Posted on 10/13/2013 5:25:24 AM PDT by Kaslin
Numbers are slowly emerging, and they aren’t good for the president’s “signature piece of legislation.” The Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, has been an unmitigated disaster. After three years and $634 million, healthcare.gov has proven itself unable to handle even the traffic a local supermarket website would get. In other words, it’s not a problem of too much traffic crashing servers, the problems lie in the code itself.
Just like the problems with the website, the flaws in the program itself are structural. And this fact, provided they don’t screw it up, will be the greatest asset of Republicans going forward.
The president and Democrats have been playing chess while Republicans have been playing checkers. Progressives have shown a disinterest delaying Obamacare for a year and a willingness to harm anyone, from kids with cancer to veterans of all ages, to protect this government power grab. Let ‘em have it.
I realize that’s a controversial statement to make and opens me up to calls of “SQUISH,” but hear me out.
Obamacare enrollment has, by all accounts, been anemic. For the plan to stand a chance of surviving it needs at least 7 million enrollees, but is on pace for about a quarter of that, if the numbers leaked so far hold up. With so few enrollees, the plan is unworkable. Older and less healthy Americans are most likely to sign up, and no insurance market can survive if only those who will have more in claims than they pay in premiums sign up.
Just as no car insurance company could survive if only drivers sign up who wrap a car around a telephone pole every week per week, no health insurance plan can survive if only those likely to need health care sign up.
The structural flaws of Obamacare are in its conception. The progressive architects of the ACA worked under the delusion that everyone without health insurance wants health insurance. That’s simply not true.
A quarter of Americans without health insurance before Obamacare made more than $50,000 per year. Were they bothered by their lack of insurance, they could have remedied it. They didn’t.
They’re young, and young people labor under the delusion they are “10 feet tall and bullet proof.” They’re willing to risk going without because they’d rather have the money in their pockets. And, to be honest, the statistics are on their side.
Now they’re required to buy insurance. Well, not required exactly. They can refuse to and, rather than spending hundreds of dollars per month for a plan they’ll likely not use, they can simply pay a small fine. Thousands of dollars next year vs. $95 and the ability to buy insurance for the same price ex post facto were something catastrophic to happen. The young and healthy uninsured would be foolish to buy health insurance under that scenario.
If the young and healthy take the logical path and decline to enroll, premiums will skyrocket in 2015 even more than they already have. Companies will stop selling plans in the exchanges because they’ll have no choice. And, unfortunately for Obamacare proponents, the logical path is also the easy path.
For Obamacare to implode, the young and healthy need only do nothing, and young people excel at doing nothing.
Democrats’ refusal to delay the individual mandate for a year was an inadvertent gift to Republicans. The system as it is can’t survive. They refused to change it. Now they have to be made to live with it.
The New York Times once wrote, “Rarely has a government program that promised so much to so many fallen apart so fast.” This wasn’t about Obamacare, this was about the only entitlement ever to be repealed – Medicare Catastrophic Coverage in 1989. What happened then is the most likely outcome for Obamacare.
Medicare Catastrophic offered all seniors new health benefits for a small fee. Only most seniors already had what the government was offering from private companies or didn’t want them. Much like Obamacare, it was a solution for everyone to a problem faced by few. And just like Obamacare, everyone was forced to comply with it to spread the cost around.
Back in 1989, the cost to seniors was a mere $12 per month. That may not seem like much, and it wasn’t, but seniors didn’t want it and they revolted. What passed with much fanfare just a year earlier was quickly repealed. Not replaced, repealed.
When people get a taste of what Obamacare is serving them next year (not in the abstract as it is now, but in reality), not just higher premiums, loss of their current plan and doctor but incredibly high deductibles, they will want scalps. And there will only be one party to blame – the Democrats.
Checkmate, provided Republicans learn to play chess.
Democrats may not act the way they did in 1989, but unlike 1989, 2014 is an election year. If they refuse to act, voters can. That is, unless Republicans let them “fix” the problems as they inevitably develop.
