While I don't know for sure if members of Congress will be hearing about it in town hall gatherings or other meetings they will attend while back at home over the Fourth of July recess, what is the rolling thunder of a rapidly approaching Obamacare train can now be heard in the distance. There are Democrats who are now beginning to get frantic about the need to suppress the confusion and hide the cost of Obamacare between now and the, also rapidly approaching, 2014 midterm elections. We are now just three months away from the October 1st enrollment start date and, so far, not much about the Obamacare implementation process seems to be all that politically encouraging for Democrats. In fact, the more people actually learn about it, the more frightened they become of it.
Right now, small businesses all across America are making the final determinations on how best to reduce the working hours of their employees so fewer employees qualify for the mandated, employer-provided health insurance. Employers are also deciding whether it makes more economic sense to pay a fine to the government or pay for healthcare benefits for their employees. What this essentially means is that hundreds of thousands – and perhaps even millions – of Americans will learn that they are being dismissed from their employer’s healthcare coverage. The healthcare pink slips will start raining down sometime in late summer and early fall. This will push people into the healthcare exchanges, where, in some cases, people will be writing health insurance checks for the very first time.
And in many of these cases, people will be facing increased health insurance costs, particularly if they are young and healthy. The negative effects on personal income and the overall economy will, most assuredly, be disastrous. Sometime next year, before the elections, the penalties associated with not having or providing health insurance will begin to pour in. Will the fines come in the mail? Will you be able to appeal? What happens if someone doesn’t pay? No one knows. Or, at least no one who knows is talking. The consequences of Obamacare are being well-hidden. An article in the Wall Street Journal, "Health-insurance costs set for a jolt" provides just a hint of the debacle headed our way. At some point very soon, it’s going to be undeniable that Obamacare is nothing but another federal entitlement.
In midterm elections, those who vote tend to be a bit more engaged when it comes to the important issues at hand. In other words, these voters will notice if they have health insurance that is more expensive but offers less coverage than what they had pre-Obamacare. Some of the Democrats’ reactions will be predictable, in that they'll be blaming Bush and Republicans, at least or for a while, denying the obvious. But I doubt that that tactic will work for very long.. At least I hope the American people will be smarter than that. One of the worst sins you can commit in politics is to say something that’s different from what people can see for themselves. There is simply no chance in Hell that Obamacare will be able to perform as promised and when it doesn’t, voters will be looking for relief.
Now having said all that, believe it or not, there are those among us who, for whatever reason, are more than happy to buy what Barry and the Democrats are selling. They seem to be quite comfortable using that same old and tired analogy of car insurance in any and all of their discussions of Obamacare. They say that drive safely and don't cause accidents and you still pay premiums. They claim that that's simply how insurance works. Their theory is that everybody pays into a pot and when money is needed for care, the money comes out of the pot as well as from the co-pay. Now that may sound fine in theory, but there is plenty of proof out there that, especially when dealing with health insurance, that it rarely works all that well in actual practice. People have actually died waiting ro see a doctor.
It's these same people who repeatedly demonstrate their ignorance, or their gullibility, by getting up on their soapbox to loudly declare that we simply don't need companies like Aetna, Humana, etc. And they say that Obamacare is actually the first step in what is the right direction. They've actually convinced themselves, or allowed themselves to be convinced by others, that the health insurance industry is guilty of creating this notion that 'single payer' is communist. They say how can that be when it's such a system that is used in places like Canada, Great Britain, Denmark and France? They aren't communist, they argue! Well, they may not be communist, but they are Socialist and they sure do have shitty healthcare. Hence the reason so many come here for their healthcare.
Anyway, entire cockamamie argument of these people can be pretty much obliterated with just one simple statement. And if all those folks who are so busy advancing such an imbecilic argument were half as clever as they think they are, they would be able to recognize the fact that while they do accurately describe how car insurance works, they seem to ignore completely one important fact. What happens if you don't own a car. Ah, that would be that you don't have to buy insurance. Because if you follow their screwy logic through to its natural conclusion, you would have to buy car insurance just in case you were to decide, at some future date, that you want to buy a car. So their argument is just plain nutty. These folks who insist on living in denial are in for a very rude awakening.
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