to result in other consequences that weren't predicted (which, itself, was predicted).  Got it?

Well, here's the latest:

The true cost of ObamaCare (the details they left out)

Remember how a big part of Obama and the Democrats sales job for their health care bill was that it would save money?  Well, guess what...  They were wrong.  Of course pretty much everyone who took a realistic look at their plan said the same thing, but that didn't stop them from marching forward.  Well a few days ago the Director of the Congressional Budget Office took to his blog and posted the following:

The central challenge is straightforward and stark: The rising costs of health care will put tremendous pressure on the federal budget during the next few decades and beyond.

While Democrats in Washington have been busy putting greater government controls on health care in America, (and putting taxpayers on the hook for more health care related expenses), our neighbors to the north are taking a hard look at the costs associated with their government funded system.

Why?  Because the population is aging, and reality is beginning to set in concerning the government's financial ability to keep delivering on the commitment of "free health care".  Their government run system currently eats up about 40% of provincial budgets each year...and rising.  In Ontario alone, that figure is projected to be 70% in a little over a decade.

(Via Reuters)

Ontario, Canada's most populous province, kicked off a fierce battle
with drug companies and pharmacies when it said earlier this year it
would halve generic drug prices and eliminate "incentive fees" to
generic drug manufacturers.

As everyone knows by now in the aftermath of the "loud" debate over ObamaCare, the feds will be working to implement this massive (expensive) new program over the next several years, but it will take time. 

Of course, many people and politicians are looking for ways to stop and/or overturn the program via legal and political means.  "Legal", in the sense of the budding lawsuits that are being filed to challege various aspects of the program, not the least of which is the fact that it forces individual Americans to buy a commercial product for the first time in American history.  And "political" in the sense of introducing legislation to re-write and/or repeal the bill entirely - which of course will rely on having majorities in Congress that are so inclined, which will have to wait until after the coming November elections.

But this overlooks the individual state governments, which do have some options themselves that could be used to resist ObamaCare, not the least of which because they are called on to play such a large role in the program.