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Mona Charen: Republicans should prepare for the collapse of Obamacare
The Washington Examiner ^ | March 21, 2013 | Mona Charen

Posted on 03/22/2013 10:52:08 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

In my last column, I argued that for all the undeniable woes of the Republican Party, the unfurling of Obamacare represents a huge vulnerability for Democrats. The Democratic health reform bill is economically nonsensical and politically unpopular. A recent Rasmussen poll found that 54 percent believe the law will damage the U.S. health care system. Even among Democrats, support for the law is ebbing. In February, a Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that only 57 percent of Democrats (compared with 72 percent in November of 2012) support the law.

The battle over health care reform is not over. Yes, the 2012 election ensured that the law would not be repealed and replaced in 2013. But when the American people are unhappy with a policy, they find a way to alter it. Republicans can tie themselves in knots and consider abandoning their principles on abortion, taxes, immigration or marriage (and perhaps some of those positions require rethinking), but the health care issue is pitched right over home plate.

Nearly every American is intimately concerned with the delivery of health care. Choice and competition can deliver what Americans desire -- a quality product at an affordable price. Before offering reform proposals, Republicans need to be clear that they are not endorsing the status quo ante.

The pre-Obamacare health care system was not a free market for health care at all but a peculiar hybrid with distorting incentives created by bad government policy. Because the government set wages and prices during World War II, employers were not permitted to raise salaries more than a set amount approved by National War Labor Board. Employers resorted to providing fringe benefits, including health coverage, and the IRS approved this workaround by treating fringe benefits differently from wages. Thus was born the link between employment and health_insurance.......

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...


TOPICS: Issues; Parties; Polls
KEYWORDS: democrats; medicine; obama; obamacare
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1 posted on 03/22/2013 10:52:08 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I believe a guy in 2018 (five years away)...will basically say that fifty percent of ObamaCare has been strongly modified or dumped. The number of people without health insurance? Probably just as many or more....as it was in 2008. Social scientist will try to explain how it never worked...talking mostly over high expectations and lousy understandings of the actual problems.

As for legacy stuff? There won’t be much to brag about. By 2024, some idiot will stand up and talk about a defining way of providing health care...giving it some name of “Compassion 2025”...and we go through the whole experience again. The result will be a sixteen thousand page bill which is passed through the Senate in a matter of seven days.


2 posted on 03/22/2013 10:59:29 PM PDT by pepsionice
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Hoh! Really?

Mona, Mona, Mona!

yer name says it all but, alas, the wide eyed Kommies will be out of the White Hut by the time this collapses on itself and won’t share the blame.

They will quietly slink off and twenty years from now, when this thing implodes like a roof with too much snow on it, no one responsible will be around to repent much have remorse.

They too will be adled by old age and need a teleprompter to get their speech out or an advocate to bar the doors from too much stress...


3 posted on 03/22/2013 11:10:45 PM PDT by Vendome (Don't take life so seriously, you won't live through it anyway)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

When it collapses, I can hardly wait to hear the wailing from the lame stream media and the WH on how it is all the fault of the GOP. IT IS A GIVEN.


4 posted on 03/22/2013 11:11:31 PM PDT by Cheerio (Barry Hussein Soetoro-0bama=The Complete Destruction of American Capitalism)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

good http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uPdkhMVdMQ


5 posted on 03/22/2013 11:21:45 PM PDT by jyro (French-like Democrats wave the white flag of surrender while we are winning)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

If Republicans were smart they could kill liberalism for decades with the coming tidal wave of hatred that 0bamaCare is going to generate. But they’re Republicans.


6 posted on 03/22/2013 11:36:38 PM PDT by TigersEye (The irresponsible should not be leading the responsible.)
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To: TigersEye

I’m sure the Stupid Party-as always-will struggle mightily to let us down...


7 posted on 03/22/2013 11:43:10 PM PDT by snuffy smiff (Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Ran across a political science major nitwit who couldn’t wait for Obamacare to ‘kick in’ so she could get healthcare. I tried to tell her that she could get that now. She got excited and asked how. I told her that Obama was only a law that made her buy health insurance, she could do that now. She was confused. She TRULY thought it was healthcare for all. I said “It is, it’s a law saying you have to buy a health insurance policy, so I guess technically, you are right.”

