As the ObamaCare ‘cover story’ begins to unravel and the truth about this legislative monstrosity is being revealed through the discovery of video-recorded comments made by Jonathan Gruber, one of the architects of the ACA, it’s time to remind ourselves just who really was responsible for forcing this onto the American people.
While the president had little to do with actually writing the legislation that resulted in the Affordable Care Act, Obama simply gave marching orders to House and Senate Democrats and sat back and waited for them to create ‘his’ signature legislative accomplishment. He never participated in its creation, he never read it, never even looked at it, nor had any idea what it consisted of beyond what Nancy Pelosi told him. He simply accepted it as it was written and then enthusiastically jumped on the band wagon once the over two thousand pages were completed, and began to sell it to the American people as the greatest thing to come their way since canned beer and sliced bread.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in one of her more lucid moments ballyhooed the Democrats’ creation, even while admitting that no one knew what the legislation contained within its’ pages.
Having little understanding at first, as everyone else, of all the headaches the legislation would eventually create for the Democrats and himself, the president embraced ownership and began to proudly use the ‘ObamaCare’ moniker during his public comments.
Once it became obvious that ObamaCare was rapidly becoming a thorny political issue for the administration’s party, the president and Democrats running for election began to discreetly, yet quickly distance themselves from it. Rarely was the name “ObamaCare” heard during campaign speeches, in fact Democrats for the most part tried their darnedest to separate themselves from the very legislation they had proudly created at the president’s behest.
Now that Republicans have taken over both branches of the legislative arm of government, they have the opportunity to do something meaningful about the Affordable Care Act. They can symbolically vote to repeal ObamaCare, which everyone knows will die by veto on the president’s desk. And Democrats and the president will beat them over the head with it, making as much political hay as they can over Republican obsessiveness on the issue. Or they can fight back this strong urge and actually do something more responsible.
Recognizing that there are some parts of ObamaCare that Americans favor, wouldn’t it be more logical to do something to actually fix it and make ObamaCare better, instead of just scrapping the entire law and starting over ? They can take the time to study the ACA from front cover to back cover, throwing out about two thousand pages along the way, and create something that will truly benefit Americans. Turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse.
Politically it’s a win-win for Republicans. They might even garner some bipartisan support for this effort and be able to show Americans that both parties, led by the Republicans, can really work together. It would also place President Obama in a very difficult position politically should he use his presidential veto. A much better course of action than taking head-on a sore-loser who has proven to be very adept at setting traps for Republicans to fall into.
While Congress isn’t well known for fixing problems, working together to fix the American health care system isn’t beyond their ability if they do it smart. Don’t employ government bureaucrats and lawyers to fix the problem, they’ll just create two thousand more pages no one understands or wants to read. Get health care workers, insurance companies, and even patients, everyone who has a stake in getting something done that’ll work. Working together to solve the problems that need fixing, and doing it in way fewer pages !
Afterwards when they roll out the new product perhaps it’ll be something they can all be proud of, not something everyone wants to run away from. They can even come up with a better-sounding name for their creation, maybe call it ‘RepubliCare’ !
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