All we really know for sure regarding Obamacare is that the President staked his candidacy, his re-election, and now ultimately his legacy on “health care reform.” It’s obvious why it’s important for him. But why the devotion to the doctrine of Obamacare by people who have no apparent pay-day or reward from following Obamacare?
As the healthcare law sputters through its fourth year, already having “lowered expectations” for enrollment in 2015 by 30 percent as reported among other places by CNBC.com on 11/10/2014 by Dan Mangan, “Gov't slashes 2015 Obamacare sign-up forecast by 30%,” there is little abatement in the boosters of Obamacare whose strongest arguments revolve around “timing”…Wait and See and “fear,” “If we didn’t have Obamacare things would be worse.”
These two arguments the timing, or wait-and-see argument and the fear-based argument that things-would-be-worse-without-it are faith arguments for we can neither predict the future nor compare how things would have been if we hadn’t bought into Obamacare. The worry is that if Obamacare is your faith, whom have you made your God?
As a faith, Obamacare has run into all the traditional challenges of faith gone wrong, the vicious attacks on those who question, the misinterpretation by zealots, the rigid intolerance of debate or criticism, the marginalizing of non-followers or those who have a different belief, the forced adoption imposed on everyone under the threat of punishment illustrated not only in the upheld individual shared responsibility tax but in the discontinued threat that there would be no money provided to states who did not implement Medicaid expansion (stricken down by the Supreme Court).
In these past few years of forced adoption we’ve seen the stretching of “proof” that Obamacare is working, the claims of miracles…Look how many more people have health insurance because of expanded Medicaid…Not miraculous, offering free health insurance to more people results in more people having health insurance.
The drastic reduction in the number of uninsured…Certainly penalizing non-participation in health insurance and creating new ways for other people to provide health insurance for others (parents carrying kids) or helping people pay for health insurance (premium tax credits)are obvious policies that would encourage more people to have health insurance.
But when those of the Obamacare religion discount the rising evidence, even from the government itself that enrollment counts are inaccurate, that new avenues for fraud have been created (specifically the damning report by the GAO this summer that 11 out of 12 fake applications get verified for premium tax credits, inadequate provider networks, (plans approved by government do not actually meet provider requirements), and that the government warns individuals to shop around and investigate what their coverage is under Obamacare plans since all they talk about is cost which continues to often be based on the tradeoff of coverage, the only ones they hurt are those they’re looking to persuade…citizens because they demand us to suspend reality and subscribe to their religion.
Obamacare was made possible by a deeply worried population experiencing the well-documented shortcomings of the US healthcare system in terms of access to affordable, quality medical services when they needed them and eager to latch onto the false promises of a politician to prevent individuals from being one illness away from financial disaster, saving ALL citizens money in premiums, and improving medical health through the increased availability of health insurance so that they could afford medical care.
But we should not be afraid or belittled for continuing to talk about needed healthcare reform in light of the ample evidence that although Obamacare may have partially addressed some problems it may have perpetuated and worsened others. With this acknowledgment the law can be modified and changed and perhaps even repealed without the polarizing remarks that we will destroy the US healthcare system by either supporting or rejecting Obamacare.
Obamacare is legislation, not religion, and it’s an imperfect product of imperfect people who made an imperfect communication to the American people about how it would impact the healthcare environment in the US.
