Debt ceiling raised, shutdown ended
Of course. The Senate voted last night, the House will approve today.
Now it’s time to emphasize what a train wreck Obamacare is. However, that could end up leading to single payer if the Republicans don’t do well in the 2014 elections. That should be Republicans’ next focus: doing everything they can to keep the House and win back the Senate.
But I’m not knocking the effort that led to the shutdown and the debt-ceiling brinksmanship. I understand why they made it, although I thought it was poorly planned and would lead to this end almost inevitably. Unfortunately, even if Republicans get control of the legislature in 2014 (which could happen; I think the bad feeling engendered by the last few weeks will blow over), Obama will retain veto power and he will not be the least bit shy about using it. That is one of the many reasons why his re-election in 2012 was such a blow.
I know that many of you see all this as merely rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Maybe yes, maybe no. The actual implementation of Obamacare will be quite the wild card.
In war, no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.
I think the horribleness of Obamacare will pretty much kill single-payer for years. And the timing is just about right for it to screw up the election for the Democrats. I guess we’ll just have to be philosophical and say that our suffering from Obamacare will be salutary.
I don’t understand why people seem to assume that if (okay, WHEN) Obamacare fails, that will automatically open the door to single payer. It seems to me that the immediate, spectacular collapse of Obamacare will cause most people — even low-information bench-sitters — to think twice about supporting an even larger bureaucratic health-insurance reform project.
Seriously, how are single-payer proponents going to be able to convince people of the awesomeness of government-run HC when that’s exactly what those SAME PEOPLE said about O’care?
Also, while perhaps someone better versed in the subtleties of single-payer could enlighten me on this point, it seems to me that SP is bad for all the reasons O’care is bad, plus a lot more. O’care is bad mainly in that forces people into a more expensive HC market that offers substantially fewer choices. SP is going to be at least AS expensive as O’care for the great majority of Americans while offering even fewer (read that, “no”) consumer choices. On top of that, it will render every doctor, nurse, and other health-care practitioner in the country an employee of the government and every hospital and doctor’s office the HC equivalent of the DMV.
I appreciate the fact that the GOP may not cruise to victory in 2014, but I really reject the idea that fulfillment of the liberal/socialist agenda is some kind of foregone conclusion. Reality still matters, at least to some degree. The liberals certainly have the media on their side, but even a biased media cannot present a convincing case at this point that America is not already mired in a fiscal and economic crisis, that the government is not already exerting too much control over our lives, and that the solution to all of our problems lies in the full realization of the socialist/progressive agenda.
Conrad: When single-payer is implemented, people will no longer need to have health insurance policies. That’s the whole purpose of SP; to make us all dependent – for our very lives – upon The Government. The fact that healthcare will be more costly will only fall upon those who pay taxes, which is probably already a minority of Americans. Further, even among those taxpayers, those whose tax bill is lower than what their health insurance would cost will also favor single-payer.
Healthcare is unaffordable because there is no competition in the provision of healthcare. Some large health care providers (I’m thinking Kaiser Permanente, Mayo Clinic, most Catholic hospitals) seem to exhibit a humanitarian motivation to provide affordable care to poverts. Not to mention the law that requires hospitals which want to take Medicare patients to provide a certain amount of care in their emergency rooms without regard to the ability of the recipient to pay. Those examples provide some lower costs for some, but they are not the result of competition.
When ObamaCare, or a Single-Payer system, is fully implemented, those “humanitarian” motivators will be eliminated. We will be cared for by government employees. We saw how insensitive and inhumane government employees can be when they “just followed orders” and locked WWII vets in wheelchairs out of an open memorial to their buddies who died defending American liberty.
It’s chilling.
At the first real sign of defunding, an army of the ill, the lame, the physically helpless children will be wheeled before the cameras. Their stories will be wrenching and pitiable and the progressives will be at their sides as their compassionate benefactors. Can you be so cruel as to deny them their only chance for decent healthcare?
The vast army of otherwise unemployed progressives who’ve been hired under the Affordable Care Act will campaign tirelessly to slander and demonize those who would eliminate their jobs.
We know how this works. What’s the offensive strategy?
Hammurabi:
There will almost certainly be another army to parade, that of the middle class who can’t get health care, or who are spending unconscionable percentages of their pay to do so, because of subsidizing the others. And there will almost certainly be more of those than of the ones you describe.
It may not be as big a photo-op, but voters will also have experienced it themselves.
to think twice about supporting an even larger bureaucratic health-insurance reform project.
Seriously, how are single-payer proponents going to be able to convince people of the awesomeness of government-run HC when that’s exactly what those SAME PEOPLE said about O’care?
What makes people think they will have a choice about it?
One vote, one man, one time.
Applied in this instance, they will merely threaten to cut off your healthcare benefits entirely if you don’t support so and so. Although it may not come to that. Blackmailing John Roberts over his kids may have worked. Blackmailing Republicans should be even easier to force them to vote. And if there are not Republicans being elected, then Democrats automatically support the Regime one way or another.
“Choice” is only an illusion under a democracy, given that the 1% rules in a democracy given enough of a time frame.
Conrad, Ymarsakar, et al:
The Democrats passed the ACA without public support. They will pass single payer without it, too, if they are in power and decide to do it (which I believe they want to do).
