…and so Obamacare proves to be every bit the calamity the Republican Party said it would be. Turns out that we are very happy with our “substandard” health care, and would rather have our own definition of what we need or don’t need rather than having Washington force us into cookie-cutter plans from on high.
Of course, the health insurance industry (who helped write the ACA) is already sounding the alarm bells…
Insurance companies already have devised plans for next year, received the necessary approval from states and begun to sell policies. They aren’t required to continue to offer their existing policies and state insurance commissioners aren’t required to approve those 2013 plans.
“Changing the rules after health plans have already met the requirements of the law could destabilize the market and result in higher premiums for consumers,” Karen Ignagni, the president and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans, which represents the industry.
Translation: We really thought we were sloughing off all the losers to the government, so please American people — take the hot potato back.
That’s what this really is all about. Americans who can’t afford premium health insurance are being tossed back and forth by the health care industry that doesn’t want them and a government that is finding out that getting in the health care business is a lot more difficult than it seems.
Nevertheless, Republicans in Congress — not content with grabbing a cup of coffee and watching Obamacare drown — are more than happy to pitch in and rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic:
The Republican-led House of Representatives and Democratic-controlled Senate are considering bills that would allow people to keep their plans. The House will vote Friday on legislation that would let new customers buy existing policies, not just current customers. The White House says the House bill goes too far, but some frustrated Democrats, many of whom face tough re-election campaigns next year, say Obama hasn’t done enough to fix the problems.
“I am highly skeptical that they can do this administratively,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio said at a news conference. “There is no way to fix this.”
In spite of the anxieties of some Democrats in the Senate and House, the party’s House leadership circled the wagons Thursday, offering to help fix the law’s problems but making no apologies for them.
“Our members were pleased with the president’s statement today,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Pro-tip, fellas. Let it fail.
Charles Krauthammer expertly explains why, both on a political front:
As the only socially transformational legislation in modern American history to be enacted on a straight party-line vote, Obamacare is wholly owned by the Democrats. Its unraveling would catastrophically undermine their underlying ideology of ever-expansive central government providing cradle-to-grave care for an ever-grateful citizenry.
For four years, this debate has been theoretical. Now it’s real. And for Democrats, it’s a disaster.
…and as a matter of policy:
The essence of the entitlement state is government giving away free stuff. Hence Obamacare would provide insurance for 30 million uninsured, while giving everybody tons of free medical services — without adding “one dime to our deficits,” promised Obama.
This being inherently impossible, there had to be a catch. Now we know it: hidden subsidies. Toss millions of the insured off their plans and onto the Obamacare “exchanges,” where they would be forced into more expensive insurance packed with coverage they don’t want and don’t need — so that the overcharge can be used to subsidize others.
The reaction to the incompetence, arrogance and deception has ranged from ridicule to anger. But more is in jeopardy than just panicked congressional Democrats. This is the signature legislative achievement of the Obama presidency, the embodiment of his new entitlement-state liberalism. If Obamacare goes down, there will be little left of its underlying ideology.
Perhaps it won’t go down. Perhaps the Web portal hums beautifully on Nov. 30. Perhaps they’ll find a way to restore the canceled policies without wrecking the financial underpinning of the exchanges.
Read the entire Krauthammer column here. If there’s one article to read explaining the crisis, and this is indeed a crisis for the Democratic Party, then this is one they owned — and bleating to Republicans to fix their mistakes rings hollow at this stage, since they themselves have argued time and time again that Republicans needed to “get out of the way” and “the law is settled” on the matter. Great… now they have their wish.
From a political perspective, how bad is this? Well, it almost upended a 10 point lead from Terry McAuliffe in Virginia. Republicans and independents both recognize the problem for what it is, and when you have congressional candidates openly question the constitutionality of the program, well…
That ain’t good.
From a policy perspective, how does Obamacare get fixed? On that, it’s complicated. Private health insurers have been raising rates 8-10% every year since Obamacare was passed in preparation for the rollout. Would costs come back down to earth? Doubtful… people are willing to pay incredible amounts in order to insure their health (inelastic demand, folks?), so without a ceiling costs can expect to rise until serious competition comes into play. A single-payer government floor might do the trick, but clearly it is failing to do this now.
Places to start? Here’s a few:
(1) Fix TRICARE. The military healthcare system is about as close to socialized medicine as you’re going to get. Before imposing single-payer on the rest of the nation, why not fix it for our soldiers and airmen first?
(2) Medicaid and Medicare expansion is not the backdoor to single-payer. This must be abandoned, if for no other reason than it is the wrong way to fix the wrong problem.
(3) Allow the government to scale back the ACA to provide some sort of single-payer catastrophic insurance, or mandate that all health care plans offer some sort of catastrophic baseline coverage. No one should go bankrupt for want of basic medical care. No — we’re not talking about plastic surgery or transgenders or quadruple bypass surgery for the morbidly obese… we’re talking about prescription drugs and basic medical care. The stuff nurses could do; the stuff a pharmacist can fill out.
(4) Fix the damn patent system already. ‘Nuff said. There’s a reason why drugs are so expensive, and it has nothing to do with greed. It has everything to do with the recuperation of cost.
(5) Tort reform. Yes yes, I know that it’s a fraction of the cost and really won’t fix anything… but if you’re a doctor or health care practitioner, this is always a nibbling concern.
(6) Make sure that any comprehensive health care fix involve the restructuring of Medicaid and Medicare. Great system for those who use it, but it’s bankrupting the nation. No, we don’t need European-style single payer systems… but we do need to clamp down on entitlement costs. There are better ways to skin this cat rather than throwing money at it and cramming Americans into a health care program few want and fewer need. Making the entitlement system solvent by involuntarily taxing (in the eyes of the Supreme Court) Americans to do so? Absurd.
(7) STRIP OUT EVERYTHING THAT IMPINGES UPON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. Non-negotiable here. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) which lobbied for Obamacare was in turn horrified to find out about the abortion surcharge. Strip it out or make it voluntary, but don’t force me to violate my rights of conscience and religious freedom.
Now — would you like a dose of common sense from the other side of the aisle? Watch this:
Now… I ask you. What’s driving cost?
Silos — that’s what. You’ll pay… so an alliance of government and business orchestrates the schematic. Any small reason why corporatism requires socialism in order to survive? Or why socialism requires corporations to subsist? So goes the politics of left and right in America.
Have fun with that.
…and that’s why Obamacare deserves to fail. Not because it’s the Democrats fault (though it is), and not because it’s bad policy (it is), and not because it’s an unholy alliance between corporatism and socialism (it most certainly is). It’s because it doesn’t even come close to resolving health care issues in America — it just props up an inefficient system with more inefficiency, making the collapse when it happens that much more catastrophic. Health care will require a massive, multi-party conversation about what it will require to repair the system while allowing the free market to systemically reform what isn’t working while allowing the government to maintain basic thresholds and standards for operating within that marketplace — and it really is that simple in theory; complicated in practice.
Seriously… watch the video above. The best eight minutes you will spend all day.
