Dislodging Obamacare

LA Times ^ | November 30, 2012 | Michaek F. Cannon (Cato Institute)

[CutePuppy]

Republicans believed a Mitt Romney win would seal Obamacare's fate. Democrats - or rather, the lonely two-fifths of Americans who support the president's beleaguered healthcare law - believed an Obama win would secure its future. Both sides were kidding themselves.

Romney may have pledged to repeal the law, but his positions on Obamacare had the life span of a rainbow. He supported an identical law when he got the credit for signing it as governor of Massachusetts. He then opposed Obamacare when that's what GOP primary voters wanted to hear, and later endorsed parts of it when he thought that's what moderate voters wanted to hear. Anyone who put stock in Romney's pledge to fight for repeal simply wasn't paying attention.

Democrats are likewise deluding themselves if they think the law is safe because Obama wields the veto pen. The greatest threat to Obamacare was never a Romney presidency but Obamacare itself.

The law remains vulnerable because of its unpopularity, the compromises that unpopularity forced on its authors and the Supreme Court's ruling that part of it is unconstitutional. These factors guarantee repeal will remain a viable issue, and - I predict - that the president will ultimately sign a bill making major changes, at the very least.

In its ruling on the healthcare law, the Supreme Court gave states the freedom to decline Obamacare's costly Medicaid expansion. ..... The fact that many states have said they won't implement the expansion will lead to those groups putting pressure on Congress to reopen the law. < snip >

..... Obamacare is unpopular, unsustainable and vulnerable for the same reasons it always has been. It imposes too many costs on too many people and makes healthcare more costly and scarce, not less. It needs to go. That can still happen. .....

[CutePuppy]

The takeaways:
** More than 30 states either have refused to establish the exchanges or are on the way to do so, because there is no benefit in state-created exchange since all exchanges will be controlled by Washington, and there is no constitutionally legal penalty for state not creating the exchange and leaving it to Washington spending the money on more expensive one.

** Also, the IRS cannot legally impose the "penalty tax" in states that didn't "create" the exchanges - this will be litigated and go to SCOTUS again, and if any of the "enforcement mechanisms" fails, the program will be dead of its own weight because enough employers will leave the "Obamacare states" to make it impossible for states to finance. The incentives and subsidies are there only to hide the true costs of the program, but they will be self-evident and subject to "unequal treatment under the law" lawsuits.

** Congress cannot demand that states must create and implement federal program, relying on incentives instead - which may be unconstitutional and don't really offset the costs of the program, with premiums rising significantly, even with subsidies (which are unfunded).

A great companion piece is a must-read author's earlier work, posted in NRO: Obamacare Is Still Vulnerable - NRO, by Michael F. Cannon, 2012 November 09

Selection of Mitt Romney by GOPe as an "electable and credible" Republican "leader" was the obvious "loser pick" in this election cycle and one of the worst ever, and it only served to stop the discussion of and campaigning against the multitude of problems in the still very unpopular ObamaCare - since Romney was the owner of the near-identical RomneyCare in MA, his only objection could be that it was "good for Massachusets" but "not good enough" for the federal government - how is that for a loser argument!

Now, if Republicans are finally ready to ditch Romney as a costly mistake (whose only chance to win was the dreadful record and politics of Obama, because he himself had nothing to offer) and stop making excuses for his "rich white uncaring do-nothing Republicans" campaign "legacy," they can get down to business of dismantling ObamaCare and with it the Democratic machine, piece by piece.

Dems lost in 2004, with John F. Kerry (near-exact Massachusetts clone of Romney, only with "D" after his name) and had nothing to show, not even having control of the House or Senate, yet they learned their mistakes and in 2006 they controlled both and were on the way to greatly expanding it in 2008.

It's a mess Obama and Democrats created on their own, so let's make sure they own it.

[Gene Eric]

Kill the Obamcare fetus before it is born!!!

[Candor7]

Obamacare:

Sing along to the images with:

Walkin in a Winter Wonderland:

*************

Leftists sing, are you listening,

In Bohner’s brain, Reid is pi$$ing

A beautiful sight,

We’re happy tonight.

Walking in Obama’s wonderland.

**********

Gone away is the budget,

All we can do, is try to nudge it

Obama sings a love song,

As we go along,

Walking in Obama’s wonderland.

****************

In the meadow we can build Rice’s snowman,

Then pretend that she is Secretary State

*******************

She’ll say: Are you married?

We’ll say: No man,

But you can do the job

If thats your fate.

*****************

Later on, we’ll conspire,

As we dream by Reichstag fire

To face unafraid,

The treason we’ve made,

Walking in Obama’s wonderland.

********************

In the meadow we can build a snowman,

And pretend that he’s Obama’s clown

We’ll have lots of fun with mister snowman,

Until the Constitution knocks Obama down.

