THE PROBLEM

What has the nation stepped in with the Affordable Care Act?  What is the problem with it?

The problem is not that the website is glitchy.  Surely that can get fixed.

The problem is not that we paid hundreds of millions of dollars for the website and have nothing to show for it.

Rep. Trey Gowdy says for all that money, we got a sundial and abacus.  Charles Krauthammer partially disagreed with that analogy because he said an abacus works.

The problem is not that it has unintended consequences such as it soon will EXCLUDE more folks out of their policies than the original 30 million we were looking to INCLUDE.

Bureaucracy always ends up with unintended consequences.

The problem is not only that the ACA is based on a pile of purposeful prevarications (try saying that three times) such as keeping a doc/keeping a plan/saving $2,500.

That did seem a lot like Ron Popeil's snake oil, though.












The problem is not that after 3.5 years and $600 million dollars to make/promote it, the website never met ANY of its deadlines and repeatedly failed security tests, but constantly got passed along like a non-reader in high school.

Sheryl Atkinson @CBS reported this week that the man from CMS who was in charge of the website never knew of the internal memos talking about the identity theft vulnerability.  And the underling who signed off on that vulnerability waiver?  He retired last week.

The problem is not that "per-hour" navigators can be hired from illegals and the Affordable Care Act's regulations do not require that these navigators have a background check.

All that above stuff could be fixed.  Perhaps.  Now here is what the problem really is...

IT'S A PROBLEM...that people BELIEVED the promises of the Affordable Care Act.

We thought you could expect doctors to accept less money and stay in the system...we thought you could add 30 million people into the existing doctor pool without complications... and we thought it would all cost less?  Peachy keen.

IT'S A PROBLEM...that the ACA is KILLING the economy and job growth by demands made on employers.

AND IT'S A PROBLEM...that the ACA is KILLING the middle class by raising taxes and reducing income (by going to part-time employment or losing jobs altogether)...followed by government dependence.

The problems have happened as a result of two things.  The insurance industry needed a facelift and got an amputation.  And the federal government had a plan to become the single payer, and we now are in the process of that goal being realized.

C'mon now.  Doesn't it seem unlikely that we couldn't launch a website?  Listen to this take:

"From Pearl Harbor to the German surrender was 3 years, 5 months, and 1 day; from the passage of the ACA to it's launch was 3 years, 6 months, and 10 days.  We could mobilize men and tanks and planes, jeeps, submarines, cruisers, destroyers, torpedoes and ammo...turn the tide in North Africa, invade Italy, D-Day, Battle of the Bulge, and Race to Berlin...while at the same time fighting Japanese in the Pacific.  But we couldn't launch a website." Even factoring in incompetence, the failure seems unlikely.

What seems more likely is the plan has been working from the beginning.  First, people can't get into the website and are frustrated.  People who squeak through find high prices and get more frustrated.  Insurance companies are strangled by regulations and cancel, causing panic.  And government tightens the noose on self-insured businesses.  Without insurance, there will be chaos and a clamoring for government to do something.  Voila!

And when government becomes the single payer, how will people be able to afford "free"?  What does government always do?  

Government will answer with their familiar solution of throwing money.  They offered subsidies to Congress  and that's what the unions wanted.

What me worry?  The government gets the check.

Have we all gone mad?  Pay everyone's healthcare with what?  Americans are losing more money and the country goes into more debt while the health of the economy is hanging by a thread.

Let's remember this all began with the ORIGINAL DECEIT that the "Affordable Care Act" was constitutional.  The Supreme Court said government had no right to compel Americans to either buy something or pay a fine, but then John Roberts threw out a lifeline.  He said it COULD be considered constitutional if it was called it a tax (which, of course, the president had said all along it WASN'T).  No one ever wants more taxes, but lipstick was put on that pig and the ACA squeaked through.

Liberty took a black eye that day.  It is highly unlikely that a sixth of our economy could be based on something crooked that hides in the skirts of "doing good for others".  This unhappy American chapter is not about compassion, but about power over people.  Now the government has all our information... so HIPPA, begone!