Recall the presidential address that included this promise to avoid disruption:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eePUhLg4eQw[/youtube]
and this fiscal pledge:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCSrP44QgZ4[/youtube]
Those assurances were not trustworthy, and the problems that plague the “Affordable” Care Act are not gone. One is it’s unpopular, since 2009, and remains so today.
Another is the ugly process which produced the law:
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• The bill’s deal-making introduced the terms “Cornhusker Kickback“, “New Louisiana Purchase“, “Gator Aid“, and “Senior Swindle” into the modern political lexicon.
• Obama arguably sold a federal judgeship was to secure House votes.
• Senate Democrats, following Massachusetts’ surprise choice of Scott “I am the 41st vote against Obamacare” Brown to replace Dead Kennedy in the Senate, conspired with then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi to deny Brown a vote on the bill.
• The bill became a 2,700-page tome, with at least one leading Democrat uninterested in knowing much about it before he voted: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACbwND52rrw[/youtube]
• Lingering questions about the bill’s contents drew this, instant classic, response: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV7dDSgbaQ0[/youtube]
• An Executive Order “to ensure that Federal funds are not used for abortion services” under Obamacare, won over anti-abortion Democrats. Later, the Health and Human Services Department issued a contraception coverage mandate that violates the Executive Order.
• Democrats had a 77-seat House majority, but Obamacare passed by only a 7-vote margin on March 21, 2010, without a single Republican vote. No Senate Republicans supported it, either.
Democrats negotiated with themselves to narrowly pass partisan legislation. Consequently, the Democrat Party owns Obamacare, a law that divided Democrats and Republicans (even Democrats and Democrats), conservatives and liberals…and also governance and reason.
Which led to the majority of states, representing the majority of the U.S. population and Electoral College votes, to challenge its constitutionality and a federal judge declared Obamacare’s individual mandate unconstitutional. The Supreme Court reached a similar conclusion, but Chief Justice Roberts determined that the mandate, though disallowed under the Commerce Clause, is permissible as a tax…despite Congress explicitly not labeling the mandate a tax…despite the president’s insistence, pre-passage that it was not a tax…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdgPauuMmJI[/youtube] and the HHS Secretary denying that it is a tax, after the Supreme Court ruled… [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyALwwCGDhE[/youtube]
Obama supporters believe the public will warm to the law once the benefits begin to flow, with one predicting it will be, “just like Medicare,” in ten years. But is that good?
Its Trustees say Medicare will be broke in just over a decade, and each U.S. household needs to pay more than the average price of a new home to address Medicare’s current unfunded liabilities. If it emulates Medicare, then, financially, Obamacare can only fail.
Administratively, Obamacare is a 2,700-page law, with between 13,000 and 33,000 pages of implementing regulations (which are yet being written), none of which have been fully read by anyone. So, with every administration, what the law means will change, not to suit medical realities or patient concerns, but to support political agendas and placate special interest groups. With that level of ambiguity, applied to the scientific and human aspects of medical care, Obamacare can only fail.
Before the Supreme Court ruled, Donald Trump reportedly said:
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“Let me get this straight . . .
We’re going to be “gifted” with a health care plan we are forced to purchase and fined if we don’t! Which purportedly covers at least ten million more people without adding a single new doctor, but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents, written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn’t understand it, passed by a Congress that didn’t read it but exempted themselves from it, and signed by a Dumbo President who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes, for which we’ll be taxed for four years before any benefits take effect, by a government which has already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese , and financed by a country that’s broke!!!!!
What the hell could possibly go wrong?”
Well, one thing is employer reaction to Obamacare. The Obama(care) economy is one of part-time employment. Though some deny Obamacare’s impact, across the country, hundreds of employers have cut jobs and workhours, because of the law.
Another thing is people choosing the new, less expensive, tax penalty over the new, more expensive, health insurance premiums. Once the 18 to 34 crowd, which must sign up in droves for Obamacare not to implode, fully understands that reality, how can this work? By the way, that is how Democrats wrote the law…that they refuse to change…fascinating!
Then there is the implementation. After declaring the website to sign up for the federal exchanges ready to go, it clearly was not, and still is not. This led to 36,000 signups…out of 9.47 million unique visitors, a sign up rate of 0.4%. However, these figures do not come from the administration, which claims not to know:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqcaV3xA0Rw[/youtube] While the Treasury Secretary might be excused for this, the Secretary of Health and Human Services should know…but says she does not. Is anyone buying this?
Now, after 3-plus years, and $400 Million for a website, the president wants people to get health insurance by phone, as though the traffic that chokes a government website would not swamp a government switchboard…as though the amount of traffic is really the problem. And all the while, the administration denies, deflects, and uses many words to say nothing about what has gone wrong.
Which raises the question. When a law:
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• Costs three times more than advertised,
• Was enacted by only one political party,
• Emulates another government financial debacle,
• Defies consistent administration or interpretation,
• Requires people act against their economic self-interest,
• Reduces jobs and workhours,
• Is changed, unilaterally and unconstitutionally, by a president, to the people’s disadvantage,
• Remains unpopular, since the day it passed,
• Has an incompetent implementation mechanism, and
• Those responsible refuse to explain what happened, why it happened, or even what is happening….
When that thing fails (and fail it will…in the direction of a single payer system), does anyone really believe it is accidental?
