The GOP’s Healthcare Debacle

Opinion

Opinion by George McClellan:

The debate on who actually broke their promise, the Republican leadership representing big government, world banking and lobbying interests that have made a living off the tax payers for the past several decades, or the conservative freedom caucus? House Speaker Paul Ryan, champion of the status quo, supposedly acting for the President, is responsible for the debacle we just witnessed on the GOP’s failure to repeal Obamacare. Let’s just say they stumbled. Trump wanted to get a bill on his desk so, in a sign of unity, he supported Ryan’s bill (not Tom Prices) and the Freedom caucus did exactly what they promised. They walked away.

It is a fact that Ryan’s AHCA was an “amendment” and not a repeal and replace bill. Selected parts of Obamacare were targeted for repeal to be replaced by Insurance Companies who clearly had a hand in writing Ryan’s bill following, as they did, the Democrat example of not allowing anyone (Republican legislatures) to see it before it was rolled out with all the hoopla that accompanied it. I wonders it wasn’t a repeal bill at all, just a gimmick to fool us.

I wrote in a recent essay that the GOP hadn’t realized that the voters, while dumping the Socialist programs the Democrats were foisting on America, also sent a strong signal to Republicans that their ideas were rejected as well. Clearly they didn’t get the message.

One must ask why Ryan did not include the House Freedom Caucus in the original work up of his AHCA bill instead of keeping it secret like the Democrats did with their Obamacare? That immediately screams chicanery and underhanded plotting to fool the base. It was!

Conservatives, not pleased over the direction Ryan and the House leadership was going, demanded the AHCA bill be ignored as it was not a market-based ‘repeal and replace’ bill as they promised. It is unimaginable that Ryan would attempt to foist that on Americans who overwhelmingly voted for repeal. Was he hoping perhaps, we would not notice so long as there was the impression that a repeal was actually proceeding? It is equally intolerable that the Republicans now believe they can postpone repealing Obamacare and move on to tax reform. They cannot. Obamacare is a tax, a 14% of the economy’s wealth redistribution thru taxation and it needs to be removed, right now if the Republicans hope to survive next the election.

Their hangup of course, is entitlements. Karl Marx was wrong. Religion is not the opiate of the working class, entitlements are and until that process of free stuff for everyone is broken (don’t count on it), politicians will forever continue to have total control over our economy, our lives, our property and our futures. Constitutionalists need not apply.

The main sticking point, they claim, is the folks with pre-existing health issues not being insurable but that’s the nature of life, isn’t it? The answer screams not for more spending on them because it’s unaffordable, but attacking the problems that created the pre-existing issues in the first place. Too many pre-existing health problems are related to unfortunate, individual life style choices. Why must taxpayers bear the burden of their folly? Other programs exist for that and they’re not in the federal government realm of responsibility.

Right now, the status of the GOP on healthcare reform is a broken promise, an outrageous snub to the free market and main-street conservatism. Big government is apparently still in charge. The welfare subsidization of America with unaffordable health plans paid for by outraged citizens will apparently continue. This is unacceptable and it cannot last.

If the plan now is that Obamacare will repeal itself when it melts down, then, why do we need Republican legislators at all?  The greed that infects all government programs needs to be regulated, along with competition, to restore US leadership and excellence in the industry.

Remember, freedom is the goal, the Constitution is the way. Now, got get ‘em! (26Mar17)

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