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Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Looking at All Sides Now

It's worth taking a closer look at two key issues:  Obamacare and taxes.  President Trump and the GOP are still negotiating on the Obamacare bill since they had to pull it from a vote some three weeks ago.  We've seen the text of the last proposal, and we know some of the items which are being negotiated, but we haven't seen all the language.  The thing is, however, that we know Obamacare is failing.  Fewer and fewer people are signing up for insurance coverage, so the supposed big accomplishment of Obamacare is being whittled away.  Premiums are soaring, so people with incomes too high to qualify for subsidies but who still make less than even the national median income are being squeezed like never before.  Healthcare, as opposed to insurance, is becoming harder and harder to get for everyone because deductibles have risen so much that many people cannot afford to meet them.  Insurers are bailing out of the system.  Soon, tens of millions of people will no longer have any choices on the Obamacare exchanges.  We will have a super-expensive system that denies insurance to more people than the number for whom it provides insurance.  There's more, but no one could deny that something has to be done.

That brings us to the other side of the question regarding Obamacare.  What is the Democrat plan to "save" the law or to rescue the system?  The law has been failing for many years, first slowly and now rapidly.  What plan have the Democrats developed to fix it?  I've searched and searched to find any proposals from the Demcrats, but it seems that their only position is to oppose any plan put forward by Trump or the GOP.  The President said that he would meet with Democrats and discuss any proposal that they have, but the response was just silence.  How can the Democrats let so many millions of people suffer under Obamacare without offering any solution?

Then there's the issue of taxes.  There is no final proposal from the Trump team yet.  We have heard about ten different plans from various sources within the Republican party.  Hopefully, the White House will soon announce which proposal it favors.  Meanwhile, the Democrats are silent.  Do they have a view on reducing tax burdens?  If so, what is that view?  Opposition alone is not a realistic course of action if the goal is to help the country.

We need to demand that the Democrats come forward with their own proposals.  Then Congress can pick the best one.

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