The Explosive Legacy of O’Bomb-a-Care

Clearly the Democrats do not know how to explain to the masses that the economic numbers they are seeing from Trump reflect averages that are bolstered primarily by the massive income and wealth gains at the top of the food chain, numbers which bring average performance statistics way, way up but do not reflect that, even including tax cuts, 70% of Americans are in the same or worse economic position, in terms of inflation-adjusted buying power, as they were 40 years ago. Stuff costs more, especially the basics: food, clothing, housing, fuel and healthcare. These higher costs have more than sucked up any economic earnings increases enjoyed by most of us. Likewise, those unemployment numbers are heavily populated by part-timers, gig economy players and a mass of underemployed and underpaid workers. Lying with statistics continues.

One of the worst such arenas is the exploding cost of healthcare as the Trump administration has openly campaigned and redesigned the federal program, and more than a few red states have worked to curtail their Affordable Car Act costs looking for exemptions freely granted by Trump, to reduce coverage, increase premiums, co-pays and deductibles, limit coverage for pre-existing conditions and apply lifetime maximum aggregate benefits paid out. Many Republicans are also rather obviously targeting reductions in Social Security and Medicare coverage for the elderly.

But as popular opposition to that 2010 Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare” or the ACA) has pretty much reversed – the program began working beyond expectations until Trump began to disassemble the ACA piece by piece by policy shifts and executive orders (often reversed by the courts) – Republicans are stuck with the fact that only hardcore GOP supporters (no longer including so many GOP moderates or most independent voters who voted Republican) want to repeal the ACA. That Trump’s promise of a better, more affordable replacement for the ACA never materialized is almost never discussed anymore.

While a few Republicans are beginning to realize that their only real recourse with their voters is to fix the ACA not repeal it, the party as a whole is torn apart about what to do about American healthcare. To the delight of Democrats, it is the one huge negative in the GOP platform, an Achilles Heel that they need to exploit. Even lyin’ statistics cannot hide this failure.

“After failing to deliver on their years-long promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act and faced with the sudden popularity of Obamacare’s consumer protections, GOP candidates across the country are struggling for the first time in a decade to put together a cohesive message on healthcare.

“Die-hards still want to repeal the 2010 law, the issue that propelled them to majorities in the House and Senate, but a growing number of Republicans — particularly those facing tough elections — want to quietly admit defeat and move on.

“‘Even to bring it up is picking at the scab,’ said Joe Antos, a health policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. ‘It’s reminding people that they [failed]. The base isn’t that stupid.’

“Other GOP candidates find themselves trying to thread an awkward needle of opposing Obamacare — a law that is still unpopular with core Republican voters — while supporting some of its key provisions. A few Republicans who once called for the repeal of Obamacare are now even embracing it, albeit cautiously… All that makes for a starkly different climate than just two years ago, when GOP candidates could count on opposition to Obamacare as a guaranteed applause line on the stump.

“Once repeal became an actual possibility, the Affordable Care Act — particularly a few individual pieces — became more popular with the public. Forty-eight percent of adults have favorable opinions of the law while 40% have unfavorable views, according to a recent poll by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. In April 2016, those were flipped: 49% of adults with unfavorable opinions and 38% favorable…

“Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate have also shifted ground in some cases. State Attys. Gen. Patrick Morrisey of West Virginia and Josh Hawley of Missouri joined a multistate, GOP-backed lawsuit that seeks to end a requirement in the 2010 law that all Americans have insurance. It was a move that helped buoy their conservative bona fides.

“But now as they run for the Senate, they have had to distance themselves somewhat from the effort, particularly after the Trump administration adopted the legal position that not only should the individual mandate go but preexisting conditions protections should too.

“The preexisting conditions provision is by far the most popular part of Obamacare. Both GOP candidates now say they support requiring insurance companies to cover people with preexisting conditions, even as they remain part of the repeal lawsuit.

“Some Republicans are still eager to keep trying to repeal or dismantle the law… Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who is facing a surprisingly strong challenge from Rep. Beto O’Rouke (D-Texas), wants the GOP to try Obamacare repeal again. Earlier this month, he went to the Senate floor to try to block the District of Columbia from requiring people to have health insurance — a requirement similar to the Obamacare rule the GOP repealed across the country earlier this year.

“The GOP candidate for governor in Maine has pledged to continue incumbent Gov. Paul LePage’s opposition to expanding Medicaid under Obamacare — an expansion that 59% of Maine voters approved in a ballot measure last year. Minnesota’s GOP gubernatorial candidate won his primary by promising to move the state away from its Obamacare insurance exchange but offered few specifics on his alternative.

“And GOP Senate challengers Leah Vukmir in Wisconsin and Marsha Blackburn in Tennessee won their primaries in part by pledging to do more to repeal the law… The result is that even if Republicans do maintain control of both chambers of Congress — seemingly a long shot — any legislative effort to stabilize the health law’s insurance markets is likely to be met with opposition from the conservative end of the Republican party.” Los Angeles Times, August 25^th.

Trump’s efforts have placed American healthcare on life support. Maybe it’s time to apply that strategy to GOP candidates, remembering that the mid-terms are more about local issues than most folks figure. After all, we have the most expensive healthcare system on earth, we are the only developed nation where people can be completely excluded from accessible healthcare, and the only country in the developed world where medical bankruptcy is possible (it is the most common form of bankruptcy in the U.S.).

I’m Peter Dekom, and healthcare is one of the greatest problems that the U.S. government has yet to address appropriately.