Posted on 12/31/2013 12:52:14 PM PST by Kaslin
And so with ukuleles and autoharps, and cheers and groans, Americans usher Obamacare onto the public stage, knowing -- with hope, with disgust, with fear, with acceptance -- that the thing is here to stay, in the way all government programs, once enacted, hang around like a deadbeat brother-in-law: chain-smoking, impossible to get rid of.
Foes and friends of Obamacare understand this truth: You never get rid of a government program. Did Ronald Reagan, despite vows and expectations, ever get rid of the promiscuous and worthless Department of Education? Or the Department of Energy? Hardly. In like-manner, Obamacare will endure. The government already claims 1.1 million sign-ups. It is below original expectations; each one nevertheless represents an aspiration not even a President Cruz would find possible to repudiate. And more sign-ups are to come.
The monstrosity won't deliver its products efficiently. It will cost more than taxpayers can afford. It will overload particular hospitals and physicians while short-potting others. It will mechanize the delivery of care: less human attention, more bureaucratic decision-making. It will likely discourage various people from becoming doctors, or from continuing in medical practice. No wonder majority opinion, as reported by the polls, rejects the whole thing.
But it will endure. That's partly because it will serve people who consider themselves underserved, and in many cases may actually be. People who like a particular government "service" become loud and articulate advocates for it, outshouting less-passionate opponents. Moreover, a government structure, once erected and financed and fully staffed, becomes too large a thing to clear away and replace.
Obamacare will endure, but maybe in a form less harmful to civic, as well as personal health. That's the hope as 2014 brings to us the greatest change in our governmental culture since the Great Society.
Upon the brains and leadership of the Republican Party -- highly uneven commodities -- rest all realistic hopes for change. You see what a dicey business this will be on account of the utter lack of a Republican approach to change. "Repeal and replace" rolls off the tongue with great readiness -- not to mention effrontery. It doesn't get us past the bill title. There's nothing like a "Republican plan" to deal with Obamacare: not least because nobody can yet know what kind of plan to propose.
The "what kind" part will depend on developments yet to develop. All we know at present is that theory and concept are at odds with general experience in that they put the government in charge of the whole thing with only modest scope for personal decisions (e.g., a bronze, silver, gold, or platinum plan). Not until clients (bondservants?) of the system start to put its requirements into effect will anyone know what needs to be done. Plans and proposals can then come into play.
This is a sorrowful message to deliver at the start of a new year. It happens, alas, to agree with experience. What will be fundamental to reform is introducing into the system as much change as it can accommodate. This is because programs built on the theory of "one size fits all" -- the only theory the federal government recognizes -- are costly and don't work. One size (SET ITAL) doesn't (END ITAL) fit all, the less so when health needs are involved. There has to be room in any post-Obamacare program for people to explore their own needs and pick and choose among opportunities of the sort no overstuffed bureaucracy could ever devise.
There is one more point to keep in mind. This ghastly mess is due to our 80-year-old habit of reliance on government for solutions to perceived problems. Every time we conjure up government, as opposed to free-market, solutions to this or that, the habit grows larger, deeper, harder to shake.
Eighty years of government "problem-solving" has put Americans in the relaxed mood that gave us Obamacare. Let government do it! So the cry goes out regularly, monotonously at the slightest provocation.
Do we start to appreciate how we got into this -- assuming we're lucky -- partly fixable fix?
I don’t accept that it cannot be repealed.
A defeatist article. Contributors to Townhall need more of the Tea Party fighting spirit.
“But it will endure. That’s partly because it will serve people who consider themselves underserved, and in many cases may actually be. People who like a particular government “service” become loud and articulate advocates for it, outshouting less-passionate opponents. Moreover, a government structure, once erected and financed and fully staffed, becomes too large a thing to clear away and replace.”
It will also endure because too many people will be making too much money off it by milking the various taxpayer funded subsidies.
I admire your optimism, but by 2015 when the employer mandate kicks in, the exchanges will be the only option for coverage for the millions that will be cut off of employer plans. As disastrous as that will be to the nation, the ACA will become the "savior" of access to health care. Obama and the Rats have us boxed in and the GOPe does not have the guts (or numbers) to do real battle over the issue. Reality sucks.
Something unusual will be needed, and I believe it could well be poised to happen. The root of it will be a resurgence in gospel power (including nominal Christians getting serious about God). The means? Well having looked inside the belly of the beast, I’d say there would be ways of, if not taking the thing entirely private, at least tying it to the state governments and getting Washington out. A mix of the latter might be in order.
Last time I checked the government backing this was broke, and will not survive unless they stop spending what they don’t have. It may take patience, but this program is going away, if only when the country that forced it upon us goes away.
Reagan faced a Democrat Congress during his entire tenure. OTOH, a Republican Congress did manage to institute welfare reform.
Unfortunately, not once in the last ninety years have we had a conservative government. Hence, the argument that growth in government is inherent will likely remain true as long as we retain public education.
“that the thing is here to stay, in the way all government programs, once enacted, hang around like a deadbeat brother-in-law: chain-smoking, impossible to get rid of.”
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“that the thing is here to stay, in the way all government programs, once enacted, hang around like a pajamclad loser 30 year old manchild that eats your food and sips your cocoa and lives in your basement because he can’t find a job in this total crap Obamaconomy, impossible to get rid of.”
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Lungcancer
Lets put it this way. Where there is a will, there is a way
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