Posted on 07/15/2013 6:02:39 AM PDT by Kaslin
We have a very interesting question from a reader in Nebraska. Is Obamacare such a cluster-you-know-what that the law will self-destruct?
Well, I’ve already explained why I’m optimistic about the possibility of turning Obamacare lemons into free-market lemonade.
Simply stated, the law took a healthcare system that already was a mess because of government intervention and subsidies and it doubled down on that misguided approach!
And since it’s highly unlikely that more government is the solution to problems created by government in the first place, I think we’ll have great fun being able to highlight all the bad consequences of Obamacare and make a principled case for pro-market reform (meaning not only Medicaid reform and Medicare reform, but also tax reform to help deal with the third-party payer crisis).
That being said, I don’t think Obamacare will collapse on its own. We’re going to have to give it a push. A big push.
This is because legislation will be required to undo all the taxes and subsidies in the law. And even though we have the bizarre situation of the Obama Administration deciding to deliberately ignore a legal requirement to impose an employer mandate beginning in 2014, we’ll also need legislation to undo both the individual and the employer mandate.
In other words, the fact that the law won’t achieve any of its goals (such as lower costs and universal insurance coverage) won’t cause the bad policy to disappear.
But it will make the law even more unpopular – particularly if we do our job.
That’s why we should relentlessly highlight examples of wasteful Obamacare spending. The Washington Post, for instance, is reporting on “the extreme measures states are taking to get young people signed up for Obamacare programs.”
And when even the Washington Post thinks politicians and bureaucrats are going above and beyond in their efforts to waste money, you know it’s something especially foolish. But when you’re trying to trick young people into signing up for insurance policies designed to subsidize richer seniors, you don’t really have much choice.
Oregon might do branded coffee cups, for example, whereas Seattle is looking at doing outreach at music festivals. It only makes sense, then, that Kentucky would be doing outreach at multiple bourbon festivals across the state.
From a big picture perspective, this type of waste in just a penny or two on the dollar, but it’s very symbolic of a law that is poorly designed and unworkable.
I also think political cartoonists are very helpful allies since they’re so effective at illustrating some of the worst parts of Obamacare. So let’s wrap up this post with a new batch of cartoons.
We’ll start with a couple that skirt the edge of appropriateness by playing off the recent airline crash in San Francisco. The first one is by Steve Breen.
And the second one is by Eric Allie.
The donkey pilot blaming the elephant passenger is a good touch, and you find that theme in this Gary Varvel gem.
Let’s close with a great Rick McKee cartoon that focuses on exploding costs, a message near and dear to my heart.
One final warning. We’re not guaranteed of victory simply because Obamacare is leading to bad results. The statists are going to try and seize control of the narrative by asserting that the higher costs and greater inefficiencies could be fixed by squandering more money in the short run and imposing a single-payer system in the long run.
That’s a very perverse example of Mitchell’s Law and it surely doesn’t make sense to normal people. But it’s an approach that plays to the worst instincts of politicians, many of who will grab any excuse to increase the size and scope of Washington.
If Obama could be forced to enforce O-care on schedule then much more heat would be from O-care for 2014, then now. He made a smart move delaying that mandate.
Amazingly this lower chart is supposed to simplify and explain O'care......comes from a consultant group paid to assist in the process of getting states to create exchanges (the ones that interface with the IRS, HHS, and an assortment of know-nothing snoopy federal agencies).
Shows the mess Ohaha created, and why the WH apparatchiks cannot make it work more than three years after its passage.
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Every thinking American knows Obaba can't be trusted w/ govt power----he lied before about O'care (and he's lying again and again WRT amnesty---w/ that stupid smirk pasted on his face----the mark of a true conman).
What do you mean they will shove it down our throat anyway? They already have or did you miss that?
“Socialized Medicine is the Keystone to the Arch of the Socialist State.”
If you hate government healthcare like Medicare, you're going to hate Obamacare. Government healthcare doesn't work!
Umm, maybe it's: ambulance-chasing lawyers and a legal system that tolerates them? The hurdles the FDA maintains against new drugs and treatments? Big Pharma with its high prices and increasingly frequent drug shortages? Universities with exorbitant tuition?
Sorry, bad analogy, the Goose did fly... just not very high...(Might have been ground effect, but that was never investigated further...)
...the Goose did fly... just not very high...”
Right, I knew that.
It only flew once, took off with great difficulty, flew low for a short distance and was THEN put away FOREVER!!
I was aware of all that!!
I think HH must have been embarrassed and if “O” had one iota of brains he’d be embarrassed at his OWN stupidity in trying to make something fly that is obviously a joke!
A true fix would require one of the large group of donors to take a hit ($$$$$). Probably more than one group, doctors, insurance companies, hospitals, trial lawyers...
Yes, the LEFT is strategic. What appears as chaos to us is all part of the plan. They didn’t really have to pass it to “find out what was in it”—the LEFT always knew EXACTLY what was in it. They will NOT let this die under any circumstances. Single payer is the ultimate goal.
Now, what will the un-strategic GOP do about it? Rove? Romney? McLame? Miss Lindsey? Bushies?.....
They will do what they always do. They will remain silent, go along, or claim a compromise that equals a sell out.
The word WHEN was left off after the colon...
“Well, I’ve already explained why I’m optimistic about the possibility of turning Obamacare lemons into free-market lemonade.
Simply stated, the law took a healthcare system that already was a mess because of government intervention and subsidies and it doubled down on that misguided approach!”
Not me, sorry. I am much more certain that we will have band-aid placed upon band-aid placed upon suture placed upon workaround placed upon subsidy placed upon whatever else...BECAUSE LAWS ARE NEVER REPEALED! (OK, functioning laws are repealed, like Glass-Steagal, but we’re talking 1%)
Instead, I believe the odds are much greater that will get a hybrid-patchwork-bastardization-cross-subsidized mishmosh that will look like one of those old houses with 6 layers of roofing on it, so many that the rafters are sagging under the weight.
The government HAS ACHIEVED legal control over this 1/6th of the US economy and nothing short of an asteroid strike will cause them to relinquish their grip.
The fix will be THREE THOUSAND pages. Count on it.
. “Why is American healthcare so darn expensive??”
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Pretty much for one reason only, the government has been screwing with it for decades. The only way to fix healthcare is get the government out of the business and let the chips fall where they may until it sorts itself out but that will never be done until there is no other possibility. By that time health care will be back to what people had two or three hundred years ago most likely, maybe even worse. Government very seldom solves a problem because government thrives by CREATING PROBLEMS WHILE PRETENDING to solve them.
The only rational basic solution, as cited by others above, is insurance limited to no frills catastrophic coverage, pay as you go for routine belly aches and colds, and private charity as it is moved to provide for the least of these.
And that’s why we need a new party—one that voluntarily imposes term limits on itself. Professional politicians are owned—it’s inevitable.
All needs to be done is eliminate Congress and President’s retirement funds and enforce insider trading. They will not stay long.
:)
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