Regret and Obamacare go hand-in-hand for many consumers duped by what the law actually does. We were left unaided by the laziness of opponents unable to read and articulate the law’s pitfalls to a misinformed electorate (yeah, Republicans messed this up pretending that they could ignore Obamacare rather than intelligently argue against it).
I get it, Obamacare feels like a cheat to many consumers. We realized early on that in order to pass something the biggest promises of Obamacare were dropped (eg public option, savings for all). Other broken promises took time to come to light like letting the medical expense deduction return to amounts in excess of 10 percent instead of 7.5 percent, raising the payroll tax, and double digit increases in premium costs combined with less coverage for millions NOT part of the Obamacare subsidized insured group.
BUT…when I read that McConnell and Boehner on day one, 11/5/2014, wrote into, “The Wall Street Journal,” in their letter entitled, “Now We Can Get Congress Going,” that they were “…renewing our commitment to repeal ObamaCare,” http://online.wsj.com/articles/john-boehner-and-mitch-mcconnell-now-we-can-get-congress-going-1415232759, I was amazed at the Obama-esque arrogance of Republican leadership.
Gone is the saner moment of April 2014 when Boehner said that “simply repealing the Affordable Care Act ‘isn’t the answer,’” Roll Call, http://www.rollcall.com/news/218_boehner_too_late_to_just_repeal_obamacare_gop_should_tackle_immigration-232397-1.html.
It’s not that the law is good, it’s not. But the move is impractical because to unravel the system will take time and expense. Then there’s the real problem, the Republican plan is worse for consumers.
As I discussed on 1/20/2014, http://conoutofconsumer.blogspot.com/2014/01/democrats-bad-republicans-worse.html, the Republican “plan,” which you can read at Tom Price's proposed legislation (R Georgia)the, "Empowering Patients First Act, HR 2300," which you can view at http://tomprice.house.gov/sites/tomprice.house.gov/files/HR%202300%20Section%20by%20Section.pdf, perpetuates federal subsidy entitlements, excludes from funding and qualification any plan that subsidizes abortion, seeks to have people opt out of Medicare and Medicaid through tax credits to purchase their own private plan, advocates high-risk pools for pre-existing conditions and the reinstatement of lifetime limits, ALL bad for consumers as a whole group.
It’s laziness and greed chapter two and I believe that if Republicans cannot use their 40-hour week to modify provisions of Obamacare that put consumers in financial and physical peril rather than propose that the repeal of Obamacare is their contribution to addressing the country’s financial woes then we’ll all be grateful for the opportunity to change our votes again.
