The problem with Obamacare

The problem with Obamacare is not a failed website. The problem with Obamacare is not that Obama and the Democrats lied repeatedly. The problem with Obamacare is not the lack of one-on-one meetings between Obama and Sebelius. The problem with Obamacare is the very premise it is built on. That premise is this: Government does things better than the private sector. Government-run programs are built on the cornerstone of waste, fraud and mismanagement. From Medicaid fraud to Medicare waste, to the complete bungling of the US postal service, to the inability of Government to pick winners in business and industry (Solyndra anyone?). We know that this premise is a big fat lie. The Federal Government does not do healthcare particularly well. Again, just look at Medicaid and Medicare. Not to mention the VA. The single biggest denier of medical procedures is not a greedy private sector insurance company, but the Federal Government. So, why, given Big Government’s track record of doing everything ineptly, expensively and wastefully, would anyone think that putting individual healthcare in the hands of Big Government would be a winner? Let me use an analogy. Let’s say I owned a computer software company in Canada. My company has been hired a number of times to develop a system of tracking and managing a government-run program. In these previous jobs, my company failed to do what was expected of us. And, to top it off, the project I was contracted to develop ended up costing the people who hired me far more than I originally said it would. Would you think it was a good idea to put an enormously important, vital system in my hands? Of course not. [Unless of course I happen to have graduated from Princeton with Michelle Obama, then, maybe you would overlook my complete incompetence and hire me anyway.] Folks who live on what I like to call Planet Earth know better than to hire a company to do something when that company has a miserable track record. Yes, despite the horrible track record of failure on the part of the Federal Government, the argument was made that we had to pass Obamacare because we needed the Federal Government to be in charge of every single American’s healthcare. Obamacare was bound to fail because Government cannot do healthcare well. Hell, it was bound to fail because Government cannot do anything well. And those of us who knew from the start that the premise was flawed knew, and told you repeatedly, that Obamacare would be a miserable, awful, disastrous train wreck. The premise that the Federal government is capable of “fixing” something is a false premise. The Federal government doesn’t do the fixing. They are the ones who do the breaking. They are the ones who make a private industry unaffordable through an endless parade of government regulations. They are the ones who make costs go up in the private sector by imposing onerous taxes and penalties on private sector industries. And after they’ve done all that damage, they declare that government must ride in like a Knight in shining armor and “fix” what they themselves “broke.” So, even if you are willing to set aside the true reason for forcing Obamacare on the American People — to wrest from the individual all sovereignty over his or her own life and well-being — and look at the law solely from the “we need government to make healthcare more affordable and fair” argument, Obamacare still does not pass the smell test. Because government doesn’t do the fixing. Government does the breaking. Ronald Reagan was spot-on when he pointed out that government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem. Government causes the problems to begin with. Finally, to the establishment Republicans who want Obamacare to “collapse on its own,” I ask you, what government program has collapsed on its own? When a government program is a failure — and all of them are — it doesn’t collapse. Just look at the federal control of public schools. Federalizing education has been an abysmal failure. And yet, the Department of Education still exists. It gets more and more money, and more and more control over education. While schools collapse and more and more students fail to be educated, Government control of education remains firmly rooted like a plantar wart. Are you guys stupid enough to believe that Big Government will ever permit any of the programs it has gained control of to “collapse on its own?” Obamacare will simply be given more and more money. Taxes will be raised to buttress it. They will never let it collapse even when our entire healthcare system crumbles around us. The only actual, real solution to Obamacare is full repeal. The single best thing Republicans in DC could do to win over the American people is fight for repeal of this law. By doing that, you guys would actually be fighting for the American People. Barack Obama has declared, as he is wont to do, that Obamacare will never be repealed so long as he’s president. You see, he doesn’t give a damn that Obamacare is a failure. He doesn’t give a damn that everybody hates it. And he, like Monty Python’s Black Knight will fight against repeal even as his own law cuts him to ribbons. It’s time the Republicans used that fact. Force the President to defend his ideologically-driven love for this monster. Force the President to argue against the American People. Hang this law around his neck like a millstone while you fight for repeal. You may not succeed in full repeal right now. But by fighting for repeal right now, you will win over the people, further weaken this President’s fundamental transformation and possibly restore this great nation. Where’s the down side?