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Videos By Rare
Kurt Wallace: Our guest today on Rare is Allen West, United States Army Lieutenant Colonel for 22 years. A former US Congressman, his new book Guardian of the Republic and Allen West, thanks for being with us today on Rare.
Allen West: It’s an honor to be with Rare, thanks so much.
Kurt Wallace: Let’s talk about Obamacare for a moment. The deadline has passed – last month – and for people opting in. But people are waking up to the realities of this law, and this is an election year. How do you see Obamacare playing out?
Allen West: Well, I think the big shock to the system is when back in October, many people started getting the insurance cancellation notices in their mailboxes and you had 5 to 6 million Americans get kicked off their plans. You know, the President said that if you liked your plan, you could keep it. Period. If you liked your doctor, you could keep him.
That ended up being the lie of the year of 2013.
I think the follow-up lie of the year for 2014 was when he said they did not work hard to try to promote Obamacare when he came out to the Rose Garden. It’s hard to believe that there’s 7.1 million that have signed up for this – magically, of course – when you kick almost 6 million off, and you said the number you had to reach was 7 million by the end of March. So I don’t think the numbers really show what they are, and who knows what the actual numbers should be or can be. You have many Americans who don’t know if they’ve paid already – if they do have their insurance coverage. How many people were just signed up on Medicaid?
So it is even more nebulous now than it was at the beginning. I think it’s very hard to look at Obamacare as the law of the land when you see so many waivers, exemptions, and delays. I think 34 delays have been granted. It pretty much has been made up as we go along. So when you start to personally touch the American people’s healthcare, that’s a very personal decision. I think it’s going to play out very much so for the Democrats as we move on to the 2014 cycle. They say they want to try to fix it – or mend it, as the posters have tried to give them a soundbite to use – but you don’t see any desire from Harry Reid in the Senate, and definitely not from President Obama, to admit that there’s some faults, failures, and shortcomings with Obamacare.
Kurt Wallace: You have a new book, Guardian of the Republic. Tell us about the book.
Allen West: Well, I’ll tell you, it is a book that I term it a philosophical biography. It takes my upbringing from the inner city of Atlanta, Georgia, my experiences in the military, and how my political philosophy was developed looking at the founding fathers – going back and doing some readings – and talking about the establishment of this Republic. Today as I sit up here in Philadelphia where I did an event last night. I’m staying at the Omni Hotel which is right down the street from Independence Hall. As I look out my window, I’m looking at Independence Hall, which is the birthplace of our nation, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution. And as they finished their deliberation over the Constitution, Benjamin Franklin came out and Mrs. Powell asked him the question, “So, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” And Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
And really what this book is about is that challenge that Benjamin Franklin gave us to keep this Republic. It’s my story of being a guardian, but it’s a clarion call for others to be guardians of this republic because right now, I believe we’re seeing it slip away. The single question I ask in this book to everyone is – when back in 2008 – then Senator Obama said, “We’re five days away from fundamentally transforming America.” And the crowd went crazy cheering, but no one asked him what we were fundamentally transforming to? No one asked him what we were fundamentally transforming from? So right now, I think that the challenge Franklin gave us as a Republic, we are starting to see ourselves not meet up to that challenge. I want to see us make changes to our Republic and pass it on to subsequent generations.
Kurt Wallace: Allen West thanks for spending some time with us today on Rare
Allen West: Thanks for having me.
Purchase Allan West’s new book “Guardian of the Republic“