Death Strikes the Free Market!
July 2017
Republicans are making a major error in the realm of Healthcare, and they may not come back from it.
Mighty Mitch McConnell’s health bill is unlikely to pass at this point. Paul Ryan’s House bill has been vilified by the media with little pushback from House Republicans. So far, it appears President Trump will not sign a repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
Due to pure deceit by Moderate Republicans, many of whom resist future decreases in Medicaid spending (which increase every year anyway), the GOP has traveled the worst political road they possibly could have. Republicans talked about healthcare and are not creating a real vision for reforming a sector that involves roughly one fifth of the economy.
Healthcare debates have always been dangerous. Democrats created Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s and faced steep losses on the Presidential level for twenty years after that. As soon as the Donkey Party gained some steam again in 1992, they immediately attempted a government takeover of the Healthcare system (AKA HillaryCare). The disastrous effort resulted in the Democratic Party’s loss of congressional control for the first time in over four decades.
Also, as a sidenote: Republicans have rarely attempted to cut back on health programs, and when they do, facing hell is quite the understatement.
By 2008, reignited by the massive blue wave that crashed over America, Democrats thought they had another chance to nationalize healthcare. While progressives failed in their single-payer endeavor of fantasy, party leadership did produce Obamacare. The thousand page plus bill restricts free market healthcare to the point that many Americans either lose coverage or have no marketplace to obtain the plans they wish to purchase. Millions of other people, meanwhile, are handed new insurance subsidies and Medicaid (in real language: new welfare).
The destruction of the free market place in healthcare has been a slow crawl, but the process is nearly complete. Democrats made private health insurance expensive and ineffective so that average joes blame big insurers for their 10,000 dollar deductibles. Public anger towards insurance companies instead of the government is the genius of Obamacare.
Without a full, immediate repeal of the Act, America will have nationalized health care soon. Republicans, at this moment, are losing the debate by eons. According to most polling, more people favor Obamacare than ever before. The public dislike the GOP Health Plan (whatever that even means anymore). Most important of all, though: most Americans now feel that the government must provide healthcare to all. A change in worldview at such a broad, societal level is unlikely to swing back in the capitalists’ direction. Entitlement culture seeps deep into the mind, like a drug really, once presented to the people.
Republicans prove themselves incapable of passing legislation that their voters wanted. Americans wanted a repeal of ACA because they yearned for good health insurance again. Sadly, I think the chance of that happening again is slim to none.
Without a full repeal of Obamacare, no opportunity exists for a thriving free market in America again. As Congresswoman Michele Bachmann pointed out many times during her 2012 run for President, Obamacare “is the crown jewel of socialism.”
I must admit, after 2012, I thought universal healthcare was a done deal. Then, we had the biggest electoral upset in modern history! My dormant hopes arose. Once again, though, RINOs have let us down. Sad!
Buddy Walker
buddysays.net
