It Ain't Over

Wasn’t it Yogi who said, “It ain’t over until it’s over.”  The Pyrrhic victory of Obama getting to keep his federal health care exchanges preserves the status quo.  Or maybe now states who have their own exchanges and have been losing money running them will simply turn it over to the feds—a backwards step for Obamacare.  But politically, a nonsense ruling on a law that clearly said X and was interpreted as Y is a gold mine for Republicans.   And the fight over Obamacare is just beginning.  Premiums and deductibles keep going up, Doctor networks keep narrowing.  The cost keeps increasing, and keeping you doc is getting iffy.  Meanwhile, this has handed the R’s a huge rallying cry for the election.

            Oblamer has no one to blame.  The ACA is Dem written, Dem passed, Dem executed.  And if anything goes wrong with it, if it has a pitfall, the Dems don’t have control of Congress to fix it.  Now if it were a pleasing bill, they would get credit and could smile.  But consider this.  Oblamer has been touting the 8.7 million who get subsidies as people who have been helped.  Everyone else, including MSNBC says 6.4 million.  Do you know what the discrepancy is? H&R Block says that 2/3 of those expecting a tax credit had to give part of it back because their estimate of income was lower than the actual return showed.  That means 2/3 of recipients now have an attitude somewhere between “I’ve been betrayed!” to “Darn, almost got away with it.”  And 2.3 million had to give All their tax credit back.  Hence the 6.4 M rather than the 8.7M.  But then there are another 15 million privately insured who have had typically 40% premium increased due to federal standardized coverage and increased regulation, like it or not, whether they need it or not, whether it violates their religious faith or not.  Bottom line, there aren’t a lot of happy campers.

            And it will get worse.  When the employer mandates kick in next year, it is anybody’s guess how many employers will keep paying increased premiums on their plans or will just chuck it and pay the $2000 per employee penalty.  CBO estimates 60-90 million out of 155 million total workers will lose their plans.  That means, even if you have insurance through your employer, you are likely as not to lose your health care when you lose or quit your job. 

            Oh, it gets even crazier.  Medicaid expansion was 90% fed funded and this will end.  The states who chose to expand are going to be swamped fiscally.  Medicare was supposed to just stop paying so much to docs and the savings were to make Obamacare work.  Docs are now refusing to take more Medicare patients.  Docs are opting out of both Medicare and Obamacare and some are just retiring.  It is estimated that 40% of our doctors will leave the field in the next 5 years.  (Maybe the Dems will import them from Yemen and Sri Lanka.) Where 1 in 20 docs took Medicaid in 2009, 1 in 50 takes it today.  Bottom line to the poor: You have health care insurance, but where can you find a place to use it?

            I guess I forgot to mention the increased fraud and red tape.  Nor did I talk about the expiring exemptions for Cadillac plans and other privileged liberal organizations.  Nor the religious institutions which feel that their First Amendment rights are coming apart.  Or the intense scrutiny of what the Presidential candidates have to say concerning appointment of Supreme Court justices.  All of this just in time for an election.  The Dems and their old timer, Hillary, are going to have a lot of ‘splainin’ to do.

            Ah! Reminds me of Charleston.  When 3 Republicans—Gov. Haley, Sen. Scott, and Sen. Graham—called for the Confederate flag to be taken down, and Gov. Haley got choked up with grief, it caused a panic among the Democrats.  They are now throwing a tantrum, lambasting Republicans for the flag and every other racial evil.  That’s because many minority folks around the country have been watching Ferguson and Baltimore with dismay.  How many have been nodding in agreement with Charleston and saying, “I want more of that instead of riots.”  To which the Dems are yelling, “Mine! Mine! The black and Hispanic vote is Mine!”  And so they have tried to get out in front of the issue by cussing the R’s that much harder.