If you didn't see the Democratic debate of January 2016 you can watch it on YouTube. The message I heard from Hillary Clinton was that she would continue as Obama if elected. Answer after answer she dropped the President's name and policies as correct and for those of us in the former middle class, it's terrifying.
In response to Bernie Sanders' concept of healthcare reform she touted the greatness of Obamacare and that for issues like health insurance still being unaffordable for millions of Americans she blandly noted that government could take a look at the problems. Bernie Sanders and his healthcare reform ideas were equally terrifying promising higher taxes but that we'd save $5,000 on premiums, doubling the amount but make no mistake, repeating Obama's false promises of savings of $2,500.
And Republicans are no better. This week with the reemergence of Sarah Palin, Donald Trump began the slow descent into going backwards as well, resurrecting an alliance with Sarah Palin who epitomizes the "wrong direction" for many moderates, like me. On top of Paul Ryan's relentless presence and authority, Palin's re-emergence is worrisome to those of us who have read policies that basically cut loose citizens from any government benefit whether they paid in or not unless they're veterans, big business, or members of the political class.
The issue for me isn't whether government can do something but what government chooses to do. The big divide I see is the government class and its goals versus non-government class citizen goals.
After Obama's heavy-handed policies oftentimes contradicting the direction the American public supports, I was looking for a potential shift in the government class that showed an awareness that we're paying them and they are supposed to represent the American people, doing FOR rather than TO us. Neither side shows any promise of fulfilling this idealistic goal.
This election season gives us the gift of free time--freedom from watching the rehashing and petty arguments about who is the biggest liar because it's the same old thing--elect Obama or elect a Trump-Palin combo.
There are issues that matter to our lives when it comes to healthcare:
1) How can we undo the calculations change, the "new" math, used by the Congressional Budget Office that changed how we measure the costs of Obamacare to include only how much is spent on individuals rather than examining how much is spent by government on government infrastructure to administer a program that has saved money only on what it spends on individuals whose benefits include a government contribution component rather than saving money overall? This is something government can do--calculate those costs, those impacts on other programs that it has excused itself from calculating.
2) How can we change the option for CMS to arbitrarily and continually raise the out-of-pocket maximum each year to instead reflect the reality that our wages are stagnant based on every truthful report that has come out of research firms instead? Government can do this, the same way Social Security COLA (cost of living adjustments) were done away with this year by the government (though government did give itself and its employees a raise effective 1/1/2016).
3) How can we close the government employee loophole that has worked as an exemption from Obamacare rules by classifying the government as an "employer" of the government class meaning that our tax dollars pay 72 to 75 percent of government employee premiums regardless of whether individuals' pay would justify such a contribution under Obamacare premium assistance and cost-sharing rules? Government can do this but it hasn't.
4) How can we demand that the Federal government pursue and exercise clawback provisions and authority it has under the Affordable Care Act for amounts mis-paid or overpaid instead of being too lazy and instead enacting rules that those overpayments and mis-payments will be forgiven? Government can do this, but it hasn't.
5) How can we demand that individuals who report health insurance fraud that leads to the recovery of sums receive cash payments in the amount of a percentage of the recovery to incentivize health insurance fraud reporting similarly to how insider whistleblowers are rewarded? Government (and private health insurance companies) can do this but haven't.
Republicans and Democrats are of the new style government class using our money for their benefits rather than for the benefits of the American population as a whole and that's why their "vision" ignores the very people who put them in office. Without promises for change in that entitled class it's more of the same old thing because government is working for them not us, and Hillary's transformation into an Obama sycophant and Trump's embrace of Sarah Palin are the same old thing and it's not good for citizens.
