Can Obamacare be tossed?
“Buddhahat” asks a good question:
Even if [Obamacare] continues to collapse in such a dramatic fashion ”“ thousands of doctors unavailable, numberless accounts hacked, etc ”“ so what? The MSM starts to figure out it’s a scam and start actual reporting about the extent of the disaster? So what?
It doesn’t matter how outraged we are. It doesn’t matter how many Dem senators are tossed out in 2014. We CAN’T get rid of Obamacare. Unless there are 66 Republican votes in the Senate, the “President” will veto any repeal bill sent to him, and Obamacare will continue to grind away at our freedoms until 2016, when the cancer will have taken root and it will be too late.
Too pessimistic?
I tend to think it’s impossible to be too pessimistic about Obamacare. But I think the situation may be a bit better than buddhahat is indicating.
If things continue to go poorly—and that’s a fairly big “if”—it will be the Democrats who will put pressure on Obama to allow them to repeal it. That doesn’t mean he’ll acquiesce, of course, but it’s possible.
People often say the result of all the chaos will be to try to pass single payer. But if Democrats don’t have the votes to do this in 2014, they won’t have them during the Obama presidency (as long as his presidency only lasts two terms).
That doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen later, as soon as Democrats get back more power in Congress and a new Democratic president (Hillary? Elizabeth Warren?) is elected. But I don’t think it will be happening during Obama’s presidency. And if Congress is controlled by Republicans, and enough Democrats join in (the ones coming up for re-election in 2016, for example), there even could be enough votes to override an Obama veto.
There’s also the impeachment avenue, which I do not think will succeed because they will not have enough Senate votes to convict. But SCOTUS could also surprise us by ruling against Obamacare in some of the upcoming lawsuits.
There’s also the problem that, if Obamacare is undone, another system would need to replace it. The old system will have been at least somewhat destroyed by that time, and I’m not at all sure it could be successfully reinstated (can Humpty be put back together again?). Republicans would need to facilitate a way to do that, plus add a few of their long-suggested-but-never-enacted reforms: fewer mandates rather than more, portability, some way of dealing with the pre-existing condition problem (a national high-risk pool?). Obama might veto a bill like that, too, but if enough threatened Democrats join in with the Republicans (to protect their own political hide) there could be enough votes to override Obama’s veto.
There’s a larger issue, of course, which is that a combination of factors means that the country has been leaning more and more leftward as time goes on. Will Obamacare disillusionment result in a course correction to that drift? Perhaps, perhaps not; I really can’t predict that. But the immigration battle coming up will be very telling. If Republicans lose that one (or chose not to fight it) all bets are off, because if amnesty goes through it is likely to solidify Democratic gains enormously.
Comprehensive Amnesty for 11-33 million “undocumented democrats” is a game changer.
Otherwise, the Senate’s democrat’s recently exercised ‘nuclear option’ may pave the way to repealing ObamaCare.
David Freddoso’s recent article: Conservatives should stop worrying and love the ‘nuclear option’ opines:
“Way over the horizon, about six months from now; [right now] about 100 million people get their insurance through Medicare and medicaid, 171 million people get it from their employers. Watch the employers, because if they start dumping people into Medicare and into Medicaid, and the doctors then say, ‘The burdens are too high, and the reimbursement is too low, we’re not seeing Medicaid patients, then all hell is going to break loose” George Will on Fox News Sunday
And if “all hell breaks lose”, we could be looking at a Republican President with a Republican majority Congress in 2017. And the democrats will find themselves ruing the day they invoked both the ‘nuclear option’ and ObamaCare because together, they precipitated the rolling back of the entire edifice of Big Government.
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Think so Neo? I would think thats a given.
I hate this comment thing…I can never figure out how to work this…
here’s your quote: If things continue to go poorly–and that’s a fairly big “if”
Thats what my comment was about.
Neo,
You failed to mention defunding. Especially in the aftermath of Reid’s nuclear option, the house and senate could, by majority vote, shut down any funding for Obamacare and thus avoid the need to override a veto. I don’t think this can happen now, but 4-6 months from now, after the 2014 elections, who knows? Of course, this creates the same problem as repeal; how do we pick up the pieces?
It’s in planning for this aftermath that “wonks” such as Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor could really rise to prominence. Again, that’s “could“! No guarantees in this game.
