Who’s Responsible For Obamacare?

Obama at the Wailing Wall

Never before has an issue drawn more passionate praise from supporters and more vehement criticism from opponents than the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare). Republicans see the act as one of the greatest invasions of freedom and privacy since the Patriot Act, while the Democrats see Obamacare as a major victory on the path toward guaranteeing universal health care for all. No matter where one comes out on the issue, Barrack Obama, the namesake, is given full credit (and blame) for the legislation. Assigning Obama full or even the majority of the credit for the enactment and Supreme Court affirmation of Obamacare does not reflect reality however. Jewish Americans and Jewish American groups have actually done more to advance the cause of universal health care in America than any other group or politician. And, they may very well have influenced President Obama’s decision to champion the cause in the first place.

As Jeffrey Goldberg wrote in his article, Barrack Obama Is Such a Traditional Jew Sometimes, “No president, not even Bill Clinton, has traveled so widely in Jewish circles, been taught by so many Jewish law professors, and had so many Jewish mentors, colleagues, and friends, and advisers as Barack Obama.” It should also be noted that no President has received more funding from Jewish sources than President Obama. In 2003, the Washington Post reported that 60% of the Democratic Party’s total political contributions come from Jewish sources. And, true to form, Obama’s top private campaign contributor in 2008 was Goldman Sachs. Not so shockingly, Obama’s top public campaign contributor was the University of California, which is run by Mark Yudof. Yudof’s wife was the international President of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, representing 760 synagogues. The Yudofs were co-recipients of the Jewish National Fund Tree of Life Award.

Money dominates American politics these days, and no other group has more disposable income than Jewish Americans. In fact, while Jewish Americans represent only 2% of the population, they comprise 10.25% of all of the American millionaires 36% of the billionaires, and 45% of America’s top 40 wealthiest people. President Obama certainly couldn’t pass the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act all by himself. A bill that requires citizens to buy medical insurance would need to pass both the House and the Senate, and then be upheld by the Supreme Court. To begin with, the passage of this type of legislation usually costs tens of millions of dollars to lobby Congress. With so many powerful corporations lobbying against the bill, Obama needed some powerful financial allies. And powerful financial allies he got. Whether Obama got the idea of universal health care from his Jewish professors, friends, mentors, and campaign financiers, or simply got support from them is a question that will probably remain unanswered. One thing we do know though is that most Jewish Americans put their full support behind the legislation.

According to the Jewish newspaper Haaretz, “U.S. Jewish groups broadly supportive of Obamacare decision.” The President of the National Jewish Democratic Council, David Harris, said that the Supreme Court decision upholding Obamacare will play well with Jewish voters in 2012. He also said, “The American Jewish community is clearly supportive of so much of Obamacare, just as a broad majority of Jews support President Obama’s domestic agenda,” He said the court’s decision “will remind Americans and American Jews why they’ve supported the president all along.”

Not so coincidentally, every single one of the 13 Jewish US Senators (13% of the total senate  a 6.5 times over-representation to their proportion of the population) voted for Obamacare, and their votes carried the day in the Senate. All but one of the 26 Jewish Representatives voted for Obamacare as well, and their votes also carried the day in the House, where the bill was decided by a margin of only 5 votes.

After its enactment, the legislation was immediately challenged by several states and individuals. The final arbiter of freedom in the land, the US Supreme Court, was set to determine the outcome, and it was that final battleground where Jewish Americans truly paved the way for the health care individual mandate. The three Jewish Supreme Court Justices: Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg all ruled in favor of Obamacare. Together they comprise 33% of the Supreme Court, which is a 16.5 times over-representation to their proportion of the population.The probability of this kind of over-representation coincidentally happening, given that Jewish people comprise only 2% of the population, is .0008%. The probability that these three impartial justices would be on the same side of a ruling is 12.5%. And the probability of three Jewish justices being randomly appointed to the Supreme Court and also on the same side of a ruling is .0002%.

