Great societal calamities occur when people confuse “It would be great if” with “the taxpayer must provide and the government must enforce”
Dear Grand Ol’ Party, aka the Republican Party, aka You Incomprehensibly Deaf, Dumb, and Gutless Wonders.
Maybe you didn’t hear us, the American people. Maybe the Tea Party wasn’t loud enough for you. Maybe your mid-term victories, majority state legislatures, majority governorships, and 2016 national referendum weren’t enough.
Since 2010, when Obamacare passed, we’ve heard nothing but bluster about repealing it. In the years since, on Mark Levin’s radio show, our great and glorious Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (then Chairman of the House Ways and Means and Budget Committees) claimed we could do away with roughly 85% of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) through budget reconciliation. It seemed so easy.
It never happened.
We’ve always wondered if the Republicans supported Obamacare, and now we have definitive proof. The American Health Care Act is Obamacare. I won’t bother with the “Lite.”
Don’t misunderstand. They threw in enough table scraps to appease the uninformed:
• They repealed the tax on over the counter medications
• They struck the individual and employer mandate
• The repealed the medical device tax
• They repealed the Medicaid expansion
• They repealed the Tanning Tax
But they left in pre-existing conditions, put greater burden on state budgets to subsidize high-risk pools, and let health insurance companies penalize individuals who let their insurance lapse. What was I saying about the individual mandate?
At Conservative Review, Daniel Horowitz has more (emphasis mine),
On page 37 of the draft legislation released by the Committee on Ways and Means, the bill calls for the use of the same verification methods as spelled out in sections 1411 and 1412 of … Obamacare!
Obamacare was based on verification provisions passed in the Democrats’ 2009 SCHIP bill, which required verification of citizenship but NOT identity. During the Obamacare debate, our side constantly said using the SCHIP provisions would encourage identity fraud and could qualify illegal immigrants for subsidies.
However, this bill would make the situation even worse than Obamacare. Although Obamacare didn’t require photo ID and fingerprints to verify identity, it did harness the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database. Thus, officials were at least able to check immigration status against Social Security numbers.
Would it be great if everyone could have a home? Yes.
Would it be great if everyone could have a car? Yes.
Would it be great if no one was poor? Yes.
Would it be great if no one was hungry? Yes.
And would it be great if everyone had good healthcare? Yes.
Since we all agree these things and more are the ideal, why, Republicans, do you consistently rely on the one thing proven to fail at providing them? For those of you too stupid to understand, I mean government.
Here’s how we repeal Obamacare:
“We of the 115th Congress hereby repeal the entirety of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (“PPACA”; Public Law 111-148) and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (“HCERA”; Public Law 111-152) enacted and voted into law by the 111th Congress, 2nd Session, and signed into law by then President Barack Obama March 23, 2010.
If you need an example of how medical costs have dropped dramatically due to the free market, look no further than plastic surgery, or even when prices are publicly displayed. The free market is not perfect, but it’s the most perfect system known to man.
Let the free market give people the healthcare they want and need, at a truly affordable price.
You unmitigated cowards.
photo credit: Gage Skidmore Paul Ryan via photopin (license)