The first responsibility of a bureaucracy is to protect itself. That was the impulse that induced the IRS to target small-government groups as much as any suggestion from the Whitehouse.
ObamaCare can survive the repeal of a number of provisions, preserving the ones that require coverage with pre-existing conditions, the elimination of a lifetime maximum and 26 year-old child rule. Conservatives can push for sales across state borders which can increase competition and reduce the need for some subsidies.
An exchange can work – esurance.com already does. In fifteen seconds I got quotes on individual coverage from five companies. (It didn’t verify my eligibility for subsidies through the IRS and other agencies, so it isn’t an apt comparison.)
I do believe that a sufficient number of people will gain coverage through this program that taking it away will be politically untenable. Thus I believe that the bureaucracy attending this monstrosity will live on.
Re: my defunding comment above, I don’t think I thought it all the way through. I suspect now that defunding would still be a piece of legis;ation requiring a presidential signature and, therefore would still be subject to the need of a veto-proff majority.
Of course this could have more appreal to Dems up for re-election than repeal.
Let’s just se how good Boehner and McConnell are.
It really does seem that it’s all going to come down to just how negatively affected by Obamacare those who usually vote in midterm Congressional elections will be. And whether the number of voters will be higher in 2014 than usual, which scares me because while more voters could mean a bump in Republican votes, it’s also highly possible Obama will be able to frighten those who don’t usually vote in such elections but have actually benefited from Obamacare. A campaign-style blitz warning them that Republicans will take away their newly won insurance coverage might just get them to the polls.
Obamacare is a carelessly assembled goody bag of ideas the left has been floating for years. It is quite possible to restore the current system as it for the most part has had no real prohibition against pre-existing conditions (continuous creditable coverage required with gaps no greater than 60 days). The goodies promoted by the left are not critical to most people. A reassuring pause would be welcomed. I would suggest the republicans offer a 3 year suspension of the law with a hard commitment to a true congressional debate and new legislation on health insurance.
The big problem is not the uninsured but Medicare/Medicaid viability. Obamacare was paid for (in principle) by starving the providers under Medicare/aid and taxing private policies. Without fixing these, nothing will work.
If Obamacare isn’t repealed we are well on our way to a European style socialist state. There are a lot of people that still believe Obamacare will provide them with inexpensive, readily available first class medical care. These people also believe in Santa Clause. As long as people believe the government (Santa Clause) will give them free goodies, no chance Obamacare will be repealed.
One concern of mine is that the President will not leave office after 2016. I am not sure how that would happen, but I keep seeing things that make me wonder.
Perhaps, but we don’t really know that. We need a proper investigation to determine what went on, why, and who to fire.
Time will tell. So far costs have gone up, so many won’t enroll. Low enrollment can lead to an insurance industry death spiral. The result is medicaid, which we can’t afford and which most doctors won’t provide service for.
I think it is a big mess that will collapse.
You know, most of us saw that Obamacare was a mess back when it was debated in Congress and the Senate. The way it was passed was a mess, its structure reflects that. I expected its implementation would be a mess, although the web site is something I would have figured would work.
I think there is something wrong with any adult who expected it to actually work.
Within the last two years:
My primary care physician quit his practice and now works in management for a medical group. I had been seeing this doctor for at least 25 years.
My oncologist sold his practice and now is in the Caribbean with a new practice.
And my urologist retired early.
At least two of those were directly related to ACA.
How do you reconstitute that?
Don’t despair yet. This mess is only the beginning. I’m predicting that it will be shown that there was massive fraud in awarding the contracts including administration insiders. The bomb will be when the Russians and Chinese hack the website and steal the personal data from a huge number of people who have signed up. Keep tuned and don’t despair.
Hopefully, enough people will realize that the socialist European model the progressives are aiming for is closer to East Germany than Luxembourg.
As we have seen with Democrat Senator Reid’s use of the “nuclear option,” absent some sense of history. of self-restraint, and the long view, nothing is set in stone, there are no “settled” rules or laws and, if it has the votes to overcome a Presidential veto (this is, of course, assuming that lawless Obama & Co. pays any attention, at all, to the law or to a vote that overturns Obama’s veto) a Republican Congress can pretty much do what it wants to slice and dice Obamacare.
