Republican legislators promised they would kill Obamacare. The public tried the Affordable Care Act. We tried it and now that we’ve seen it, we don’t like what’s in it. We don’t want the government in our doctor’s office any more than we want bureaucrats in our bedroom or our schoolroom. Voters felt so strongly about Obamacare that they dumped the Socialist majority in the House, the Senate, and in the Oval Office. We elected Republicans to leave us alone, but now they can’t do it. Republican politicians went back on their word. The reasons are simple and easy to understand. Greed and bureaucracy make it hard to do the right thing in DC.
The problem runs deep. Obamacare denied a generation of young people their first job. Obamacare mandated health insurance for every full time job. Obamacare increased the unemployment rate as it priced a generation out of the job market. The price of medical care went up sharply. As any economist could have told you, we have about the same number uninsured now as we did then. Unfortunately, most of them are also unemployed. There is no end of reasons to kill the A.C.A., so why do we still have it?
The short answer is greed. The business of government is to concentrate benefits in a few hands and to widely distribute the costs. You won’t make a huge political donation if every citizen is saved ten dollars. You can bet there will be huge political donations when a single large healthcare insurer gets three billion dollars from the US government. That is how politicians stay in office. Now it is Congressman Paul Ryan’s turn at the feeding trough. The Speaker of the House wants to receive those government kickbacks and donations from third party political action funds. Distributing those dollars is how Ryan intends to maintain his office as Speaker. That corrupt process isn’t as easy as it sounds.
Doing anything in Washington is hard. Legislative rules let many politicians kill a bill. Bills are assigned to several committees in the House and the Senate. The chairmen of those committees has a chance to kill the bill. Each chairman wants to know how he benefits by killing Obamacare.
This isn’t a fault of government. It is a feature. Government is designed to operate that way. Just as the economy is designed to deliver cheap goods to your door, government is designed to deliver expensive deals to a few powerful individuals. If you want to live your own lives, then you have to limit government power.
Government is designed to concentrate power into the hands of a few politicians and businesses. The more concentrated the better. That way those few businesses have the largest incentive to fund a few politicians. Those politicians have the largest incentive to continue huge government programs.
That is the business of DC. Health insurance is an inconsequential byproduct.
photo credit: Gage Skidmore Paul Ryan via photopin (license)