Now we’ll be able to put the theory to the test: if they weren’t preoccupied with the shutdown, the media would be reporting on the Obamacare rollout failure.
Yeah…right.
@Conrad
Single payer won’t necessarily be more expensive: the government can keep costs low through price/wage controls and limits on reimbursements…but this will inevitably lead to lower-quality care and the dumbing-down of standards.
California is already doing it for abortion providers. It won’t take long for women to start getting hurt by that system, but like in the UK the media will ignore these stories.
Why don’t we just skip these middle steps and go straight for the Logan’s Run euthanasia?
I agree that they will pass single payer if they have the opportunity.
I don’t think this administration particularly cares whether or not Obamacare has rolled out successfully. Effective computer systems only matter when elections need to be won. Notice that Obama’s data/computer ground game was implemented flawlessly when the goal was to defeat Romney.
Neo: The Dems may not have had majority support in passing the ACA, but they certainly had enough popular, media, and other support to hold together their own Senate and House caucuses. It doesn’t follow that they would be able to pull off the same trick with SP.
For one thing, the insurance companies got behind O’care in exchange for the individual mandate that compelled every American to buy a health insurance policy. If SP is enacted, however, it will mean the elimination of the health insurance industry. Think the insurance companies are going to support that? What about their employees, many of whom must be democrats? What about all the other people employed in the private HC sector — how are they going to feel about being converted into government employees for the sole purpose of enabling central planners to dictate the terms of their employment?
I think it’s a mistake to assume that, based on the precedent of the ACA, the Dems will vote to enact simply whatever they technically have the votes to enact, without regard to the intensity of opposition. If that were true, they would have voted to impose SP the first time, wouldn’t they? Why would they have voted for Obamacare over SP if both options were technically available to them?
I’m not saying SP doesn’t remain on their wish-list. I’m saying that it was a much harder sell the ACA to begin with and that the inability of the Dems to deliver the promised benefits of the ACA (e.g., lower premiums, better coverage, etc.) will make it an even harder sell going forward.
But it won’t be a harder sell. Those evil Republicans and greedy health insurance companies need to be removed from the equation, then everything will be just dandy. Think how much money will be saved. The groundwork is already being laid for this. After the importation of the elites replacement voters, it should be a sure thing.
I think the administration will release just enough info on the exchanges to confirm they’re a failure. They will then play up the “complexity” angle:
that by including insurance companies and exchanges, it required lots of information transfers, which required complex code and complex sign-up forms. (that premiums are skyrocketing will be ignored)
Then, single-payer will be offered as the solution. It will work because of its simplicity: if you’ve ever filled out a tax return, you can be signed up automatically.
That will appeal to the young out there, who undoubtedly failed to sign up because of the hassle.
This is, of course, another lie.
hink the insurance companies are going to support that? What about their employees, many of whom must be democrats?
Ever heard of GM or Government Motors?
Nationalized.
The conclusion is obvious, yes.
I favored the House sending a budget that fully funded everything the Obama-Reid-Pelosi axis of evil wanted as long as it required the full implementation of Obamacare on 1/1/14 with no exemptions or exceptions. That would have left the Senate & BHO holding the hot potato.
Matt – “That will appeal to the young out there, who undoubtedly failed to sign up because of the hassle.
This is, of course, another lie.”
My youngest son and daughter in-law (ages 29 & 28) are livid over what has happened to their formerly low cost catastrophic care insurance plans with $5,000 deductibles. They live in Oregon and are being tossed to the wolves of Obamacare.
Young adults are going to feel the pain. This is a good thing. Painful consequences bring wisdom to those on the right side of the bell curve.
fiona – ” Think how much money will be saved.”
Think how much money will be wasted and the long waiting line to get an annual physical; let alone a serious operation. Aging doctors/nurses will simply retire (another burden on DC) and fewer students will want to enter medical/nursing school. Costs will rise and service will become Zimbabwe.
If you are not in for the long game, you have already lost.
The Left is very good at negative reinforcement, in the Skinner rat sense of using operant conditioning to mold human behavior.
They set it up so that if you keep doing A, they will keep hurting you. But if you go with the Left’s B, they will remove the source of the pain.
“The Left is very good at negative reinforcement, in the Skinner rat sense of using operant conditioning to mold human behavior.”
True, but 48-9% will not sallow the ‘reinforcement’. 3-10% in rebelion is all that is required. The day of days approches.
They’ve already cut reimbursement to doctors and hospitals. Thousands of doctors are retiring early and fewer students are enrolling in medical school.
But, hell, I like Indian doctors!
There’s also doctors like Major Hasan ready and willing to arrive to treat patients.
Single payer is the problem, not the solution. We already have an effective “single payer” system, which acts as a monopoly enforced by government and affiliated private interests. The problem with Obamacare, which Romneycare may not have suffered, is that it is a national policy which does not address the single (e.g. monopolistic behavior) or diverse (e.g. Detroit) issues which ensure the high total and differential costs of medical service. Obamacare is designed to preserve the status quo (e.g. inflated costs, availability) and sponsor corruption (e.g. entitlements not backed by productivity). Well, that, and it further normalizes elective abortion or reduction of human life to a commodity.