However, once some structures are abolished, once some actions have been taken, it is very hard to reconstitute things again. What of the insurance companies that just withdrew from some markets and/or quit writing certain lines of insurance? If Obamacare were essentially repealed, would those companies be likely to get back into those markets and write those kinds of policies again? Then, what about all those doctors, medical partnerships, and other medical organizations (doctors I have asked have told me of several recent retirements by their fellows prompted by Obamacare) who have bailed/disbanded–some perhaps much earlier than they would have in the normal course of events–are they going to come back out of retirement or reconstitute if Obamacare is kaput?
I am very sure that the leftist cabal that put together Obamacare deliberately created it in such a way as to make such reconstitution very hard, indeed.
Something I’ve not seen addressed is the legality of insurance companies offering limited low cost catastrophic health insurance for young and/or healthy people who are willing to pay the fine for not having an approved plan. Can they do that? It would hurt the approved plans greatly.
T says, “Let’s just se how good Boehner and McConnell are.”
Not very…. they, especially McConnell, are a part of the problem.
Don says, “I think it is a big mess that will collapse….. I think there is something wrong with any adult who expected it to actually work.”
Agree on both points. The unknown is how it will collapse. Unfortunately, those adults vote.
The optimistic likely path to getting rid of Obamacare with Obama’s signature will be a bill sometime in 2015 to ‘fix’ the walking dead thing it becomes by then with the votes of a significant number of Dems. Obama might sign something to fix it but he will never, nor is it likely to get sufficient Dem votes, sign anything that repeals it.
Think of Clinton signing major welfare reform. Cosmic justice maybe if we get in the history books credit given to Obama for bringing about health care reform and that ‘reform’ looks very much like Paul Ryan crafted it.
If anything along the comprehensive immigration reform bill is passed it’s national suicide. I’ve never been to Mexico but I don’t feel I’ve missed much – I’ve walked down Spring Street on Saturday in downtown Los Angeles.
OK AG had a piece in the WSJ this week about a case he has pending. The plain text of the ACA only allows premium subsidies for those buying through a State exchange; not the Federal exchange.
But even if OK wins that case, when has the law ever stopped BHO?
Obama & Co. are nothing if not about shady deals and crony capitalism.
There are reports that the company that put together the disastrous Obamacare website has a history of its projects failing, was given a no bid, sole source contract worth hundreds of millions, and that purely “coincidentally,” one of its major officers is one of Michelle’s former classmates and her friend.
Moreover, recent reports are that even more of the taxpayer’s money was forked over to pay the same geniuses who produced this abortion of a website to “fix it.”
So, if Obama & Co. is locked in to this company, it may well be that this company really just doesn’t have the capability to “fix” their website.
I note other reports saying that Obama detailed something like six of his own, in house munchkins to try to fix the batched website.
Obviously, they should have opened up bidding for this major contract to companies that had very extensive experience with creating complex websites, but had they done so, Michelle’s cronies likely wouldn’t have had a chance of winning.
I’m not sure I understand why, or how, Obamacare is supposed to collapse. No matter how bad things get out there in flyover country, here inside the beltway it will be business as usual.
Sometime next year, the website problem will be “largely solved.” The concerns about hackers taking your personal information and looting your bank account will be “overblown.” Special Boards will be set up to arbitrate disputes “between insurance companies and people who stupidly assumed they were insured because they had enrolled in a program and sent off a check.” The insurance companies will be compensated for “the uncertainty of patient-health-tranche-design in off-budget years.”
Neo is probably right. The only hope at this point is for Democrats to begin to actually comprehend the magnitude of the disaster they helped to create. Who knows? As far as I can tell, very few Democrats like Mr. Obama, and there’s absolutely no reason to fear him anymore. So maybe we’ll get lucky… a few whispered conversations in the Senate cloakroom, a couple of dog-eared copies of Julius Caesar passed around.
The cloak rooms have been bugged by the NSA…
Are you the last to know?
Bringing Santa Muerta to the U.S. That’s immigration.
Bringing atheism to the U.S. That’s communism.
See the link? No?
Okay, no link. Just another evil varietal. Sip and enjoy.
“Obama & Co. are nothing if not about shady deals and crony capitalism.”
AKA fascism.