Let Obamacare Fail? That is the Question

By Linda Chavez September 20, 2013

The conservative push to defund ObamaCare has no chance of succeeding as long as Democrats have a majority in the Senate. So why risk alienating voters? The tactics the House leadership has now endorsed may rev up the hard-core base of the GOP, but it could mean election losses next year.

That’s the conclusion Karl Rove reached in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this week. According to polls his organization conducted, the GOP loses independent voters on the issue of a government shutdown.1

Rove argues, correctly, that “any strategy to repeal, delay or replace the law must have a credible chance of succeeding or affecting broad public opinion positively. The defunding strategy doesn’t. Going down that road would strengthen the president while alienating independents. It is an ill-conceived tactic, and Republicans should reject it.”

So what’s the alternative? For many conservatives, the Affordable Care Act is the sine qua non of President Obama’s effort to transform America into a socialist state. But the fact is, the law is so unwieldy and its ambitions so unachievable that it might serve its critics better to let the law take full effect and watch it die of its own deficiencies.

The entire premise on which the bill passed was that it would make health care universally available and thus cover the estimated 49 million uninsured Americans. But the premise was always wrong. Given the choice to pay a nominal government fine or buy insurance that costs 10 times more — at a minimum — most of the uninsured will remain uninsured.

The key to the law was a provision requiring individuals to buy insurance or pay a fine. But the fines are far less expensive than insurance — and for many of the uninsured, they will seem the better alternative.

In 2014, unless the president or Congress delays implementation, individuals will have the choice to buy an insurance policy or pay a $95 fine. If you’re a low-wage worker, young and healthy, the penalty makes more sense than insurance. Even if you’re older and less healthy, you won’t be turned away at an emergency room should you need care. So why enroll?

The fines go up each year — $325 in 2015 and $695 in 2016 and beyond — but at their highest the fines are about half the cost of the cheapest health care plan.

And there are plenty of loopholes to get out of paying the fines. If your income falls below the threshold of filing for federal income tax, you’re exempt. You also can seek a hardship waiver from the secretary of health and human services. And if you’re one of the 11 million illegal immigrants living here, you don’t have to buy insurance.

I’m going out on a limb here, but I predict that two years into implementation of the law there will still be in excess of 30 million people uninsured under this plan. But the problems for those who already have insurance will be even worse.<span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","s

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Premiums are bound to go up significantly. The law mandates coverage for pre-existing conditions and requires insurers to pay for procedures and services they previously had the discretion to withhold or charge more for, which makes providing health care to the insured more expensive. The only way to hold costs down is to bring younger, healthier people into the system. But those are the very people most likely to pay the fines rather than pay exponentially more for insurance.

ObamaCare is a house of cards just waiting to fall of its own weight. As unhappy as Americans are now at the prospect of ObamaCare, just wait until they have to live under it. Even Democrats will be pushing to rewrite the law once their constituents feel its full effects. Patience will pay off for the GOP.

1.0 Karl Rove had his day. He was a master strategist who understood the game at the time, but then showed that he no longer understood the game (i.e., he lost elections to Democrats for those Republicans who had believed in his magic). Polls have indicated that there may well be substantial losses for Democrats in the Senate in the November elections. Politicians in general may be seen as being a combination of spinelessness and moral turpitude. This apparently applies equally well to most Democrats and most Republicans. For those Democrats in the Senate, campaigning for re-election in late 2013 is fraught with danger.

1.1 The perception is that a significant percentage of voters are unhappy with the “Affordable Healthcare Act”. It is believed that the demographics of said voters extends to the ranks of those who would ordinarily always tend to vote for Democrats. I shall offer here an assumption. It is that the unhappiness, on the part of those who have a tendency to vote for Democrats, is that they now believe that “Obamacare will cost them money, or that, for such Democrat voters that have jobs, Obamacare has increasingly cost them their jobs.

1.2 To the blind, deaf, and dumb President, who blindly, deafly and dumbly fostered the creation of said “Affordable Care Act” by demanding that Congress pass a “bill that he could sign”, and call his own creation, and bathe in the magnificence of”, the poor and bumbling skills with which Obamacare was crafted now hangs around Obama’s neck like a 50-pound Albatross.

1.3 Let him stew in the juices of failure of the disgusting legislation that he has so long championed? Not a chance! Why? Because the particulars are too disruptive to the American way of life … in particular in regard to the privacy of the Doctor-Client privilege. What takes place medically, in one’s own personal life, is never the business of an uninvited government. To the extent that we apply for and accept the conditions of a private health insurance company is our own choice. We have the option to reject health insurance, even to avoid employers who provide it as a part of their benefits package.

1.4 In any case, the information stayed with the insurance company. To allow the Federal government to amass a database on the health particulars of every individual within the country is far too much information for a central government to ever have. There is every reason to believe that the federal government will abuse such information.

1.5 Evidence of such abuse on the part, say, of the Internal Revenue Service, is not lost on the electorate. Democrat strategist may smile at the cleverness. Republican counterparts, such as Rove, may be envious of such astute abuse of power. At each new scrap of evidence that there has been yet one more intrusion upon our privacy, the populace gains an increased level of awareness as to the criminal power of government to intrude on our lives. It is this blindness to these intrusions that is the earmark of the political strategists on both sides. Their failure to recognize the growing hatred of this abuse of power will result in a misreading of the will of the voters. This is not to be a good year for the résumés of the political strategists.

