One of my favorite movies with a very interesting twist was called “Lucky Number Slevin.” Starting Josh Hartnett, Bruce Willis, Ben Kingsley, and Morgan Freeman, the plot was very engaging and one that didn’t reveal itself until the very end. What I remember most was the title theme, “The Kansas City Shuffle” — you look left, they go right, it’s the Kansas City shuffle. In good old-fashioned American language we call that a distraction.

When I think of all the hullaballoo being displayed by the liberal progressive left and their media accomplices about the firing of James Comey…it’s the Kansas City shuffle. These charlatans don’t want to talk about the real, pressing issues of the day.

For instance, how much ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, PBS news coverage has there been about the deplorable situation in Venezuela? I wrote about it in a piece called “The Ugly Face of Socialism” at Townhall.com. Nope, no reports about the wanton killings of unarmed protesters by Maduro’s armed gangs, or that Cuban troops are showing up in Venezuela — wonder who Raul Castro dispatched them to help? Oh yeah, thanks to Barack Obama we’ve “normalized” diplomatic relations with the communist country. The left is screaming like banshees about Comey’s firing, but we hear crickets about guns firing on people who’ve been forced to eat from garbage dumpsters.

And what else is going on that the progressive socialists of the left would rather not address?

As reported by Fox Business News, “The deadline for most companies to decide whether they will sell plans on the Obamacare marketplace next year is June 21, as instability on the exchanges and rising costs continue to discourage companies from participating.

On Wednesday, Aetna (AET) became the latest major health insurance company to commit to completely exiting the Obamacare marketplace in 2018, citing exorbitant costs. “Our individual Commercial products lost nearly $700 million between 2014 and 2016, and are projected to lose more than $200 million in 2017 despite a significant reduction in membership. Those losses are the result of marketplace structural issues that have led to co-op failures and carrier exits, and subsequent risk pool deterioration,” the company said in a statement Wednesday.

Here is look at the deteriorating Obamacare landscape, where many Americans face a real risk of losing coverage in 2018. In addition to Aetna, Humana (HUM) announced earlier this year it would not participate on the ACA exchanges next year. Anthem (ANTM) is contemplating exiting some, if not all, of its positions next year, CEO Joseph Swedish said during an April earnings call. “Recognizing the level of volatility in the individual ACA-compliant product offerings, we are assessing our market footprint in 2018 as well as rate increases necessary to reflect the underlying morbidity and expected costs of this population,” he said.

If Anthem did decide not to participate, it would leave nearly 250,000 customers without coverage options. The United States’ largest health insurer, UnitedHealth (UNH), has also already exited most of its exchange positions.”

Of course y’all are asking, so what does that mean to the everyday American? Well, it’s simple. “Five states—Alabama, Alaska, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wyoming— and 31 percent of counties across the country currently only have one Obamacare exchange provider. In 2018, 16 counties in Tennessee could have no coverage under the Affordable Care Act, though Blue Cross Blue Shield said earlier this week it may step in to fill those gaps.

Meanwhile the law is on life support in Iowa where the last major insurer, Medica, has threatened to pull out unless there is “swift action by the state or Congress to provide stability,” following Aetna and Wellmark Blue Cross & Blue Shield’s withdrawal from the state.”

But as Obamacare architect and healthcare economist Jonathan Gruber said on Fox News Sunday, this is all President Donald Trump’s fault. So the left doesn’t want to recognize this problem, does not want to admit it exists, and does not want to accept any responsibility for what must be seen as an abject failure. All of the Obamacare co-ops have failed, and now we have private health insurers abandoning this ship like rats jumping the Titanic.

The American people now have few or no choices in one-third of the counties in our country for healthcare coverage. This is the legacy of Barack Obama, and oddly enough, this is what he’s being paid $400,000 by Cantor Fitzgerald on Wall Street to talk about? This is what Obama chided Congress to have the “courage” to save, this bovine excrement?

And sadly, we have the cacophony of mindless lemmings who truly believe this is working? Obamacare was designed to fail, that was its true objective, and the left truly believed they would win the subsequent presidential election after Barack Obama and then institute a single payer system. They would blame what we’re seeing on those mean ol’ bad insurance companies, and that the only recourse was to have government run fully healthcare — like the Veterans Administration hospital system? No thanks! And if you’ve ever wondered why the liberal progressive left doesn’t rectify the VA system, or even seek any improvements, it’s because that’s their ideal, their dream model. Obamacare was nothing more than a grand expansion of Medicaid, the government healthcare program for those at or below the poverty line. To hear the left claiming “Medicaid for all” should send a frightening chill down our spines.

Now, these health insurance companies are getting their just desserts since they supported this folly back in 2009-2010. They were truly greedy realizing that the government was mandating everyone purchase their product. Furthermore, thanks to the “risk corridor” stipulation in Obamacare, even when faced with financial losses, these insurance companies would be bailed out. However, the health insurance companies didn’t expect Democrats would lose their majorities in the U.S. House and Senate. And therefore, they didn’t get their bailout, and Nancy Pelosi actually had the insidious nerve to blame the Republicans for not granting the bailouts to the health insurance companies — so who is for the “fat cats” of the health insurance industry?

The sad reality is that the House and Senate GOP cannot craft a message and communicate it to the American people to save their lives. They consistently find themselves on defense. It’s the leftist socialist Democrats who should be on defense explaining to the American people how they screwed this up. And we the people should start tuning out the liberal progressive media, which has become the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party, daily doing the Kansas City shuffle, enacting the grand illusion and distraction of the American people.

Insurance premiums will rise again this year, and the next, and many Americans who aren’t receiving healthcare coverage through an employer will be left out in the cold…but Obama will get $400,000 to tell folks how he did such a great job covering all Americans.

It’s a failed philosophy to believe you can treat healthy people like sick ones and charge the healthy to cover the sick. Yes, I had a heart pacemaker implanted last year March due to a condition called sick sinus syndrome. Many had believed my low heart rate — 38-42 beats per minute — was due to my physical fitness regimen. However, when a 24-hour Holter monitor test revealed that my heart rate was dropping into the 20s overnight, and that my heart actually stopped six times in a 24-hour period for two to three seconds, there was only one resolution, a pacemaker. I wasn’t aware of that condition, but had the insurance to pay for the procedure and was financially able to cover my deductible, which was high.

I do have a health savings account (HSA) to cover my routine medical procedures, like check-ups. Americans should have options available to find affordable healthcare coverage, but Obamacare isn’t protecting patients nor is it affordable. It was all a deception and it does need to be fully repealed, not repaired, revised, or rejuvenated and replaced with a common sense patient oriented system that incentivizes healthy living, prioritizes care for those with a pre-existing condition (which by Obamacare numbers appears to be less than 250,000 people), and with a stronger economy, move people out of Medicaid but enable them to deduct healthcare insurance expenses as a tax credit.

I know there are those who are just “stuck on stupid,” but the facts speak for themselves. As liberal Democrat Senator Daniel Patrick Monyihan once said, ” You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”

The fact is, Obamacare is in a death spiral, and only an ignorant mindless lemming would disagree.

[Learn more about Allen West’s vision for this nation in his book Guardian of the Republic: An American Ronin’s Journey to Faith, Family and Freedom]