That is not a bold prediction, just common sense. To address a limited problem—40 million people lacked health insurance, often by their own choosing—the ACA screwed up the entire U.S. health insurance and healthcare systems, severely damaging the economy in the process. The law will be repealed by Republicans, along with Democrats interested in keeping their jobs, because . . . .
Reason Number 13. The economy sucks for the average worker, making Democrats politically vulnerable even apart from Obamacare. They can’t blame G. W. Bush forever.
Reason Number 12 Barack who? His influence is fading fast, and he is too arrogant and aloof to have many friends on Capitol Hill. Congressmen are more interested in saving their own careers than Obama’s lamentable “legacy.”
Reason Number 11 Wrath of Middle Class Independents Participants in the “individual market” have already been shocked by losing their current plans and being forced into more expensive plans that have higher deductibles, many features they don’t need, and less choice of hospitals and doctors. Next year the same fate awaits tens of millions of people employed by small and mid-sized businesses that don’t “self-insure.” Many of these Obamacare victims are independent voters.
Reason Number 10. Doctor No. Over the next two years people who are kicked off their current plans will discover, or be rudely reminded when they get sick or injured, that their family doctor won’t see them anymore. He or she is “out of network.”
Reason Number 9. Mauled Millennials Twenty-somethings will fall out of love with Democrats when they grasp that, in addition to high unemployment, huge education debts, and Social Security that may not be there when they retire, they must either pay a fine to the IRS or buy over-priced insurance.
Reason Number 8. Low income workers get screwed too. Many will be lured into Medicaid and experience severe doctor shortages. Some low-income people with tight budgets who make too much to quality for big subsidies will face the terrible choice of A) buying more expensive insurance than they can afford, B) foregoing coverage and paying a fine, or C) reducing their income so they qualify for Obamacare subsidies.
Reason Number 7. Democrats’ War on Women, who grapple with health insurance issues in a large majority of American households.
Reason Number 6. Labor Pains — Obamacare discombobulates the U.S. labor market by encouraging firms to both stay “under the limit” of 50 full-time workers and to restrict workers to 29 hours per week.
Reason Number 5. The Website from Hell won’t really function as intended for many months, if ever. The “back end” linking consumers with insurance companies still has not been built. And don’t forget the high risk of security breaches.
Reason Number 4. The few “winners” from the law are already Democrats—namely, low income people who get insurance for the first time, for free.
Reason Number 3. Exacerbating inequality In true crony capitalist fashion, Obamacare hurts small and mid-sized businesses but leaves unscathed government workers and employees of giant corporations that self-insure. This is patently unfair.
Reason 2. Fiscal Fiasco. Congress will have to plug a gaping money hole when the actuarial arithmetic does not work because the young, healthy and overcharged refuse to enroll and, in many cases, manage to evade the IRS. With total Federal discretionary spending squeezed by sequestration, Democrats will find their entire domestic agenda swallowed up funding and defending an unpopular, dysfunctional law.
And the NUMBER ONE REASON WHY OBAMACARE WILL BE REPEALED: Fraud. The plan has no political legitimacy because it was sold on the false promise that if you like your current plan and doctor you can keep them.
Copyright Thomas Doerflinger 2013. All Rights Reserved.