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r communist, NAZI, socialist, progressive, or fascist organization. I am not obligated to allow protests or disturbances on my diary, nor am I required to reprint links to biased websites such as slate.com or dailykos.com..

NOTES:

There has been plenty of time for aspects of this disaster to unfold so we know what was in the thing they didn’t read, didn’t care to read, and just kept lying about. Our people voted against it when they put the House in a Republican majority, and the Democrats flipped those voters the bird and acted like they were irrelevant. They did what they wanted any way, lied about their agenda to ‘save’ us from crushing costs, and let their surrogates tell more lies about the intentions of those who spoke out against the proposed law.

And this is why so many Democrats today in Washington leave the middle class feeling so incredulous. Many people have paid attention and know they have been active purveyors of deceit. We have had enough.

[Graffiti Forensics] [p]
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What don’t you understand, literally? Because I’m not going back to ashleigh’s diary to find the note – it could be so many palces, and I don’t remember what specifically I said to you that might have been confusing. But I will answer your questions, or any others, if you remind me.

Spoo (i’ll put this on your diary too):

*I am not a mystery – my diary is public (though not political in nature), and you can find out about me if you choose to read it, or too note me and ask me things.

*I am not paid to use OD. I am simply a person who uses OD in my spare-time to either converse with others, or just to vent.

*I’m not an english major, I’m a math major, though I do know. ..a good bit about linguistics, and am proficient in a few languages (german mostly, swedish, and icelandic to a lesser extent.)

I am a person who uses logic, and find fault in many of the arguments thrown around me, whether it be on the internet or around me at work/with family, and I find it intolerable.[snaefridur] [p]

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The GOP is deathly afraid that the ACA will follow Medicare and Social Security as popular programs. That’s why they’ve wanted to stop it so desperately. Look at the rhetoric used against Medicare with Operation Coffee Cup, it’s almost identical. [SHARPSkinkid] [p]

The problem with the so-called Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare) is in its intrusiveness and the overt design inherent in it to destroy the health insurance industry in America. You have expressed your disdain for private insurance companies. Prior to the existence of any health insurance industry, there was nothing. You became ill … you paid the cost of whatever it took to heal you, or to let you die as painlessly as was possible. Health insurance came in to existence as a function of employers seeking to attract quality employees with a benefit that reached beyond a mere paycheck. The very existence of health insurance was not driven by government desire to spend taxpayer money on buying votes for Democrats. It existed as a competitive tool for employers to attract the right kind of employee so that the business could get ahead in the marketplace.

Now, the very best principals of capitalism, to compete with one another for the best employees, are being destroyed by rabid anti-capitalists who pretend that the benefits that were previously reserved for the most productive employees should be share by the mediocre masses that do not give a single shit about being productive.

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Well, no, I’m not opposed to priv

ate insurance companies. I’m opposed to for-profit private insurance companies. We need private health insurance to compete in order to keep reimbursement rates for doctors high which means better quality of care.

Also, I could be wrong, but I thought employer-based health insurance came from wage ceilings during World War II meaning another incentive was needed.

Anyway, my opposition to for-profit healthcare is the nature of how those profits are acquired. These insurance companies make a profit by collecting premiums and then paying out as little as possible as slowly as possible and hoping the doctor gives up or the patient pays in the interim. I’d argue that doctors are UNDERPAID. If you look at the hourly wage of a physician it’s about what a plumber makes. That’s not okay to me. The skill and education being a doctor requires means they should be making more.

And while making private insurance companies non-profit, mutuals, or co-ops (which is what they were before the 80’s and 90’s) is certainly the biggest step, there are others. Hospitals need to be examined as they have a quid pro quo deal with insurance companies where hospitals make money off of things like aspirin and other ancillaries. And we need to look at tort reform; the lawyers should be limited on what % of a settlement they can take. The benefits that were previously reserved for the most productive employees should be share by the mediocre masses

My, my somebody sounds elitist. Anyway, I think everyone has a right to food, shelter, and healthcare. But I don’t think that goes beyond what’s needed for survival. You don’t need a mansion, steak, and luxury medical care. [SHARPSkinkid] [p]

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Your distinction between "private insurance companies" and "for-profit private insurance companies" does not square (in my mind) with the real world. Pay-outs are afforded by investing the money taken in in premiums, to be paid out later for costs incurred. There was a time when a "reasonable" return on investment was considered to be 10% per annum plus some premium for risk. This is the model with which I was familiar in the 1960s. Much has changed since then and, to address those changes, a dissertation would be required. In that OpenDiary does not offer an accredited PhD either in Economics or in History of Economics, I shall not attempt one absent the promise of great emolument or, barring that, a Nobel Prize in Economics.
That future payments require the investment of current premiums in some money-making venture is the basis of the insurance business, regardless of what is being insured. The actuary is at the center of any such enterprise. The actuary calculates future costs for health care, auto collision repair, rebuilding after fire, flood or earthquake. You name it, the actuary has (or at least tries his best to establish) probabilities for any insurable occurrence. It is upon that basis that risks are assessed, and rates imposed. For the "for-profit" insurance companies, a reasonable rate of return is added in for the investors who, in putting up the money for the venture) expect a return on investment. For the "non-profit" version, the CEO, CFO and all of the officers expect to be paid (and paid well) for their largesse.

I shall continue on the morrow as it has grown quite late here on the Left Coast.