Obamacare is an illustration of the fact that there is no “little bit” when it comes to healthcare reform. Either we have a single-payer expansion the likes of Medicare for the whole thing, or we get rid of all federally subsidized health insurance. Why? Because when you have a “little bit” it worsens the impact of the other side on consumer choice, expense and access independently of whether you’re for or against.
It’s not just that Obamacare created an entitlement group, (those employees eligible by income for Federal payments of some or all of premiums and/or other costs associated with health insurance plans,} it’s what impact it has on everyone else outside of the entitlement who largely are facing higher costs and fewer choices in order to sustain payments to the entitled individuals.
But the key here is to notice that Obamacare is merely the latest, not the first or the only Federal entitlement program for health insurance. Medicare and Veterans Benefits are the two most significant examples of such programs. Obamacare merely added another one, less defined than an identified group of individuals such as the aged or Veterans. But Obamacare is also an indictment of Republican demands for reform that intend to erase the entitlements of Medicare and Obamacare and maintain those for Veterans and other Federal employees.
Repealing Obamacare will remove this latest entitlement and its expenses, but it will no more solve the health insurance quandary in this country any more than retaining Obamacare will because Republicans too have carved out niches for exceptions to entitlement reform, most notably Veterans Benefits and in the case of Republican legislators and Federal employees, you don’t hear much about that particular exception being part of the Republican plan.
A “little bit” of health reform is not possible in our current system because a new exploitation, defined as an action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work,” is created somewhere else.
For Obamacare, the continuous raid of middle class pockets via raising the threshold required for health expense deductions, raising the payroll tax, and the overall increase in cost and decrease in some choices provided under former healthcare plans is the direct result of Obamacare.
Simply because the Act does not spell out its intention to screw one member of society to pay for benefits for another is not an excuse.
As the President takes on his “fairness” approach to legislation from energy to immigration, it’s time after years of experience with his style that citizens look closely at who’s expense the President is changing things to be “fair.”
If young people had realized that they were key to Obamacare in order to exploit their good health by forcing them to purchase health insurance that is more expensive under Obamacare or face a penalty in order to balance out money collected from young and healthy to support others, many of them might not have been persuaded that the policy was so “fair” after all.
The same goes with Republican claims regarding policies they want to change, they must show evidence that they are willing to change those policies for everyone.
The President has earned his currently low approval ratings. But the Republicans own their continued failure through their years-long promises of change that quite frankly terrify the American people. Without a clear rejection of extremist policies, the Democrats will continue to push the envelope and will likely continue to prevail no matter how low approval goes because nationally, even now, the Republicans just seem like a scarier choice.
