ObamaCare: Still a far bigger disaster than the oil spill

In the midst of Obama’s many other self-inflicted wounds on both the domestic and foreign policy fronts, let’s not forget the big issue that was one of the blasting caps that set off the Tea Party explosion: health care. Scott Gottlieb of the New York Post reminds us that one of the biggest threats posed by the sprawling and obscure Democrat health plan was not the bill itself, but the implementation. The bureaucracy is now filling in the blanks:

Late last week saw the first leaks of the administration's draft regulations for implementing the ObamaCare law -- and everything is playing out just as the critics warned.

The 3,000-odd pages of legislation left most of the really important (and controversial) policy decisions to the regulations that government agencies were told to issue once the bill passed. Now that those regs are starting to take shape, it's clear that the Obama team is using its new power to exert tight control over the payment and delivery of all formerly "private" health insurance.

America’s health care system is now pretty much in the hands of one bureaucrat: Kathleen Sibelius.

The ObamaCare law references the Secretary of Health and Human Services almost 2,200 times and uses the phrase "the secretary shall" more than 725. Each reference requires HHS to set new rules on medical care, giving control to an existing federal office or one of 160 new agencies that the bill created.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (who was once the Kansas state-insurance commissioner) has taken to these tasks with zeal. In some circles, she's now known as the nation's "insurance regulator in chief."

Bottom line? “Sebelius means to dictate what your insurance plan must look like almost from day one, no matter how you get your coverage.”

Elections matter. The one coming up this November matters a hell of a lot. Join me this fall for what might turn out to be a last-ditch fight against this assault on our liberties and on our very lives.