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Caroline Baum, writing at Bloomberg, points out that the accumulation of Barack Obama gaffes about health care have now reached a critical mass:

When Obama compared the post office to UPS and FedEx, he was clearly hoping to assuage voter concerns about a public health-care option undercutting and eliminating private insurance.

What he did instead was conjure up visions of long lines and interminable waits. Why do we need or want a health-care system that works like the post office?…

… “If the private insurance companies are providing a good bargain, and if the public option has to be self-sustaining — meaning taxpayers aren’t subsidizing it, but it has to run on charging premiums and providing good services and a good network of doctors, just like any other private insurer would do — then I think private insurers should be able to compete.”

Self-sustaining? The public option? What has Obama been doing during those daily 40-minute economic briefings coordinated by uber-economic-adviser, Larry Summers?

Capitalism Explained

Government programs aren’t self-sustaining by definition. They’re subsidized by the taxpayer. If they were self-financed, we’d be off the hook.

There are, of course, many more. (She did leave out the one where Obama blithely explained that a surgeon got ”$30,000, $40,000, $50,000″ for amputating a leg under Medicare when the reality much, much lower. Like only $1,140 maximum).  But add all of these up and Obama’s facade of smooth confidence looks a lot like utter, complete cluelessness – or the slick, greasy, dissembling facade of a con-man.

Neither one is a good look for a president.

The fact is that these schemes will all cost more and mean less health care. There will have to be rationing – there is no other way with a finite supply of medical facilities and personnel and a vastly expanded number of insured. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Yet Obama keeps promising one. He either knows he is lying – or he doesn’t understand even the most basic elements of the system is is demanding changes to.

This is, I suspect, why his schemes are in so much trouble. The public is not as dumb as the Democrats – and Obama – think they are. They are listening to this and experiencing that jaw-dropping moment when you realize that you heard something right – and can’t believe the person said something that idiotic.

Clueless or con-man? You decide. Do remember the comment policy, though.