*******************

When in debt, ain’t it thrilling,

Though your wallet gets a chilling

We’ll frolic and play,in the fascist way,

Walking in Obama’s wonderland.

[Truth29]

This analysis doesn’t account for how Obama will try to force states and legislators to submit to his will - things liike denying Federal funds transfers for other programs in specific states, extra Federal regulatory attention to holdout states, attacks on key legislators, etc. The Dems will squeeze indivual states until they comply or go full-out state nullification.

[Graybeard58]

Selection of Mitt Romney by GOPe as an "electable and credible" Republican "leader" was the obvious "loser pick" in this election cycle and one of the worst ever, and it only served to stop the discussion of and campaigning against the multitude of problems in the still very unpopular ObamaCare

Amen, sister or brother, as the case may be.

Now, if Republicans are finally ready to ditch Romney as a costly mistake (whose only chance to win was the dreadful record and politics of Obama, because he himself had nothing to offer)

Ditto!

Romney will now fade away into the sunset, forever - I hope.

[Venturer]

I would like to see Romney not fade away yet.

What I would like to see him do is launch an effort to make sure next time there is little or no voter fraud involved in the election.

Of course he will nat , and next election we will face even more precincts with 148% of the registered voters voting.

[sheikdetailfeather]

Thanks for posting this. This writer is the one to pay attention to on Obamacare as he has been writing some great in-depth articles on its vulnerability.

[miss marmelstein]

I saw Betsy McCaughey on - Cavuto, I think it was - and she said the plan was going to collapse completely.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Their goal now is to drive all the private insurers out of business before the public discovers all the nasty surprises hidden in this bill. Then the alternative of Single Payer can be put forward.

[Graewoulf]

RINO Romney, McConnell File. (Repeal and Revise BS).

[erlayman]

If they are stupid enough to try in the face of huge opposition from conservatives the might of insurance and other health care industries and the difficulty of selling bigger government to Americans that have already been seriously burned by Obamacare.

[SoFloFreeper]

Good article, and does still provide hope that Obamugabe’s damnable law can be made null and void.

We must not stop fighting for liberty, my friends.

CATO and the people therein are a bit more “libertarian” than I would like, but they ARE allies in this fight.

Let’s not give up.

[mosaicwolf]

" "....stop making excuses for his "rich white uncaring do-nothing Republicans" campaign "legacy," they can get down to business of dismantling ObamaCare and with it the Democratic machine, piece by piece.

The Republicans do not have the guts or the smarts to play hard core politics. Time for a third party folks.

[Uncle Miltie]

"supported an identical law when he got the credit for signing it as governor of Massachusetts. He then opposed Obamacare when that's what GOP primary voters wanted to hear"

Which lost him a fraction of the Conservative Base. I had to hold my nose and vote FOR Ryan.

[CutePuppy]

Their goal now is to drive all the private insurers out of business before the public discovers all the nasty surprises hidden in this bill. Then the alternative of Single Payer can be put forward.

That may be the goal, except for the pesky unintended consequences...

They have just mandated the expansion and the higher expense of the coverage by private insurance companies (or get fined by the Big Government) as well as inevitably reduced access to and rationing of actual health care...

So people are already looking at the results of this fiasco and they don't like it...

How, then, providing the alternative of bigger, clearly more expensive and expansive government "insurance," is going to sell to the people who are already discovering the nasty surprises and nasty consequences of Big Government intrusion, which made something they wanted to work better even worse and more expensive... just when the people are starting to discover and understand that the government is broke and can't afford anything on the scale of Single Payer plan unless it takes even more money from them and restricts even more care.

Before, people had no idea of what it would take and cost to provide the "alternative" to their medical insurance coverage - they just had promises - now they will have a pretty good reference point. The only reason the ObamaCare passed, when HillaryCare didn't, was the super-majority in Congress, not the overwhelming support of the majority of people, then and now.

The more people, to quote Nancy Pelosi, "find out what's in it" the less they like it. Try to sell them on the "lower costs and expanded coverage" of yet another, bigger alternative when they will really start paying attention and looking at the costs and more potential nasty surprises that might/will await them in Single Payer, which is already a known socialist entity.

As sad as it is, a lot of people didn't vote FOR Obama (certainly not FOR ObamaCare) - people voted AGAINST Mitt "I-would-do-these-things-slightly-differently" Romney, who didn't offer them alternative, let alone any, vision, who kept insulting the electorate (during the election campaign and after it was over) and who couldn't relate to regular people, as if he and they were from different planets.

[askrenr]

This is getting old on so many threads.

[Candor7]

Just wanted to make sure the Obots did not miss it. Thank you for your cooperation. Irritate an Obot today. (Why are you irritated......?)