Obamacare is the plan Democrats wanted, it’s what they wrote and voted for. The only option Republicans should offer to “fix” the problem should be full repeal and replacing it with a free-market option. Democrats will refuse, and when they do they should get nothing in return.
Unfortunately, unlike Democrats, Republicans are not a collective mind. There is actually diversity of thought on the political right. Some will be tempted to “work with” Democrats to fix problems as they arise. But those problems are fundamental, not tangential. They can’t be fixed, they can only be postponed. And Washington is excellent at postponing problems, not so good at dealing with them.
Efforts must be started now to hold the caucus together when this day comes. All Republicans will never be on the same page, but if they start now they can at least ensure they’re working from the same book.
Every problem, every failure, every issue needs to be uniformly highlighted. They also need to collectively get behind a solution. The American Health Care Reform Act from the Republican Study Committee is a good place to start and should be used as a launching pad to finalize a plan they can all get behind.
As the old saying goes, “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” The last few weeks have proven this to be true. But the Democrats have a plan to fail, only not this quickly. If Republicans don’t highlight every Obamacare failure as a failure of Obamacare, of government control, and allow Democrats to execute their plan to blame their failure on the private sector, we will have lost.
It may seem like it now, but this whole battle is far from over. Conservative groups who’ve become adept at circular firing squads and playing checkers during a game of chess need to step up too. They need to dip into their deep pockets and make a concerted, long-term public education effort to do the job the media won’t do. They have to take to the airwaves and let disengaged and disinterested voters that the actions of the Democrats have cost them more money out of their pockets. That government control over the health care system has given them less options, lower quality care. And it’s only going to get worse.
There’s a perverted sense of satisfaction in sitting on the sidelines, arms folded, while what you said would happen happens. These Tea Party groups are quite good at it, and at making sure we lose less ground more slowly. This is their chance to show they can do more than that. This is their chance to show they, we, and Republicans, can actually think ahead, plan ahead and advance the ball.
It’s time to put the checkers away and start playing chess.
Pretty good analysis. But as to the it’s time to play chess recommendation I’m afraid we are more likely to see this scenario:
Boehner: Let’s play chess
Obama: I’d rather play Tic-Tac-Toe
Boehner: OK, you go first
Chess no, poker yes and it’s time to go all in, we have the cards to win.
I am almost convinced.
Funny, I never thought any of this was a game...
The analogy is lame...
The suggestions on how to win this argument are laudible, but I still do not have a lot of confidence in the ability of some of these moderate and elitist republicans to seal the deal...
Since there is really nothing any of us can do but add to the static these knuckleheads up there are receiving...
Part of me says to continue that effort, and the other says to save our energy and memory for what we can do to each and every one of these (proven) feckless wonders and primary them out...
Sounds drastic, unappreciative, anarchistic, but hey, while they are playing games, I believe the American people are not in the mood...
Just my opinion...
So what? Most of the people supported the crown during the 1st war of independence. It is time for the more intelligent to show the majority of morons the way of the constitution.
So many people do not have the courage to face the truth. The structual flaws of Obamacare are NOT bugs, they're features. Obamacare was designed to fail, as had been admitted to by Obama himself ahead of time and other Democrats since. Their plan to to impose Obamacare, destroy the private insurance industry and then tell us the evil insurance companies are at fault and the only solution is single-payer (ie total government takeover).
That's the plan, guys.
I see an image of skeet shooters all across America yelling “PULL!” and taking aim at tossed chess pieces and boards.
The Muslim Brotherhood has it all mapped out for the takeover of America.
best strategy is actually no strategy, give them nothing to work with.
NUTS
This author and all the other "moderate" Republicans, who tell us "do nothing" and Obamacare will collapse on its own are morons, who are incapable of playing checkers.
All Obama has to do it direct the Federal Reserve to print more money and he'll pay it out of the "free money". What government program has ever collapsed, genius'?
