Last time they were in charge, Democrats created the dumpster fire we know as Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act, which is nothing more than a failed wealth redistribution experiment.
Historians will look back at the Obama years and note the rise of Democrat Party lemmings who threw themselves off the Obamacare Cliff in a fit of melodramatic sanctimoniousness. They will question why Democrats passed a bill they knew from the beginning was a pile of excrement and then left it for someone else to clean up.
And that cleanup is upon us, given some people are asked to pay premiums the equivalent of small house payments to pay for policies requiring $10,000 (or more) in out-of-pocket costs. Ironically, Democrats promised Obamacare would lower costs.
Historians will also ask how leading Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama never second-guessed their decisions even while watching Obamacare collapse from within.
Rather than joining with Republicans to rescue Americans from this dying legislative monstrosity that made healthcare less accessible and increasingly unaffordable, Democrats chose to take the low road, propagating fear and lies about the House bill known as the American Health Care Act [AHCA].
Now that the bill has reached the Senate, Democrats will either participate in the legislative process or they will answer to their constituents back home about why they failed to help fix the mess they created.
Stop listening to the naysayers. Like any bill, the AHCA is a work in progress and will not become law as it currently stands. But, you would never know that, listening to scaremongers’ cock-and-bull stories about the Republicans’ nefarious plan to kill people with preexisting conditions by obliterating access to healthcare coverage.
It is quite the opposite.
It is a boldfaced lie to say the AHCA ditches people with preexisting conditions. As Townhall editor Guy Benson recently pointed out, “people with preexisting conditions are offered several layers of protection” including: Insurers are mandated to sell plans to everyone, period. Those with preexisting conditions who live in “a state that does not seek an optional waiver from the AHCA’s (and Obamacare’s) ‘community rating’ regulation cannot be charged more than other people for a new plan when they seek to purchase one.” Moreover, those who are “insured and remain continuously insured cannot be dropped from their plan due to a preexisting condition, and cannot be charged more after developing one” even if they change jobs or switch plans. Furthermore, if someone is uninsured and has a preexisting condition and lives in a state with a community rating waiver, the state must grant that person access to the $130 billion high risk pool fund provided under the AHCA.
Obamacare failed for many reasons. It lacked choice and flexibility. It also failed to consider human nature and what happens when government dictates what it wants rather than the other way around. Such as the assumption that healthy young people, many of whom are baristas still residing in their parents’ basement, would miraculously bankroll the costs of the sick and elderly. Surely, an economics course would have helped Democrats understand that in the real world, nothing is free, so mandating “free” preventive care means people will use it, ergo costs spike.
The Democrats who created this crisis see it as a campaign opportunity. They care nothing about the plight of everyday Americans now suffering thanks to their poor decisions and should pay the price for their arrogance and dismissiveness in upcoming elections.