Enough Already

Somehow the Affordable Healthcare Act is the worst thing to happen to the United States...ever?  Well if you listen to people like Senator Ted Cruz or Congressman Daryl Issa you would think so.  Most industrialized and many non-industrialized countries have a national healthcare policy and strategy.  Canada does.  Japan does.  The UK does and are just a few of the examples of countries that do not allow their citizens to wallow in the gutter when they are sick.  In a matter of fact, one progressive state in this country, Massachusetts, under a Republican governor passed what is a very popular public healthcare initiative.  The people of Massachusetts are very happy with their state’s healthcare system.  The program was such as success that the conservative Heritage Foundation made the Massachusetts program the model for what they felt healthcare should look like on a national level.

All that changed when a democratic president, Barak Obama decided to make Massachusetts the model for his national healthcare initiative in 2009.  Was this a surprise?  Hardly.  He campaigned on making healthcare affordable for all.  What was a surprise was that he would receive so much opposition from the Republicans who until that time held Massachusetts up as a model of modern healthcare reform and successes.  In what became a circus, the new President was so anxious to get bipartisan support for the Affordable Healthcare Act that he all but begged Republicans to sit down in a conference room in public to offer feedback on what they would want to see in the new legislation.  Representative after representative under the hot lights of the CSPAN cameras would only offer that they did not want to participate and wanted to start all over effectively stalling any healthcare reform.  In the end they refused any support whatsoever to offer the people of this country an opportunity to fix what had become a broken system. 

With a democratic majority and some arm twisting the Affordable Healthcare Act passed both houses of Congress and was signed into law by the president.  The most substantive aspects of this monumental bill would not take place until the 4th quarter of 2013 but benefits were immediate to some, most notably that families could keep their adult children on their family plans until those children were 26 years of age.  The wrangling by the Republicans to undo what had been done and would be done would also just begin. 

Every effort by the Republicans would be made to repeal the legislation through the Supreme Court.  While conventional wisdom would be that the conservative Supreme Court would undo the Affordable Healthcare Act striking down a key provision having to do with Interstate Commerce.  In a surprise ruling Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the majority who said that the law was Constitutional as it was written.  While it might appear by now that that The Affordable Care Act had passed all three branches of government, that this would be the end of it and the law could be implemented without further turmoil.  But that would not be the case. 

In the 2012 Presidential election the Republicans would make the Affordable Care Act a centerpiece, some said a referendum on the presidency of Barak Obama.  Their objective to make this president a one term president.  There was just one major problem:  The person they selected to run against Barak Obama was the man directly responsible for the popular Massachusetts health care program, the former governor of Massachusetts.  How could he make the case that the Affordable Healthcare Act was wrong for the country while the program that it was modeled after and he developed, the Massachusetts Law, was a resounding success?  On the campaign trail he could not.  He tried, dodged and even worked to change the narrative but in the end there was no way to spin the negative aspects of a very popular law that helped many in his home state while trying to tell the rest of the country it was wrong for them.  It’s been said that you can fool all of the people some of time and some of the people all of the time but in the end he fooled no one.

But the Republicans, undeterred in early 2013 forged on.  Known as the least productive Congress in US History, the Republican House of Representatives has managed to vote to repeal the Affordable Healthcare Act nearly 50 times knowing it would go nowhere while unable to pass any meaningful legislation until a lackluster compromise budget was passed just before the holiday recess.  They even successfully shut down the government for two weeks in attempt to repeal the Affordable Healthcare Act which in addition to making them the least productive made them the least popular.  Congressman Issa has taken his show on the road holding mock hearings about the Affordable Healthcare Act with witnesses friendly to his cause.  Freshman Senator Cruz in what has become his stock and trade, self-serving hyperbole, called The Affordable Healthcare Act (ObamaCare) worse than any war. 

Now as the program has been rolled out it has not been without its problems.  A monumental failure on launch month showed that many who tried to enter the web portal to sign up for healthcare could not.  Sign ups slowed to a trickle  This now appears to be fixed.  In states that have set up health exchanges having their own websites have seen thousands if not hundreds of thousands successfully sign up for health benefits.  As the biggest social program to be rolled out since Medicare there are likely bound to be other problems along the way.  Normally, these would be smoothed out by bipartisan compromise from both sides.  But if recent history is any indication, don’t count on anything from the Republicans.  Because if it is one thing the Republicans have demonstrated, they have no problem being on the wrong side of history. 

What is in store for 2014?  Well, if an unsuccessful Supreme Court challenge, a failed national election based on the Affordable Healthcare Act and attempted repeals numbering near 50 did not deter obstruction of this legislation, then expect more of the same as election season kicks off.  Watch republican governors try and justify not rolling out healthcare reform in their states.  Watch Republican Senators and Congressman spew half truths and out and out lies about affordable healthcare in the United States.  Watch as these elected officials criticize every hiccup and bump in the road as they offer no solution to try and make it better.  Watch as this program becomes more and more popular among Americans who have long suffered as one of the few industrialized countries previously without a national healthcare strategy.  See what happens to the Republicans who in November of this year will become the party that missed a great opportunity to make this country a better place.