The chess versus checkers analogy is faulty as is the advice that goes with it. Fighting ObamaCare because of its implementation failures and logical flaws misses the point. It suggests an alternative, such as forcing young people to sign up as a remedy. In other words, it is the details of ObamaCare that are a problem the author faults and not the idea itself.
The plan suggested by the author, The American Health Care Reform Act is just another plan for federal intervention in an area where it has no Constitutional business. For example, why is tort reform a national issue when it rightly belongs in the states. Most of the bullet points concern the federal government sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong. It is just another GOPe plan to nationalize a problem and offer big government solution.
The author’s mild but gratuitous swipes at the Tea Party are also revealing of a GOPe mentality. One thing Boehner got right, this is no damn game, but the author thinks it is.
The New York Times once wrote, “Rarely has a government program that promised so much to so many fallen apart so fast.”
Another play on a great quote from across the pond...
“Never have so many owed so much, to so few...”
My addition:
“...who do not desserve it!”
At the end of the day, whatever happens to this gross violation of the public trust (notice I didn’t say Constitution) we deserve all the pain and suffering that will fall upon this country, because there was not enough of us able to make an impact on those we elected to stop nonsense like this...
Every election since 2006 has been a failure for one reason or another, and been said that they are “critical” to staving off the democrat jugernaut...With the exception of 2010, we have managed to put a monkey in the wrench in the form of a few principled sentors and representatives who have been pummeled by both sides of the political spectrum for their insolence, “how dare YOU criticize OUR status in government!!!”...
I find the reactions by King, McCain, McConnell et. al. to be reticent of a mode of political thinking that needs to be purged from its ranks...For those people that still believe those types of elected officials are just their speed...Well, there are plenty more of us that believe those people are just as guilty of continuing this problem as the shmups who are doing their best to make this law (nope, I should not have said that) “TAX” work...
The economy is already strained beyond its capability to sustain, and there are people out there with their heads stuck somewhere where the sun doesn’t shine...
And all of those people need to be ashamed of what they are signing off on by their stubborness...
Again, just my opinion...
Chess?
My hairy Obamahole.
Play Chicago politics.
Make them worry.
About everything.
Anything less is fruitless.
This is war.
Lets go!
I disagree. I believe what we need in Washington, are damned good POKER PLAYERS. Every one knows that these liberals, socialists and communists in Washington, are holding on to a PAIR OF DUECES, while we are holding on to a STRAIT FLUSH, All we need are a few more good poker players on out side, and call these people’s bluff. Does anyone believe that these people would allow a government shut down? If the government shuts down, everything that they introduced in this country for the last 100 years, would be shut down. This they cannot have. Just think? No more EPA, Dept of Education, et all. If the government shuts down, all of these people would be out of a job. Better for all of us.
Poker is a much better analogy here. They are pushing chips into the pot with an extremely weak hand, and are hoping that we (follow this author’s advice and ...) fold. The pot has now grown into an all-in, and they know that if they get us to fold, they will take everything (virtually unlimited political leverage, through perpetuity).
But their hand is weak. This is the critical moment, right now. ObamaCare is not yet fully functioning. They have not yet created the dependency, nor have they fully dismantled the old system. It is vulnerable.
We are holding top-pair, good-kicker. Against a weak hand, it is more than good enough, but some are holding out hope that we can draw pocket aces the next hand, and win it all then. But our opportunity is now: people are seeing how bad ObamaCare will be, yet it is still defeatable. We won’t get another opportunity like this for generations.
Once again the $95 lie. The amount is 1% with a $95 minimum. If you have a minimum wage Obamajob (28 hours per week), your gross pay is $ 10,556. I don't know exactly which line on the 1040 is used for the 1%, but 1% of 10,556 is $105.56 or more than the mythical $95.
Unfortunately we aren’t the ones at the table. Instead we are acting as the backer for the infamous Ohio Foldy, one of the worst players around.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.