Wednesday, January 04, 2017

End of ObamaCare

The Affordable Care Act is also known as ObamaCare. The law does a lot of great things and has reduced the uninsured by 20,000,000 million Americans.

The Republican Congress has defined, as its first goal, to repeal the legislation. 

Now, armed with a majority in both houses and a new President, they are a little freaked out. Turns out taking away insurance for 20 Million people makes them a little nervous.  Kentucky has already proved this. They elected a Governor who campaigned solely on overturning ObamaCare - but he didn't.

The Republicans are trying to figure out how to do this, with the least impact on their reelection chances. They have decided to repeal - over time.

They hope that by letting it expire by pieces that no one will notice. They have also promised to "replace" it. But they haven't had a clue yet and it has been 6 years.

What they are really trying to figure out is how to replace the pieces their voters use, without replacing the entire thing. It will be interesting to watch them try to thread the needle.

By forcing insurers to do some things - without requiring everyone to get insurance, the premiums will go nuts.  Maybe then they can pretend it's all ObamaCare's fault.

As for better Republican ideas, their aren't any really. ObamaCare IS based on a Republican idea, you see. It was designed by the Heritage Foundation years ago. It uses private insurers - as opposed to public health option.

I will be interesting.

And, we will be going back to the more expensive option of using Emergency Rooms for problems. You see, ObamaCare moved 20 Million people to insured. Those people will go back to using the Emergency Room and not paying for it. Our taxes pay for it.  And Emergency Rooms can't turn people away. That was a Ronald Reagan rule.