"Always behave as if nothing had happened, no matter what has happened.” Arnold Bennett, English novelist and journalist
September 18, 2013
By: Linda Case Gibbons
Don’t listen to those people who say Obamacare should be repealed, like that Max Baucus (D-MT). He's chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and the guy who wrote and supported the Obamacare bill.
Baucus described the law as "a huge train wreck.” Imagine!These people don’t know what they’re talking about and besides, they’re probably just jealous of the president. It’s probably all about his "style,” like the president said!
Now I can understand Democrats walking out on House Hearings before the parents of Tyrone Woods and Sean Smith testified. I mean, really, who wants to sit around listening to facts about something that old? Benghazi happened a year ago!
But attack, Obamacare ? That’s going too far. It’s probably racially oriented, too.
Heck, Obamacare is a carefully thought out, strategically planned healthcare program, just like the strike the president planned for Syria.
Sure, some of those people who criticize say it will kill the 40-hour work week and result in layoffs in small and large businesses. I don’t know where they get their facts.
Like the guy who claimed that 97 percent of the net job creation over the last six months was part-time work.” Ridiculous! He is former commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this guy Keith Hall. But what does he know?
I know. You’re going to point out that the AFL-CIO wrote a letter complaining the law would destroy the 40-hour work week and decimate the union "Cadillac” healthcare plans.
And yeah, if you want to get picky, members of franchises did flock to Washington, D.C. this week to ask for a revamp of the healthcare law so they can preserve their employees’ work hours. But I don’t think that means anything.
Jay Carney, the president’s press secretary said there was zero impact on job creation and job destruction by this law. So there you are.
I know. More than half of American citizens have told their elected representatives that they do not want Obamacare. And it’s true, eighty-five percent of Americans are already insured and like the healthcare coverage they chose and paid for themselves.
But you have to realize, their representatives in Congress don’t have time to listen to a bunch of constituents who don’t know what they’re talking about. They’re busy getting ready for the next election. These congressmen are busy.
And of course, the president himself told us in 2010, the year he signed the bill into law, that if we liked our healthcare plans, if we liked our doctor, we could keep them.
It didn’t turn out that way, so some, like Forbes’ Paul Gregory pointed that out. Gregory wrote, "Those who want Obamacare repealed are simply exercising the same rights as consumers to return their purchase after being subject to fraud.”
You know, bait and switch? But how silly is that?
At first blush, I admit, it may look like the U.S. has been turned into a nation of part-time workers when you see a lot of layoffs and hour-cutting, but looks can be so deceiving, you know that.
And there are those who point to the fact that the U.S. fell 15 slots from second to seventeenth place in an annual ranking of economic freedom. The reason for this was said to be an increase in government spending, expanding regulation and declining security of property rights and rule of law.
But this is a Canadian public policy think tank. What do they know? And besides, who even reads reports like this one? It’s like that one that said the U.S. credit rating had fallen.
And I might as well mention the news that IBM cancelled healthcare benefits to 110,000 of its retirees, because I know you’ll bring it up anyway.
And that UPS has stopped providing healthcare for employees’ spouses, yada, yada. It’s probably just a coincidence.
So moving past these bogus claims and concerns let’s get on to the law itself. Understanding it is a no-brainer. So here goes.
If you don’t have insurance, you have to get it. If you don’t get it, you have to pay a fine. It’s small at first, but it goes up so then you can’t afford the fine and have to buy government insurance.
If you worked and bought the insurance you like, you’ll probably lose it. It will go up in price and you won’t be able to afford it.
You’ll blame the insurance companies for being greedy, not Obama, and soon there will be no insurance companies who can afford to be in business so you’ll have no companies to get insurance from. Except the government.
Oh, and if you like your doctor, you probably won’t be able to keep him, either. Plus a lot of doctors are saying "the heck with this,” and closing their practices, which is so annoying.
If you have a good plan which the government calls a "Cadillac Plan,” you’ll be taxed 40 percent on it. It’s hard to understand the rule and they say it’s your employer who theoretically pays the tax, but I think it really has something to do with redistribution of wealth. But it’s only 40 percent.
Now if you don’t work and don’t have money, someone else will pick up the tab for your healthcare and then those people will have to pay more for theirs. But that’s only fair.
If you’re poor or can’t afford health insurance, 31 million of you still won’t be covered under Obamacare and will have to continue to use free clinics. It’s one of those things Obama said "snuck” into the bill, I guess.
Now if you’re old, really old, don’t worry. There are death panels in the law, so you’ll be okay, sort of.
You won’t have to decide if you want that hip replacement, the Payment Advisory Board will make that decision for you by setting rates to levels where no doctor or hospital will perform them. After all, it’s costly propping up old people. Who’d want to do that?
So, no fuss, no worry for senior citizens.
Oh, and if you’re a federal employee and don’t like Obamacare and think you can’t afford it on your government salary, you don’t have to. The president has exempted you and members of Congress. You also will have access to subsidies to make the whole deal more palatable and affordable.
Now Obamacare funding is easy to understand, too.
If you’re young and healthy and don’t want to buy health insurance because you’re young and healthy and figure you’ll always stay that way and besides you have better things to do with the approximate $5,000 it would cost you to get Obamacare, you don’t have to get it, in the beginning.
Instead you can pay a fine, a small fee like $95 to start, a little more for a couple of years and you’re good to go. But the program needs your money, you healthy citizens, to fund older, not so healthy and poorer citizens. That’s how the law’s set up.
Eventually the fines will cost as much as coverage would have cost when you opted out in the beginning, and you’ll be forced to get coverage ‘cause you have to. So you’ll buy it. In a government program.
For those of you who have a lot of health problems, everyone will know it.
The IRS, with its stellar record with tax exempt groups like the Tea Party will make sure they know your stuff and all the workers in the health exchanges will because it’s their job to know, even if they’re not screened that well, or at all. You know how security in the government is these days.
Now everything isn’t exactly in place, like the healthcare exchanges, but that’s understandable. The deadline is October 1, 2013, and I’m sure everything will be up and running perfectly by then. Although, once again, there are those naysayers who spoil everything.
"At this moment not a single state appears to be completely ready” says W. Brett Graham from the consulting firm Leavitt Partners involved in the design and development of state exchanges, speaking about the healthcare exchanges.
"Ongoing technology challenges” could result, he said, in slow enrollment, delayed eligibility determinations and increased potential for fraud and abuse.
Yikes!
So the bottom line seems to be that Obamacare is chock-a-block full of surprises, but that’s good, right? The bill itself is five feet tall. There’s got to be good "stuff” in there, to borrow one of President Obama’s favorite words.
And if there are a few snafus, well, it’s to be expected. It’s a great plan we’re told. And if a few people fall through the cracks, well, I can understand that. Nothing’s perfect.
After all, do you believe the guys who wrote the bill and the president who is advertising the law to young people with ads in porta potties at rock concerts, and hawking it at college campuses around the country really wanted a bunch of sick people in their healthcare plan?
Hold the line, America.