A friend of mine told me today that the reason that Obamacare has failed is that there has been such Republican opposition to it that it has been unable to get going properly. Interestingly enough, this is the talking point used by the White House on frequent occasions in the last three months to explain the failure of Obamacare. The White House puts out the story and eventually millions of people hear it and take it as correct. The problem, of course, is that it is not correct. Consider this:
1. The single biggest failure so far of Obamacare has been the disaster which is charitably called the Obamacare exchange website. This website was developed by the federal government and some 15 or so states. The feds had three years to build the site. The feds had unlimited funds to build the site. The Obama administration spent just about $700 million to construct the federal site alone; that makes healthcare.gov the single most expensive website ever, and probably by a factor of ten. None of the construction and design of the site involved Republicans. The GOP could not limit the funds available to build the site. The exchange website was exclusively the product of president Obama and the Obamacrats. Despite having three years and three quarters of a billion dollars, Obama and his people brought us a website that is a total disaster. It has no security, so those who sign up put their personal information at risk of theft. It has no back end, so insurance companies cannot be given the proper information about people who want to purchase insurance. When the site went live, tests had shown that it would crash if over 20 people tried to sign on at the same time. It was a colossal failure and it was the Democrats own failure.
2. A second disaster of Obamacare has been the cancellation of over seven million policies in the individual market and the impending cancellations of tens of millions more in the small employer and large employer area. These cancellations are the intended result of Obamacare; the Republicans had nothing to do with them. Indeed, in the Federal Register in 2010, the federal government under Obama announced that the new healthcare law would result in cancellation of an estimated 97 million policies across America. Remember that when that estimate was made, the Democrats were in total control of both houses of Congress. This is not something that the GOP opposition forced. It actually was the plan of Obama and the Obamacrats, and it is another failure. There are millions of people who now have no insurance because their old plans were cancelled and they cannot afford the new ones.
3. The cost of the new plans is the third disaster of Obamacare. For the average American, health insurance premiums have soared. Deductibles have soared. Hospitals and doctors whose services are covered have been drastically reduced. People who had perfectly good insurance now have to pay double to get much less coverage. This is the fact of Obamacare; it has nothing to do with Republican opposition. Indeed, the GOP had nothing to do with the crafting of the health insurance plans available on the exchanges or the pricing of those policies.
The truth is that it is hard to find anything where GOP opposition actually prevented the Obamacare plan from working with one exception: some governors have refused to expand Medicaid in their states as they could have done under Obamacare. Remember what this entails, however. Medicaid only covers the folks under the poverty line, and it gives them coverage that can hardly be used because so few doctors accept Medicaid patients. In short, poor patients who used to go to hospital emergency rooms before they had Medicaid and get services without paying have moved on. Now, they go to hospital emergency rooms and say that they have Medicaid and get the same service as before. Nothing has really changed.
So the next time someone tells you that Republican opposition to Obamacare is what has done in the president's plan, you can explain just how wrong they are in their statements.
1. The single biggest failure so far of Obamacare has been the disaster which is charitably called the Obamacare exchange website. This website was developed by the federal government and some 15 or so states. The feds had three years to build the site. The feds had unlimited funds to build the site. The Obama administration spent just about $700 million to construct the federal site alone; that makes healthcare.gov the single most expensive website ever, and probably by a factor of ten. None of the construction and design of the site involved Republicans. The GOP could not limit the funds available to build the site. The exchange website was exclusively the product of president Obama and the Obamacrats. Despite having three years and three quarters of a billion dollars, Obama and his people brought us a website that is a total disaster. It has no security, so those who sign up put their personal information at risk of theft. It has no back end, so insurance companies cannot be given the proper information about people who want to purchase insurance. When the site went live, tests had shown that it would crash if over 20 people tried to sign on at the same time. It was a colossal failure and it was the Democrats own failure.
2. A second disaster of Obamacare has been the cancellation of over seven million policies in the individual market and the impending cancellations of tens of millions more in the small employer and large employer area. These cancellations are the intended result of Obamacare; the Republicans had nothing to do with them. Indeed, in the Federal Register in 2010, the federal government under Obama announced that the new healthcare law would result in cancellation of an estimated 97 million policies across America. Remember that when that estimate was made, the Democrats were in total control of both houses of Congress. This is not something that the GOP opposition forced. It actually was the plan of Obama and the Obamacrats, and it is another failure. There are millions of people who now have no insurance because their old plans were cancelled and they cannot afford the new ones.
3. The cost of the new plans is the third disaster of Obamacare. For the average American, health insurance premiums have soared. Deductibles have soared. Hospitals and doctors whose services are covered have been drastically reduced. People who had perfectly good insurance now have to pay double to get much less coverage. This is the fact of Obamacare; it has nothing to do with Republican opposition. Indeed, the GOP had nothing to do with the crafting of the health insurance plans available on the exchanges or the pricing of those policies.
The truth is that it is hard to find anything where GOP opposition actually prevented the Obamacare plan from working with one exception: some governors have refused to expand Medicaid in their states as they could have done under Obamacare. Remember what this entails, however. Medicaid only covers the folks under the poverty line, and it gives them coverage that can hardly be used because so few doctors accept Medicaid patients. In short, poor patients who used to go to hospital emergency rooms before they had Medicaid and get services without paying have moved on. Now, they go to hospital emergency rooms and say that they have Medicaid and get the same service as before. Nothing has really changed.
So the next time someone tells you that Republican opposition to Obamacare is what has done in the president's plan, you can explain just how wrong they are in their statements.
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