The Disaster which is Obama Care is becoming obvious even to the left. Demands that Republicans fix it, delay it or replace it are coming from all quarters. It is not our job to do this and we would be foolish to try.
Any attempt on our part to fix it would put a Republican signature on a bill we rigorously opposed. Subsequently, anything which was to go wrong with Obama Care would be blamed on the Republican fix. I assure you, much will go wrong with Obama Care. Already Republicans in congress are suggesting various ‘fixes’ to the bill. We must avoid this temptation.
Delaying Obama Care only hides the worst aspects of the bill from the voting public. Delay will ensure the reelection of Democrats who voted for Obama Care and will forfeit the best chance we have of taking the Senate. Delay would be to participate in the Democrats’ deception. We must avoid this temptation too.
Replacing it sounds good on the surface, but the people who are calling for replacement will accept nothing but another big government solution. Bowing to this demand will only provide evidence to those who claim there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats. We must surely avoid this temptation.
We must reassert our commitment to individual liberty through smaller government.
Obama Care is long on Obama and short on care. The truth is Obama does not care. Obama Care was designed to fail, wasting the time and financial resources of millions of Americans. The most obvious example of this is Obama’s insistence that the funding for Obama Care will come from young, healthy Americans. Yet simultaneously he insists that young people be allowed to stay on their parents’ insurance until they are 26. Obama and many other Democrats have made little secret that what they really want is a ‘single payer’ system. The only way to get a ‘single payer’ system in America is to separate Americans from their current, working health care coverage.
The effectiveness of Obama Care to do this is already becoming obvious with over 5 million policies canceled in the first month of implementation. Most policies cover more than one person. A conservative estimate is that 5 million policies means at least an additional 15 million people who had insurance will not have any insurance as of January 1. Obama Care was designed, not to provide uninsured people with healthcare coverage as advertised, but to separate people from coverage they already had. Doing this creates an urgent demand to put something in place which covers these people. Reason suggests the government which created the problem should fix it. Enter the single payer plan. The implementation of the employer mandate will see up to 75 million more policy cancelations or roughly another 225 million without health care. Who could have foreseen that? This is not a rhetorical question, but one for a congressional investigating committee. Obama Care was presented fraudulently and should be prosecuted accordingly.
The common refrain, the current talking point, is that people are losing their insurance because it is substandard. Who sets these standards and just what are they? Despite the fancy language about preventive care and “women’s health issues,” the standards are that every geriatric nun and gay priest has to have maternity coverage which includes access to abortion. Getting people to pay into the pool for things they will never need, do not want and object to on moral grounds, provides more money for the people who will want them. It is a simple redistributive scheme.
I do not mean to belabor all that is wrong with Obama Care. You would not have time to read it all anyway. The short version is that it is a redistributive system designed to fail so that people will welcome a single payer plan. The single payer plan will be even more redistributive and will obscure the actual cost of healthcare. Individuals will conclude that healthcare is just too complicated for their unsophisticated brain to comprehend and is best left to experts. I assure you, no greater tyranny has ever been foisted on man than that of well intentioned experts.
What constitutional conservatives need to promote is a free market, consumer/provider based model. It is the same relationship you have with a person you hire to mow your lawn. You pay them for the service they provide. For much of the medical care we receive, treatment for a cold, vaccination or attention for a minor injury, this would be easily handled by the consumer/provider model.
Medical care can become more complicated if one contracts a major disease, experiences a chronic condition, or is involved in major accident. At times like this, health care insurance can be useful. This is a contractual agreement between an insurance company and the consumer. The insurance company, by selling a number of policies to a population, spreads the risk of unplanned medical incidents among all the insured. The result is that each participant pays a little more than the average cost for the group in exchange for the assurance that they will never have to pay the entire cost for such an incident. The little more accounts for the insurance company expenses and a little profit for investors.
In rare cases, the cost of catastrophic medical care can be financially catastrophic as well. In cases like these insurance companies pool resources in an underwriting arrangement. Additionally, Insurance companies have to manage expectations. None of us lives forever and the insurance companies have to write in reasonable limits to which the parties can agree.
In the eyes of the constitutional conservative, is there no role for government in medical care? As in all contractual agreements, the government provides protection against fraud. No one should be canceled because they file a claim. For the consumer, the only point of having insurance is to cover costs in the circumstance a claim has to be filed. Should the government, as a regulator, insist that a person with a catastrophic medical condition be exempted from premium payments during the time he or she is unable to pay because of the medical condition? Perhaps; this will necessarily raise premiums, but it would be a common sense regulation which would create value in the policy provided from which both provider and consumer could benefit.
What about people who cannot afford medical care of any kind at any price? This used to be handled at the local level by “charity hospitals.” Care in such hospitals was usually not at the same level as for profit medical care institutions. But honestly, if there is no difference in the way we experience life if we do or do not provide for ourselves, what is the incentive to be a productive member of society? There are many on the left who would have us believe that there are legions of people who are incapable of providing for their own welfare. But I have to consider people like Stephen Hawking who has ALS, is incapable of using his arms or his legs and is incapable even of speech unaided by a computer, yet he is a world class theoretical physicist and professor. Then there is Nick Vujicic, an Australian born without arms or legs, but travels the world as a motivational speaker and Christian evangelist. Both of these men are self supporting and contribute to the society in which they live. When we assume responsibility for people fully capable of being responsible for themselves, we deprive them of their humanity. People, even those facing daunting challenges, can surprise us and themselves with what they are able to accomplish. Who are we to deprive them of the opportunity?
The problem with the health care industry Obama Care was supposed to address was increasing health care costs. But government was greatly responsible for this rise in costs through onerous regulation and through its unfortunate involvement in the industry through Medicare and Medicaid. The criticism of private industry managing health care is that often its decisions are financial rather than medical. However the intrusion of an entity which makes decisions politically, not medically, is not only no improvement, it is dangerous and unhealthy. True solutions make things better not worse. Portions of Obama Care have been postponed to hide their true disastrous effects. This was a political decision not a medical one. This observation is instructive.
The only acceptable course of action for our elected officials is to drive a silver stake through the heart of Obama Care before it kills or bankrupts us all.
