Three cheers for ObamaCare.
Well, OK then, two cheers; it needs fixing.
If ObamaCare is a “trainwreck,” RyanCare was a colossal dud, widely reviled by most doctors, nurses, hospital associations, senior-citizen groups, low-income earners and just about everybody else with any sense. It was so awful it didn’t even get high enough for a “death spiral” or swan dive. In fact, it was dead on arrival. Rep. Paul Ryan, like a failed Dr. Frankenstein, quickly pulled the plug on the monster’s feeble life-support system.
What an ignoble defeat it was. Well-deserved. For seven years, congressional Republicans reached rabid degrees of hatred against the Affordable Care Act. They voted more than 60 times to get rid of it. In hindsight, it’s so evident those empty gestures were nothing but political grandstanding nonsense. If those sour sorts had spent those seven years working on a health-care insurance plan of their own, they just might have come up with a workable one. Maybe. A big maybe.
Better yet, if they had worked with Democrats to strengthen the ACA, they wouldn’t have to be bellyaching now how horrible it is. They will never understand how it’s not horrible for the millions who now have health insurance who have never had it before.
For seven years, Republicans sulked, balked, obstructed and raged, just itching to repeal the hideous law. Then, finally, they had their chance. The ball was finally in their court; it was time to find a replacement. Whoops! Even the ever-confident President Trump, that titan of promises, admitted that health care is a “complicated” subject. Oh, really? At one time, in the days of sweet campaign promises, Trump had vowed to his deliriously cheering crowds that he was going to come up with a plan to provide much cheaper, better-quality care affordable for every American.
With baited breath, some awaited the miracle . . .
Alas, the miracle did not materialize.
Instead, Paul Ryan and a few other policy wonks hobbled together a grab bag of old tricks that never worked and never will work for universal health-care coverage: free-market competition, health-savings accounts, tax credits and, of course, massive tax cuts of billions of dollars for insurance companies and pharmaceutical giants.
Even President Trump seemed ill-at-ease, embarrassed by RyanCare, knowing full well that its crazy patchwork of non-solutions ran counter to his grandiose promises to the American people. Trump was also keenly aware that RyanCare would be “bad medicine” for the folks in impoverished areas whose votes were decisive in giving him the White House.
Many commentators have apparently not noticed that the perfect irony of RyanCare’s failure and the survival of ObamaCare came courtesy of the “Freedom Caucus” in the House of Representatives. That ultra-right-wing clique is comprised mainly of Tea Party adherents, the very ones who most loathed ObamaCare from the get-go – political demagogues like Ted Cruz, who with help from that faction, succeeded in shutting down the government in protest against the ACA. And because the 30 or so Freedom Caucus members refused to vote for RyanCare, they doomed its chances in the House. The proposed bill was just too liberal, too socialistic, too much like ObamaCare, they claimed, squinting through their myopic ideological lenses. The Tea Party naysayers, once again, had cut off their noses to spite their faces, handing a victory to the dreadful ObamaCare. Talk about karma biting back in the butt. But, at least, for once their constant obstructionism was a good thing.
The true heroes of this happy outcome are the grassroots protestors who showed up at politicians’ town-hall meetings throughout America, including right here in Sartell, demanding the ACA be preserved and strengthened. Most of those politicians got the message loud and clear.
The rallies also helped spread the truth of ObamaCare after so many years of hearing loud lies, blatant distortions and grotesque exaggerations by the ACA-haters. At the town-hall rallies, many shared powerful personal testimonials about how ObamaCare had saved their lives or lives of loved ones. Without their access to insurance, many would have been doomed and dead. Approval for ObamaCare steadily increased in the past two months. The RyanCare plan, on the other hand, had an approval rating of 17 percent on the eve of its demise. Good riddance.
So, let’s hear it: Two cheers for ObamaCare. Time to mend it, not end it.
