In a little-noticed speech to the Iowa Republican Party this month, Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul mocked President Obama's signature health care overhaul, noting the 122,000 new medical diagnostic codes doctors will have to use in order to inform the government about injuries sustained by Americans.

Those codes, said Sen. Paul, a medical doctor himself, include line-items for 'injuries sustained from a turtle,' 'walking into a lamppost' and 'injuries sustained from burning water skis.'

Paul has attracted attention in recent weeks for spending time in the Hawkeye State, because it' will be among the first states to weigh in during the 2016 Republican presidential primary season.

As a video of Paul's remarks surfaced Monday on YouTube , news emerged that a CNN/Opinion Research poll showed 54 percent of Americans don't support Obamacare.

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Barack Obama signed his healthcare legislation on March 23, 2010, clearing the way for the Department of Health and Human Services to write thousands of pages of new regulations

SLOW AND STEADY: Obamacare regulations contain two separate doctor diagnosis codes for injuries sustained from turtles. Were you bitten, or did you collide with this slow creature? Uncle Sam wants to know

The CNN poll , conducted May 17-18, indicates that 43 per cent of the American public supports the health care law, a percentage CNN said was 'mostly unchanged' since the Obamacare law passed through Congress in 2010.

The survey found that 35 per cent oppose the law because they say it's too liberal, and 16 per cent say it's not liberal enough.

Rand Paul clearly sides with the the former group, jabbing the Obama administration and its health bureaucrats who have written a reported 10,000 pages of new regulations to go along with the health care law.

'Your government just wants to take care of you,' he snarked. 'They don't think you're smart enough to make these decisions.'

DANGEROUS OFFENDER: Under Obamacare, says Rand Paul, nine separate doctor diagnoses will govern reporting requirements for telling the feds how this macaw injured you

Sen. Paul mocked Obamacare's regulatory push, saying, 'Your government just wants to take care of you; they don't think you're smart enough to make these decisions'

Paul said physicians typically have to choose from about 18,000 medical diagnostic codes, so that health insurers know why a patient was treated. But Obamacare, he told his audience, will include a mandate for 140,000 of those codes, some of which he said were ridiculous.

'Included among these codes,' he told the Iowa Republicans during a May 10 dinner event, 'will be 312 new codes for injuries from animals; 72 new codes for injuries just from birds; 9 new codes for "injuries from the macaw."'

'The macaw?' Paul asked. 'I've asked physicians all over the country, "Have you ever seen an injury from a macaw?"'

Wiping out and breaking bones are always on a water-skiing beauty's mind, but if her skis catch on fire, at least her doctor will know precisely what to tell the government

California Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi, then the Speaker of the House, beamed as she walked to the House chamber on March 21, 2010 to call a vote on Obamacare

Laughs came when the Kentucky senator added that he has found 'two new injury codes under Obamacare for "injuries sustained from a turtle."'

'Now, you might say, "Well, turtles are dangerous" - but why do you have to have two codes?' Paul mused.



'Your doctor has to inform the government whether you've been struck by a turtle or bitten by a turtle.'

Paul wasn't finished. 'There is a new code for - I see some alcohol out there - walking into a lamppost,' he chuckled. 'There's also a code for "walking into a lamppost, subsequent encounter."' I guess that's if you don't learn.'

And 'there is a code,' he said, 'for "injuries sustained from burning water skis."'

House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (L) presided over the latest in a string of 37 House votes to repeal Obamacare. Unless the U.S. Senate falls under Republican control after the 2014 midterm election, such legislative efforts will remain symbolic

Anti-Obamacare protesters gathered in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on June 25, 2012, shortly before the court ruled that since it amounted to a new tax, the Affordable Care Act passed constitutional muster

Rand Paul isn't the only one on the political right to rail against the president's health care law.

Minnesota GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann, long identified with the conservative tea-party wing of American conservatism, has sponsored repeated bills to repeal Obamacare. The latest attempt - Republicans' 37th such effort - is dead on arrival in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

But Bachmann said during a May 21 broadcast of a Christian radio program that divine intervention would ultimately deliver Senate votes to the Republicans.



'I have renewed confidence that we can see this bill pass in the Senate and I think the president will ultimately be forced to repudiate his own signature piece of legislation, because the American people will demand it,' Bachmann told Focus on the Family founder James Dobson.

'I think before his second term is over,' she added, 'we're going to see a miracle before our eyes.'

'I believe God is going to answer our prayers and we'll be freed from the yoke of Obamacare. ... We serve a mighty God and I believe it can happen."

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS? United Food and Commercial Workers president Joe Hansen (L) and conservative congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R) both oppose Obamacare, but approach it from opposite positions



Sen. Rand Paul worked the 'spin room' after his father, former Texas Rep. Ron Paul, participated in a 2012 New Hampshire Republican presidential primary debate. Speculation is running wild in Washington that the younger Paul will be a White House hopeful in 2016, and showing up in Iowa is fueling the rumors

Obamacare has hit significant hurdles as more Americans - including labor union leaders - grapple with what are likely to be costly regulations beginning next year.

Citing increased health costs for their members, some labor bosses are backing away from the president and his now-famous pledge that, 'If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.'

United Food and Commercial Workers International Union president Joe Hansen wrote in a recent opinion essay that Obama's promise 'is not going to be true for millions of workers now.'