Keywords or
Terms: Gov. Bobby
Jindal; Burr-Coburn-Hatch Plan; OBAMACARE; US House of Representative; John Katko (R-NY), Reps. Robert Dold (R-IL), and Bruce Poliquin (R-ME);
US Senate; President Barack H. Obama; Heritage Foundation; King Vs. Burwell; Parent’s
Health Plans; and, Prescription
drug costs and Medicare Premiums
American Democrats have
become skeptical about the continued move by House Republicans to undermine
OBAMACARE by voting to repeal it, after an umpteenth attempt on the floor. By
my last count, over fifty-two congressional bills and or voting were raised or
completed to overturn the Affordable Care Act of 2010. Before succeeding on
Tuesday February 3, 2015, on a vote spread of 229-195, largely along party
line, except for three Republicans, John Katko (R-NY), Reps. Robert Dold (R-IL),
and Bruce Poliquin (R-ME), who voted against repeal, Republicans cornered themselves into believing
that all they need to reach more Americans is to kill the Affordable Care Act.
A more realistic assessment by Congressional Observers is that the current move
or repeal was pointless; and, largely a fruitless effort, as long as President
Obama still has a veto on his desk and there wasn’t a number as high as six
Democratic Senators willing to defect to support a veto override in US Senate. Immediately
after the House vote to repeal, some aspiring Republican Governors for the 2016
Presidential Party Nomination opened up the tap of criticisms and a braggadocio
against the law, best left outside the door of humility and commonsense.
Governor Bobby Jindal of
Louisiana, who has refused to implement the law in his state and once said in
2012, he is committed to working to elect Governor Romney to repeal
Obamacare, even after the Supreme Court upheld the health care law as
constitutional, said and probably did what he admonished the Republican party
not to become, a stupid party. His sentimental comments encapsulated in a plan
to replace OBAMCARE: “if people wanted to use their standard deduction to pay
for insurance through their employer, they could do that, but they don’t have
to”, will eventually be remembered by voters and probably, scuttle his presumed
clear path for 2016 presidential bid.
Assuming we default to Jindal’s
plan for repealing and junking OBAMACARE, what will happen immediately to those
millions that automatically lose their health coverage as the law is repealed?
Why is Jindal’s replacement option synonymous with Burr-Coburn-Hatch Plan that
offers tax credit for caring health insurance under an individual market scheme?
Wouldn’t younger and healthier employees find a reason to leave
employer-sponsored health insurance for the individual market? Was this not the
similar environment that led to inefficiency in previous health insurance
scheme that called for the reform in the system? It is hard to default to a
proposal from a governor who failed to see any good in the law in the first
place and refused to implement it in his state. If the objective of Governor
Jindal is to replace OBAMACARE, why is he rendering tautological comments that
seem convoluted? How does he come about the conclusion that a Supreme Court decision
in King Versus Burwell could cause a disruption? What disruption, after all he
has not chosen to implement the law in his state and the subsidies under
Obamacare which he probably believe is illegal, will not impact his state
residents, disproportionately?
One must understand that
there is often an underlying motive for what comes out of the mouth of a
politician; or, a plan designed by a governor, who believes in a thing as dumbed
down conservatism. Governor Jindal’s 2014 Replacement Plan for Obamacare, is
better understood than his current observation or brow-ha-ha on repealing
OBAMACARE. His ‘cost not coverage’ hypothesis in the Freedom and
Empowerment Plan - The Prescription for Conservative Consumer-Focused Health
Reform, was appealing to Conservative Republicans, who considered his proposal
as a viable alternative plan ever offered by Republicans in their ventilating
ambition to repeal OBAMACARE. Incidentally, some Louisiana State Legislators
criticized the governor for having done little to implement the law while many
languished in health poverty in their state. To this group, Jindal has been moving
the state in the wrong direction; and, may end up making citizens of his state perpetually
deprived of federal funds that can help eradicate health poverty in Louisiana.
Arguing in the mode of Governor Bobby
Jindal, Alyene Senger of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, identifies
the five reasons why Congress must repeal OBAMACARE in 2015: 1) Obamacare creates $1.8 trillion in new health care spending and uses cuts
to Medicare spending to help pay for some of it; 2) Millions of
Americans already have lost, and more likely will lose, their coverage because
of Obamacare; 3) Many Americans have
not been able to keep their doctors as insurers try to offset the added costs
of Obamacare by limiting the number of providers in their networks; 4) the law increases cost of health coverage; and, 5) Obamacare contains 18
separate tax increases, fees and penalties. Alyene Senger’s criticisms mirror
so closely Jindal’s Freedom
and Empowerment Plan that you wonder if they both didn’t sit down to compare
notes on their take on OBAMACARE. Jindal’s comments this week is an eye-opener
for many who see some mischief in his plan: “election vote canvasing, voters
will swam to Republican Party because they have a new face that packages their disenfranchisement
message better.” The clause added to Republican’s re-submitted repeal(s),
included the clause recommended in Jindal’s Empowerment Plan. Talk about
absurdities and recrimination in a plan offered to correct for minor error in
the language of a law? Frankly, if Governor Jindal is seeking to run for the
2016 Presidential Election Contest, some of these criticisms may come to bite
him on the campaign trail, as beneficiaries of the law, will confront him with
facts and statistics that contravenes many of his associated criticisms of the
law.
For informed voters, here is what
is likely to happen if the Republicans have their way with OBAMACARE: 1) over
ten million Americans lose health care insurance, most of whom are adults in
their early years (21-26), who are currently covered because they remain on
their parents’ plan; 2) Over One hundred and twenty-nine million patients with pre-existing conditions get
notices of re-caps on their insurance coverage and some of them are let go of
exiting insurance coverage; 3) Over eight million seniors on Medicare may have
increases in prescription drug costs and Medicare premiums; 4) hospital emergency
room reverts back to a teaming million without health insurance and expecting
to be cared for in an emergency; 5) the broken health care system that OBAMACARE
sorts to correct rears its ugly head as insurance companies become free to do whatever
they like and millions of middle income earners suffer the repercussions; 6) the
newly regulated market place for health insurance becomes a thing of the past
and many states that have seen a decline in the number of the uninsured Americans
begin to see the dreaded reversal; and, 7) healthcare cost for those without
health coverage become ruinous as cost of treatment is overbearing for
household income. There are numerous other things that could happen that are
not covered here. The good news however is this: “The only
true chance of gutting the law will come after President Obama leaves office;
and even at that, it is probably only when a Republican gets into the White House;
less that, the move will still remain futile.”
P.S.
Republicans’ criticisms and replacement
plans for OBAMACARE remain vague at best and the procedure offered to resolve a
few languages abnormally of the law are unclear and debatable. The explanations
for the weakness of the law seem very wrong in light of millions that will be
thrown back into health poverty if the law is abrogated. There are already
provisions for automatic penalty for noncompliance in the law. Subsidies to
states without exchanges can be made universal, as the federal exchanges are
universally available for all Americans. Amendments to the law are in line to
correct for ambiguity of language use; however, there is no ground to justifiably
repeal or abrogate or do away with the law as recommended by Republicans.
Democrats, please vote in record number in 2016 Presidential Elections to preserve
our gains on healthcare.
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