President Obama delivered remarks on the affordable care act and new patient’s bill of rights at the White House Tuesday. Among her many talents, The Free Agent is a polyglot, and offers a translation of those remarks from Politish into plain English:
Stories like Amy’s and Taylor’s are exactly why we passed the Affordable Care Act.
These sob stories are a gold mine! As long as I can hug cripples and orphans in public, I can keep the crisis going forever.
I want to thank all the members of Congress who are here today who helped to make reform a reality.
(No precise translation, a native speaker would just rub his hands together, cackling greedily.)
I just finished a meeting with the CEOs of some of America’s largest insurance companies and some of our state insurance commissioners where we discussed how we’re going to work together to implement health insurance reform.
Nobody involved in insurance is photogenic at all! At least those fat cats have seen which way the wind is blowing and are going to play ball. After all, they won’t actually have to offer products to the public that make a profit for the company any more. That sounds hard.
This law will cut costs and make coverage more affordable for families and small businesses.
This law will raise costs dramatically, necessitating subsidies. And screw you, single people and big businesses!
Last month, 4 million small business owners found a postcard in their mailbox informing them that they could be eligible for a health care tax cut this year worth tens of thousands of dollars to help them cover their employees.
Ibid
Two weeks ago, tens of thousands of seniors who fall into the Medicare prescription drug coverage gap known as the doughnut hole began receiving a $250 check to help them afford their medicine.
Old people vote.
As I said when I met with the insurance executives, it’s not meant to punish insurance companies. They provide a critical service. They employ large numbers of Americans.
Jobs, B, that’s the buzzword these days, shoehorn jobs in somewhere.
But insurance companies should see this reform as an opportunity to improve care and increase competition.
Because businesses like competition, right? That’s a good word for the free-marketers, right? I want to be inclusive on this.
They shouldn’t see it as an opportunity to enact unjustifiable rate increases that don’t boost care and inflate their bottom line.
The Bureau of Small Families Business Old People Accountability and Stem Cells will now approve all rate changes.
And I’ve got some folks on the other side of the aisle that still think none of this should happen and, in fact, have said they’re going to run on a platform of repeal. They want to go back to the system we had before. Would you? (Laughter)
They’re on to us, boys! Marginalize and trivialize!
Would you want to go back to discriminating against children with preexisting conditions? Would you want to go back to dropping coverage for people when they get sick? Would you want to reinstate lifetime limits on benefits so that mothers like Amy have to worry?
Everything I do is out of love. Why can’t the bad people understand?
(A fly flies in front of the President.) Get out of here. (Laughter.) You’ve seen me grab one of those before. (Laughter.)
I heard the new “Karate Kid”’s doing boffo BO…
So anybody who favors repeal is welcome to come talk to these people and tell them why we should go back to the status quo prior to us signing this bill, go back to the way things were. They are going to need to explain why they — and tens of millions of Americans — should have their new rights taken away. I don’t think they’ll have that conversation.
Thank goodness there was this big pile of health care lying around for me to pass out. I wonder where it grows?
Thank you very much. God bless you. God bless the United States of America. (Applause.)
Dear Lord, in thy mercy, just give me eight years to get out of this before the house of cards and new rights collapses. Amen.