Nearly 7 years ago Obamacare was forced on the American people by the Democrat Party. The hostile takeover of one third of our economy has been a dream of the left since Harris Wofford made health care a key issue in his improbable victory for a US Senate seat in the 1991 Pennsylvania special election. Paul Begala and James Carville were key consultants on that race, and the lessons they learned there were carried into Bill Clinton’s 1992 Presidential campaign.
When Democrats pushed this bill through I remember talking to my wife, telling her that once this went into effect it would be nearly impossible to get rid of. The longer people lived under these rules, the more people started receiving subsidies, the more people would begin to see this as an “entitlement.” Once those kinds of roots take hold, it would become nearly impossible to rip out this legislative weed. Time is always on the side of Big Government. The Democrats know this, which is why they rammed this through no matter how many seats it cost them in the short term.
This year is the first chance the Republican party has realistically had to end the nightmare of Obamacare once and for all. For years they have made its repeal a rallying cry, asking us to overlook their flaws and their failures in other areas like tax reform and budget control. They promised us that once they finally controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House, we would finally see an end to Obamacare. Unfortunately, even though we are mere weeks into obtaining that control, Republicans in Washington are already backing away from their promise.
First we heard that a repeal would come quickly, but its effects would be delayed for anywhere from 2 to 4 years. This would mean that people would still have to live under Obamacare for the next 4 years, even though it had been repealed. More recently, the focus has been on a “repeal and replace” strategy, but early drafts were shown to be simply watered down versions of Obamacare, full of the same type of mandates and subsidies that made the original such a failure. It’s gotten so bad that the House leadership has taken to keeping the new draft for a replacement plan under lock and key. We are stepping dangerously close to the “you have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it” level of deception that was used by Democrats for the original Obamacare.
What seems to be happening on Capitol Hill is the convergence of two flawed premises. The first premise is this idea that Obamacare needs to be “replaced.” It gives in to the same mentality that the new insurance and coverage mandates and subsidies it created have indeed taken on the mantle of an “entitlement” to the American people.
In all the talk about people who may lose health insurance if Obamacare’s subsidies are repealed, we forget about the millions of people who lost their health insurance when Obamacare went into effect. We forget about all the people who lost their jobs when companies cut staff to get under the 50 employee threshold for requiring health insurance coverage. We forget about the people who got switched from full-time to part-time, and all the people who had their part-time hours cut, again so companies could get under the threshold for providing health insurance. We’re forgetting about skyrocketing premiums heaped on top of skyrocketing deductibles because of taxes on “Cadillac Coverage” plans, and mandated minimum benefits.
The old system before Obamacare may have had its flaws, but it was better than what we have now by orders of magnitude. Demanding that we replace a massive government health care law with ANOTHER massive government health care law assumes that Obamacare actually made things better. It didn’t. It made them a lot worse.
The second flawed premise is this mistaken idea that having health insurance is equal to having health care. Health insurance is a commercial product sold by private companies. Nothing more, nothing less. It only has value because the costs of paying for health and medical services have become so expensive, where a serious illness could spell financial ruin for a family. Where Obamacare failed the American people is that it focused on simply making sure people had health insurance, but it didn’t consider whether or not that insurance was either a quality product, nor a good value. Unfortunately, Republicans are looking to repeat the same mistakes made by the Democrats.
Simply making sure people have health insurance does not mean they are going to get good health care, especially when government regulations make those insurance plans outrageously expensive. If you want to fix the problems in the health care industry, you need to fix the problem of skyrocketing health care costs. That means regulatory reform, tort reform, less government intervention, and more competition. By pushing a big health insurance industry bill, the Republicans are falling into the same trap the Democrats did in trying to manage the symptoms without ever curing the disease.
Every state in the nation requires people to purchase automobile liability insurance in order to drive on the roads. Get caught driving without insurance and you can lose your license. Do you know why nobody throws a fit about being forced to buy car insurance? Because it is affordable with plenty of competition, and the reason it is affordable is because government does not try to micro-manage either the car insurance or the auto repair industry!
The lack of government interference in these industries means that the free market sets the price for these services, not the government. If the government got as heavily involved in the auto insurance industry as they are in the health care industry, we would see the same problems and the same ballooning costs cropping up.
Obamacare was a massive bureaucratic solution in search of a problem that was never intended to FIX health care problems. It was designed to pave the way for a single-payer government controlled health care system. We don’t need a Trumpcare, or a Ryancare, or whatever you want to call the GOP’s proposed “fix” for the health insurance industry.
Just repeal the disaster that is Obamacare and start working on standalone bills that will begin to address the drivers of health care costs.
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[…] for health insurance providers. I provide more details in my previous posts on the subject here and […]
[…] As I mentioned in my last post on this subject, we need to STOP trying to micro-manage the health insurance industry and START working to bring down health care COSTS. Trumpcare does not do any of that. It keeps all of the regulations created by Obamacare and does nothing to start controlling costs. This is the same thing as managing the symptoms without ever trying to cure the disease. […]
[…] As I mentioned in my last post on this subject, we need to STOP trying to micro-manage the health insurance industry and START working to bring down health care COSTS. Trumpcare does not do any of that. It keeps all of the regulations created by Obamacare and does nothing to start controlling costs. This is the same thing as managing the symptoms without ever trying to cure the disease. […]
Republicans in Congress should communicate the principles and benefits of the free market system to the populace which hasn’t seen the free market functioning in our country in a generation. If they would talk about the immorality of taking from some citizens to give to others and how prices are kept low and choices multiply under free market principles I think a lot of those who get the expanded medicaid can be won over. they need to set up a separate non-insurance program for those currently experiencing medical issues like cancer, etc. Those with pre-existing conditions like asthma or diabetes, etc should still be eligible for a high – risk health pool like high risk drivers have to get car insurance. They should take the lead in framing the debate instead of letting the Democrats frame the debate by saying the Republicans are taking away the insurance of the expanded medicaiders.
