ObamaCare Still Sucks

Another day, another deluge of stories....

An LA Times reporter tries to debunk his own paper's story about an individual having to pay more for insurance and...fails.

One estimate says 129 million people aren't going to be able to keep the health care plan they have.

Heritage estimates 1.5 million people have already lost their policy.

This last group is something we talked about on the podcast last night (it should be up tomorrow morning with special guest Mary Katherine Ham). The question was will the failure of ObamaCare finally discredit big-government liberalism. Not surprisingly, I am less than optimistic about that notion and the people losing their policies by the end of the year are why.

This is a large and growing group of people who did nothing wrong. They are the responsible ones who paid exorbitant prices to get their policies without employer or government help. As Ace pointed out they are also the people who helped keep the cost of care (as opposed to coverage) down because they often had high deductible policies so they used medical services sparingly and shopped around. And now they are essentially the innocent victims of ObamaCare.

Yesterday Sebelius said the exchange site would be up and working by December 1. That means if you have coverage now that is being cancelled on January 1, you have to have new coverage in place by December 15th of this year (there's usually a 2-4 week delay between buying coverage and when it kicks in). That means millions of people are going to flood the system just to keep something near what they have. Imagine the panic if you have an ongoing medical condition and your policy is about to be cancelled and you simply can't buy a new one anywhere at the moment. And if you can buy a policy at some point, there's no guarantee that come January 1, your doctor will be able to keep you as a patient. So in the middle of dealing with an illness you have to not only find a new policy but also a doctor and hope you can get in to see them ASAP to get continuing care. That must be terrifying.

So how does this relate to the discrediting of progressivism and Democrats?

To date the GOP has kept ObamaCare at a distance and the blame should fall to the Democrats but faced with these innocent bystanders being hurt, the GOP is going to be under great pressure To Do Something! And quite frankly, it's not going to be an unreasonable demand.

Now I'm not sure there's anything that can be done at this point. You can't just wave a magic wand and undo all the cancellations or make everything work smoothly come January 1.

In that case we may see the GOP get blamed for not doing something to help or people just get fed up and say a pox on both their houses. Of course the GOP might find something they can do but then they "own" ObamaCare too and the rest of the failings that go along with it.

To discredit the progressive project you need a clear distinction between it and the alternative. I'm not sure the GOP (through no fault of its own) will be able to provide that if it has to get involved in "fixing" ObamaCare.

I've occasionally been tough on the GOP (no, it's true) but I don't know how they stand by and watch millions of hard working Americans get screwed like this and do nothing. And let's be honest, some of these people are going to die because of Obama's lies and quest for power. Can you really give the GOP grief if they try and protect these people? Even if it means a lousy political outcome for them and the country. It's a brutal situation to be in.

In someways having the GOP have just enough power (control of the House) to take some of the blame but not enough to actually do anything will prove to be the best thing that happened to Obama. In the long run, it will likely be terrible for the country.

Keep something in mind: This isn't an accident, it was their plan all along.

Want the truth about health care reform? Listen to Ezra Klein, when he thought no one was paying attention. http://t.co/zeV0jlQOc9

— Morgen (@morgenr) October 31, 2013

That a few eggs have to be broken to make their socialist omelet is a small price to pay.

posted by DrewM. at 12:25 PM

| Access Comments