Analysis by Kyle A. Lohmeier
Congressional Republicans yesterday unveiled a bill that would repeal a good portion of Obamacare and replace it with something almost as dumb, according to Reuters. Given that Obamacare’s intended purpose worked flawlessly – to get the federal government so enmeshed into the health insurance and healthcare industries that separating them would be akin to removing a brain tumor – the repeal effort is going to be messy. The fact that the idiot-in-chief wants to replace Obummercare with a different kind of cancerous tumor is only further complicating what should be a simple government-ectomy.
The proposed bill will freeze enrollment in Obummercare’s expanded Medicaid program on Jan. 1 2020; though states could still sign up individuals through 2019 and get money for them afterward.
Instead of simply ending income-based subsidies for purchasing crummy Obummercare insurance, the Trump regime intends to replace those with age-based refundable tax credits that would be capped at upper-income levels. So, again, wealthier Americans will be fleeced to provide insurance for people who can’t be bothered to work. Same idiocy, different name.
Of course, being a Republican means Trump does have to pander to the base some occasionally, so, despite continuing to exist in some form even after 2020, most Obummercare-levied taxes will end in January of 2018 and the penalties for failing to comply with the individual and employer mandates would be repealed immediately.
“’Our legislation transfers power from Washington back to the American people,’ House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady said in a statement,” Reuters reported the apparently un-ironic statement.
I guess Mr. Brady feels empowered when the federal government presses a gun to his temple and takes his money. Of course, Reuters, being part of the mainstream media, used the last ‘graph to tell the readers how they should feel about all this.
“Democrats have warned that Republicans risk throwing the entire U.S. healthcare system into chaos by repealing the Obamacare law that was passed by congressional Democrats over united Republican opposition. The law enabled about 20 million previously uninsured people to get medical insurance.”
Of course, if you’ve looked at all at the prices and coverage options of health insurance plans offered on and off of the government’s exchanges since Obummercare was enacted, you’d know that the entire U.S. healthcare system has already been thrown into a state of chaos. Furthermore, Obummercare did not “enable” 20 million previously uninsured people to get insurance, it forced at gunpoint over one hundred million productive people to subsidize 20 million Americans’ healthcare.
The problem with Obummercare, well, the biggest one anyway, is the same that will bedevil whatever idiotic replacement we get for it: it’s created by government and therefore based on violence. If, at any time, you think you’ve come up with a plan so wonderful and awesome that a legion of heavily armed people have to use violence and threats of violence against peaceful people to get it enacted; you’ve come up with a shit idea.
Nobody should ever be forced to subsidize anyone else’s anything, ever. Period.
Trump’s plan is again reminiscent of my cat-box meme (which can be found in the Buffoonery section); instead of scooping all that filth out, he’s just rearranging it some. So, of course, it’s still going to stink.
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