Why must we pay for others? Believing otherwise is socialism, communism or worse. Why is there any question about this in our freedom-loving commonwealth?
WOW! …. that is a policy analysis straight FROM SATANIC HELL. SATAN – who is a real being – does not care about real human beings, because God chose human beings to convey God’s plan of salvation for the creation.
SATAN is the bitter, jealous, dark-souled ‘spirit’ – created by God, as all things were created – who turned away from God the Creator whose graciousness is stated clearly in the words of Jesus of Nazareth: ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ …. and ‘if you dot no love the ones nearby – your neighbors, your family, and strangers in your land – how can you say that you love God’? THIS policy analysis utterly disregards that real human beings suffer without access to affordable health care. It focused only on ‘affordable’ but doesn’t not even define what ‘affordable’ would be: is a $250,000′ spine surgery affordable? to whom? how? not to mention millions over a lifetime of maintenance treatments and medications for very complex illnesses? is a $1,000 for a couple days in a hospital affordable? to whom? how? what about a monthly prescription of $250?
MAGA seems to be the SATANIC WITCHERY CHANT of millions of new recruits in SATANIC ARMIES …. if they mean such stupid and evil things as this:
QUOTE from article:
The old system before Obamacare may have had its flaws, but it was better than what we have now by orders of magnitude.
OH REALLY?! have you talked with the millions who have access to care when they did not previously? Or don’t you care? SATAN, and SATAN’s armies, of course, do NOT care. Because they are bitter, jealous, dark-souled rebels against the God who says/commands: ‘love your neighbor as yourself’.
Come to think of it: are many of the MAGA chanters ‘bitter’? ‘jealous’? ‘dark-souled’? WATCH out?! SATAN is real, Satan’s demons are real, and they can possess human person who welcome them in through the doors of anger, bitterness, jealous, and other evil emotions: [ the Genesis account in the Hebrew Scriptures] “The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.”
The angry, bitter, jealous, and dark-souled – are like Cain – inviting SATAN in. SATAN will quickly become their master. Take a good look at each and every MAGA and test their spirit against the Bible. You may find many devils in your midst.
You are absolutely right! Praise Kek.
Who among us believe we can count on our Rep. Barbara Comstock to stand up for full repeal? Just askn’ for a show of hands.
I believe that she will reintroduce the legislation she voted on to repeal over the last 8 years.
I believe a he will honor the words and promises she made in front of every Republican gathering.
I believe she will vehemently oppose and deny Obamacare with a ferocity greater than she displayed supporting our President before and after the election.
Just like so many authors and posters on TBE and BD. Justice is as justice does.
Will Obamacare get repealed before the Dems take over Congress? Not looking good.
Go for it. Pull the rug out completely: Obamacare, Medicare, Medicaid, SSI. Dismantle every social program. Shut down the housing department and the education department. End it all, now, and bar the hospital door to those who cannot pay.
Leave not one program behind. Let your mission surge through your veins. This cannot happen soon enough.
Already you are diddling over campaign promises like ending Obamacare. Pull the trigger. You are lightweights if you cannot see your mission through to its logical conclusion. Why wait?
GREAT post. Should be read by everyone on Capitol Hill.
Typical GOP tripe. Expecting others to pay for what you take. By allowing people to live without paying for healthcare, the costs assoociated with their risks get passed on to everyone else. When they get do get sick or have an accident and then need help, they will get care from ERs while rest of us will have to pay for their uncollectible debts, unpaid bills and bankruptcies. Typical GOP attempt to extend welfare. What ever happened to the American way of taking personal responsibility.
Typical Democrat tripe. Thinking they are smarter than everyone else and trying to impose their will on people. Watching as every new government control makes the problem worse and worse and thinking the solution is still more government control.
Obamacare is a complete and total failure that, left in place, will spell the end of the health insurance industry. Stop screwing around with health insurance and start working to bring down health care costs. Then it doesn’t matter if people have insurance or not.
The problem is that the healthcare/health insurance/drug company lobby has a stranglehold on congress via their checkbook. They are the ones who are writing Trumpcare, they are the ones who wrote Obamacare, not congress. They are the ones who regulated this country into the double digit increases and unaffordable heathcare that gave us Obamacare.They are not about to undue the regulations that make them trillions of dollars. Let’s see if Ryan really does put in purchasing healthcare across state lines. Ashley Madison’s Republican Virginia Senate Leader refused to make it law in Virginia this session with HB2233. Inexcusable.
Congressional staffers are little more than campaign operatives these days, can’t write s–t.
The H industry is not about to give up its greed based, crooked, corrupt, market share. Trumpcare, Obamacare, whatever, we are screwed. The lobbyists are now going to insist on an even larger market share of our money, plus even more printed government money than Obamacare. You see, Obamacare doesn’t give the H industry enough. They want it all.
The way Republicans have run this country in the last six weeks, no doubt the Democrats will be back in charge asap. Obama no doubt spends his time these days laughing his ass off.