Obamacare went into full effect on Tuesday. Nothing short of a miracle has the power to reverse it—not a “filibuster,” not the House of Representatives, and not even a government shutdown—because Obamacare is already funded. Funding for the Affordable Care Act comes from two sources: yearly appropriations and mandatory spending. Yearly appropriations are the focus of the defunding debate yet make up little of the actual financing for Obamacare. The vast majority of funds come from Congress’s mandatory spending budget, the consequence of automatic appropriations written into the law when it was first passed. In other words, funding for the ACA is on cruise control as long as it is law.
Of course, just because Obamacare is law doesn’t mean it’s a good one. Premiums are climbing since uninsured healthy Americans plan on simply paying a yearly fine to the IRS. No matter how many times President Obama claims that the ACA is lowering premiums and making healthcare more affordable, these facts still speak for themselves.
Insurance premiums for Florida residents will increase by an average of 35 percent. In Ohio, that number is closer to 41 percent. With such incredible rate hikes, it’s not a surprise that younger, healthier Americans are choosing just to pay the penalty for not having insurance to the IRS—it’s only $95 or one percent of family income, whichever is greater. After all, they can simply get insurance when they become sick, because Obamacare requires that insurance companies cover those with preexisting conditions. Those who wait to purchase insurance drive up premium costs even higher for those who are already insured, making insurance even more unappealing.
But that’s not the only problem with the ACA. Employees are losing health insurance plans provided by their employers because of the additional costs imposed on businesses by Obamacare. In many cases, this means employees are forced to switch their insurance companies, hospitals, and doctors. Just last week, Trader Joe’s joined the long line of companies dropping health benefits for part-time workers, while simultaneously moving many full-time workers into part-time positions. A National Business Group on Health found that 30 percent of large companies were considering eliminating part-time health insurance coverage, while 60 percent were considering dropping early retiree and spousal coverage. The Congressional Budget Office predicted earlier this year that seven million workers would lose their employer-based health insurance as a direct result of Obamacare—more than double their previous estimate.
Hospitals and doctors are also catastrophically affected by Obamacare, with the Association of American Medical Colleges projecting a shortage of 91,500 doctors by 2020, and 130,000 by 2025. The massive number of retiring baby boomers complicates matters further, leaving fewer practicing doctors to treat a greater number of elderly patients. Quality of care will decrease substantially as a result.
Perhaps that’s why the law is so unpopular. 59 percent of Americans disapprove of the ACA while only 34 percent support it, according to a recent CBS News poll. The chance to hammer the President and Congressional Democrats with Obamacare should be a political gold mine for conservatives across the country. Republicans don’t need to defund Obamacare, because it’s the perfect tool to elect repeal-supporting Republicans to the House and Senate.
Though there’s no way to stop the ACA right now, that doesn’t mean it’s no longer an issue. Republicans should continue doing everything we can to repeal and replace it. As Senator Max Baucus, one of the primary authors of the ACA so eloquently put it, we “just see a huge train wreck coming down” when we look at Obamacare. Elections have consequences, however, and bringing more conservatives to Washington is the only way to repeal Obamacare.
Yet it is all too easy for Republicans to be caught up in the “repeal” of “repeal and replace.” In order to truly fix the broken American healthcare system, Republicans should advocate for their own solutions. Aggressive tort reform, such as a shift to expert medical juries in malpractice cases or to a loser-pays system, would dramatically decrease the number of extraneous tests doctors are forced to run to legally shield themselves.Retooling health insurance plans to focus less on routine checkups, that can be easily covered out of pocket, and more on catastrophic coverage would further lower costs.
The Obamacare debate is winnable for Republicans if they allow the Affordable Care Act to take effect and use its shortcomings to campaign for a better healthcare reform law. After all, even as the federal government was shutting its doors on Oct. 1, the ACA healthcare exchanges were opening theirs. Instead of forcing the federal government to shut down to make a point about Obamacare, Republicans should let it run its course to serve their purpose in the future. So if you have the chance, mark your calendars for Nov. 4, 2014—because that’s the next chance we’ll have to replace Obamacare.
I do not like Green Eggs and Ham
I do not like these games, ‘Gd’dmn
Speaker Bohener, at least put up a clean CR so your own party can vote on it. My goodness. This is beyond criminal to the American people at this point.