The Supreme Court ruling upheld what opponents such as Peter Schiff have argued is patently unconstitutional legislation. Even more troubling for these critics was the widely criticized majority opinion explaining the legal basis for the ruling. The coincidence of these non-gentile Justices, lobbying groups, and Congressman, all ending up on exactly the same side of an issue wouldn’t be as improbable if the legislation wasn’t so contentiously debated. At the end of the day, 66% of the gentile Supreme court Justices ruled against, while 100% of the non-gentile justices ruled in favor of Obamacare.

Whether an American is for Obamacare or against it, it is unfair to assign credit or blame on a single person when so many others fought ferociously, and perhaps even sacrificed legal principles in favor of a sense of moral responsibility, to attempt to guarantee that all Americans will have healthcare in the future.

This does raise some very interesting questions though:

For starters, how did non-gentiles get appointed to the Supreme Court at more than a 16 times over-represented rate to their proportion to the population? Are non-gentile people more qualified to be judges? The media and top level universities say that all races are equal, so this would seem unlikely. There are two plausible explanations for the disparity. The first is that nearly 80% of the Ivy League (the breeding ground for future Supreme Court Justices) administrative positions are held by Jewish people, and they accept Jewish students at a 6-15 times over-represented rate to their proportion to the population. This article lists the names of the administrators. As Kevin McDonald, a California State University professor, concluded, “These data strongly suggest that Jewish overrepresentation at elite universities has nothing to do with IQ but with discrimination against non-Jewish White Americans…”

The second, and far more important, reason for this over-representation was exposed in 1992, when David Steiner, the president of the largest Jewish lobby in America—American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), was caught on tape bragging about his organization’s incredible power in America. Steiner admitted that he had been lobbying to get Jewish and pro-Israel candidates into positions of power in the US Government. Steiner said, “We gave two employees from AIPAC leave of absences to work on the [Clinton] campaign. I mean, we have a dozen people in that campaign, in the headquarters….and they’re all going to get big jobs. We have friends. I also work with a think tank, the Washington Institute. I have Michael Mandelbaum and Martin Indyk being foreign policy advisers. Steve Speigel—we’ve got friends—this is my business.”

“I talked to Bill Clinton [and he made a commitment that] he’s going to be very good to us. One of my officers, Monte Friedkin, is one of the biggest fund-raisers for them [Clintons]. I mean, I have people like that all over the country.”

When asked if he knows who Bill Clinton would put on the Supreme Court if elected, Steiner replied, “We’re talking now. We don’t have no commitments yet. We’re just negotiating. We’re more interested right now, in the Secretary of State and the Secretary of National Security Agency. That’s more important to us.” He also said, “we are negotiating” who will be Secretary of State.

True to his commitment to Steiner, Bill Clinton used his two Supreme Court appointments to appoint Jewish justices. He also used his Presidential pardon power to grant Mark Rich, a Jewish international criminal who was on the lamb in Switzerland, an unprecedented pardon. In fact, 3 of the last 6 Supreme Court Justices appointed were Jewish. If this trend were to continue, 4 or 5 of the 9 justices will be non-gentile in the years to come, even though they comprise only 2% of the population.

The American people must ask themselves if it is acceptable for groups like AIPAC, which represent less than 2% of the population, to bribe Presidents to discriminate against gentiles when making high level appointments? And whether such a tiny percentage of the population should be allowed to wield such disproportionate power over the rest of the population? After all, America is supposed to support diversity, and according to the principles of affirmative action, some kind of equality among races. If 2% of the population controls 33% of the most powerful positions in the land, how can their be diversity or true representation?

The overrepresentation of Jewish Americans on the Supreme Court, Federal Reserve, Ivy League, media, and finance would be inconsequential if it weren’t for the strong patterns of discrimination against gentiles and the cohesiveness of non-gentile politicians and judges in their support for wars in Iraq and Libya, sanctioning the peaceful nation of Iran, and unabashed financial and political support for the apartheid regime of Israel. These are arguably all against US interests. Non-gentiles have also broadly supported unconstitutional legislation such as the Patriot Act, NDAA, and gun control. All of these infringements on the US Constitution should have been quickly and unanimously struck down by the Supreme Court, and perhaps if the Supreme Court were an accurate reflection of the American people they would have.