About a month ago, we told you about how Democrats were mumbling about "fixing" their failing law with -- surprise! -- even more spending and a more intrusive government role. With the general election looming, it seems as though they're sticking with this approach. Americans oppose this harmful and unpopular partisan scheme, yet Democrats are asking taxpayers for another bailout, coupled with an expansion of the federal government's control over the healthcare sector. Via a New York Times story bearing the brutal headline, "Ailing Obama Health Care Act May Have to Change to Survive." Ouch:
The fierce struggle to enact and carry out the Affordable Care Act was supposed to put an end to 75 years of fighting for a health care system to insure all Americans. Instead, the law’s troubles could make it just a way station on the road to another, more stable health care system, the shape of which could be determined on Election Day. Seeing a lack of competition in many of the health law’s online insurance marketplaces, Hillary Clinton, President Obama and much of the Democratic Party are calling for more government, not less. The departing president, the woman who seeks to replace him and nearly one-third of the Senate have endorsed a new government-sponsored health plan, the so-called public option, to give consumers an additional choice. A significant number of Democrats, for whom Senator Bernie Sanders spoke in the primaries, favor a single-payer arrangement, which could take the form of Medicare for all...In such divergent proposals lies an emerging truth: Mr. Obama’s signature domestic achievement will almost certainly have to change to survive. The two parties agree that for too many people, health plans in the individual insurance market are still too expensive and inaccessible.
In other words, it's not working. Republicans across the country should make this issue a major component of their closing argument to voters. "Does my opponent support pouring more taxpayer dollars into Obamacare, creating a new tentacle of the law that would crush the employer-based system with which most Americans are satisfied, and bailing out insurance companies who are losing money because of Democrats' terrible miscalculation?" They should also be prepared to make a strong case against the unworkable, unaffordable, non-'compassionate' single-payer system. And they shouldn't offer half-baked plans to "improve" a law that needs to be uprooted. Policy wonk Megan McArdle wryly notices that the Left's grand new proposal to repair their mistake doesn't sound particularly new or novel at all:
Ideas for “fixing” Obamacare seem, by and large, to consist of spraying money on the markets with a firehouse. Is this politically viable?
— (((Megan McArdle))) (@asymmetricinfo) October 3, 2016
Phil Kerpen responds with how this issue polls when framed properly. Again, I hope conservative candidates are paying attention:
No. @asymmetricinfo @McCormackJohnhttps://t.co/Kt02yIRF1Z pic.twitter.com/uur91F1ndl
— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) October 3, 2016
Speaking of GOP campaigns, would it kill the Trump campaign to challenge Hillary on her integral role in the creation of Obamacare, and her ongoing support for it? Trump doesn't have an acceptable alternative solution, of course, but Congressional Republicans do. Parting thought: Would Democratic candidates also care to weigh in on the White House's illegal bailout payments, or the administration's reported plan to improperly divert billions from an unrelated fund to keep the bailouts going -- subverting the clear will of Congress in the process?