Republicans In Congress Are Making Another Feeble Attempt To Kill Obamacare
After one failed vote, no one could blame Republicans for trying again to repeal the ACA. After ten failed attempts, you’d think they might get the picture and stop wasting taxpayer money until they know they can get it done. Now that they are past 60 votes, they just look like Don Quixote charging at windmills on a foolish crusade to hurt people who actually need healthcare.
What is probably more likely, they are just caving to their insurance donors who really just want to go back to the old way of doing things in this country where they are allowed to screw over people they don’t want to sell insurance to and rake in massive profits at the expense of the American people.
With that in mind, it might explain why the largest insurer in the country is planning to pull out of the ACA next year. United Healthcare says it just can’t make a profit in the system. I don’t know that much about how this system works, but other companies are making a profit, so why not the one that should be able spread the risk potential best? Possibly because they are just compensating their CEO, Stephen Hemsley, a little too much? Or they think that they can use their threat to pry larger payments from the government by threatening the collapse of the system with their departure?
When Congress gets back in session this year, the very first thing they are going to do is begin a partisan war by having a bill finally reach the President’s desk that should never have gotten there. Through chicanery Republicans slipped Obamacare repeal legislation into budget deals called reconciliation, where they shouldn’t have been allowed, which can’t be filibustered. The President will, of course, veto it, and that is fine with the Republicans because they will have proof of concept and have mollified some of their base because they will have gotten legislation to the President’s desk.
Even though Obamacare favorability is low among Republicans, primarily because of its name, many of its aspects are well liked. One wonders if another failed assault on the President’s signature healthcare law will ultimately be a safe move for those Senators who are up for election in purple states. Maybe it won’t be such a good thing for Republicans, even in heavily gerrymandered districts, if large amounts of young people show up at the polls to vote this time.
Some new information has been released about the signups of the ACA this year. There are a lot more young people signing up now than in past years. Even though there are a few doubts as to the future of the program, young people are signing up, and enrollment numbers are higher than they have ever been. If the system is so disliked, why are more and more people signing up? It can’t be just because they are all afraid of the minor penalty if they don’t sign up.
You see, Republicans have become masters of using words to their advantage. The ACA is Obamacare because some people of their party hate the black President Obama. If they keep calling out Obamacare with that racist and hateful connotation, instead of working to improve the bill that could help millions of Americans, they not only denigrate the law and the President, but a percentage of the populace at the same time.
If the Republicans ultimately get their wish and destroy the law and this President’s legacy, they may not obtain their fervent desire however. When that happens, if it does, Americans may finally be fed up with these sorts of childish attacks against the people. We may finally join the modern world and institute a single payer healthcare system that will cover everyone in the country no matter whom they are or where they are.