She was angry and I assume googling earnestly after our conversation because she didn’t believe me.

So many idiots, so little time...


8 posted on 03/23/2013 12:39:06 AM PDT by autumnraine (America how long will you be so deaf and dumb to thoe tumbril wheels carrying you to the guillotine?)
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To: autumnraine

*Obamacare*


9 posted on 03/23/2013 12:39:59 AM PDT by autumnraine (America how long will you be so deaf and dumb to thoe tumbril wheels carrying you to the guillotine?)
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To: Cheerio

Well, the GOP is doing its part by funding it.


10 posted on 03/23/2013 1:21:39 AM PDT by Nickname
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Not to worry....even if Obamacare goes down in flames the current slate of House and Senate republican leaders will find some way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.


11 posted on 03/23/2013 1:55:55 AM PDT by O6ret
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Let us know. If you mean Obamacare will dump what it falsely calls it’s health insurance, yep. Because there is no health insurance. Never has been. It’s a scam. Now if you can tell us that the real Obamacare will be dumped with laws and hidden agenda we don’t know about concerning taking over and destroying our country. When is this Obamacare going to be dumped and all the thugs associated with it?


12 posted on 03/23/2013 2:41:12 AM PDT by freekitty (Give me back my conservative vote; then find me a real conservative to vote for)
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To: pepsionice

When Obamacare comes into full effect, for those over 70 it will not matter whether or not they have insurance.

Certainly they will be paying for it,but if they get sick it will be denied them through the rationing panel.

Oh!!! You might get a little help for a cold , if you can find a Nurse practitioner, but if you get something that is lingering and costly to provide you may as well bend over and kiss your ass goodbye.


13 posted on 03/23/2013 3:22:48 AM PDT by Venturer
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The GOP will do everything it can to save it.


14 posted on 03/23/2013 3:35:45 AM PDT by fortheDeclaration (Pr 14:34 Righteousness exalteth a nation:but sin is a reproach to any people)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

‘Prepared’ Republican is an oxymoron.


15 posted on 03/23/2013 3:56:40 AM PDT by AdaGray (squi)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Obama Care was designed to bring America to it's knees.

Unsustainability and crippling financial devastation were built in to create chaos and bankrupt the country

16 posted on 03/23/2013 4:22:57 AM PDT by rdcbn
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Three simple changes are needed:

1. Give the same tax preferred benefit corporations get with health insurance to individuals.

2. Allow, via the Commerce Clause, interstate health insurance competition (this lets you escape the mandates of your state government & by default creates a customized insurance plan)

3. Allow, via the Commerce Clause, interstate medical competition. States have adopted licensing and permitting procedures that block medical professionals, hospital systems and health care systems from competing across state lines.

I’d add a fourth, but am not certain how to do it within the bounds of the Constitution. Make a public menu of medical prices.

You don’t need health insurance. That’s the wrong question. What you need is access to health care. The free market is the best method to lower costs and increase access.


17 posted on 03/23/2013 4:32:18 AM PDT by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
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To: 1010RD

What about adding to your list medial savings accounts?

However....Medical savings accounts assumes that their is an income tax and personally I would prefer seeing all income taxes ( federal, state, and local) abolished.)


18 posted on 03/23/2013 5:14:21 AM PDT by wintertime
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Terminate Totalitariancare.


19 posted on 03/23/2013 5:28:38 AM PDT by PGalt
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

When the inevitable collapse comes, it will all depend on whom the sheeple pin the blame. So far, the sheeple are blaming the early fallout of ObamaCare on their employers and the insurance companies. If this trend continues, the lib/progs will be able parlay the anger and dissatisfaction into votes in 2014 and 2016. And I’m afraid it’s all according to plan, because the American sheeple are just that dumb. So effin’ brain-dead dumb.


20 posted on 03/23/2013 5:42:47 AM PDT by kevao (.)
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