The Left’s ObamaCare Desperation

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You know they’re desperate when they invoke “McCarthyism”:

When House Republicans unveiled a proposal in the fall aimed at avoiding a dead-end government shutdown over Obamacare, the conservative backlash was swift and brutal: they called it a surrender, a betrayal, an appeasement of the health care law they all abhor.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) decried it as “procedural chicanery” that would make House Republicans “complicit in the disaster that is Obamacare,” should they go along with it. FreedomWorks called it a “bait and switch to give the Senate a hall pass to fund Obamacare” and accused House GOP leaders of wanting to “cave and run.”
Since then the phenomenon has grown and taken hold in the 2014 primaries as Republicans accuse their opponents of privately harboring sympathies for Obamacare. . . .
In a way, the phenomenon is reminiscent of McCarthyism, named after Sen. Joe McCarthy, who in the 1950s accused U.S. government officials and others of secretly sympathizing with communism.

This is just crazy-talk which ignores the underlying political reality. Democrats rammed ObamaCare through Congress on a straight party-line vote in 2010, with Nancy Pelosi declaring “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it” and, in the next election, Republicans scored a historic landslide victory. President Obama was re-elected last year in a campaign that basically ignored the new health-care legislation, which had not yet taken effect. When the policy did take effect, it was an unmitigated disaster — not merely because of the glitchy web site, but because millions of Americans had their policies canceled, contrary to what the president had repeatedly promised. Also, contrary to the promises made by Democrats, ObamaCare is causing health insurance rates to go up, not down.

The only people who really benefit from ObamaCare are those who did not previously have health insurance and are now going to get it free because of Medicaid expansion — but pretty much all of those people are from hard-core Democrat constituencies, whereas the key “swing voters” are the middle-class taxpayers getting cancellation notices or rate increases. And this is nothing like “McCarthyism.”

ObamaCare isn’t about some shadowy threat of foreign subversion, it’s about a bad domestic policy that is directly hurting the pocketbooks of ordinary Americans who are smart enough to realize that they’re getting the shaft because Democrats wanted to give away “free stuff” for which hardworking taxpayers will foot the bill.

As policy, this is bad for everybody. As politics, it’s bad for Democrats, and it’s only going to get worse. No wonder they’re desperate.

 


43 comments

  2. “The only people who really benefit from ObamaCare are those who did not previously have health insurance and are now going to get it free because of Medicaid expansion”

    If they can find a doctor that will accept Medicaid that is. Seems that there are a lot of docs that just don’t like being paid less. And they’ll have the freedom to refuse service right up to the point the government conscripts their practices and their freedom for the “General Welfare of the Nation”.

    For every bite taken, this sandwich just keeps refilling the excrement quotient,

  4. When socialism fails, as it always does, the true believers blame the capitalist pigs. One way or another, it’s never the fault of socialism.

  5. The latest variant of the “wreckers, hoarders, saboteur, counterrevolutionary, Trotskyite” song and dance.

    Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

  6. Could you please review Mr. Rauhauser’s child support file in Nebraska? His children’s healthcare? Hhis ex – wife’s cancer and then explain why he has any rights that most people have in this country to express an opinion? Btw, his son is interested in a future in the Air Force.

  7. Why do Republicans debating other Republicans, and voting for the Republican that best represents them scare the Simian-American Community of TPM, so much? It’s obvious the little fellow there is concerned. Very concerned. So concerned that they wheel out someone that doesn’t think like me, but wants to claim he’s with me, just to tell me that Obamacare is based on my ideas? Huh?

    I’d ask them except I was banned for asking those sorts of questions, and stirring up the monkey cage too much.

  9. Here are the three big code words:
    1. McCarthyism
    2. Racism
    3. Slavery

    You (not Democrat) are not allowed to use these words and when confronted with these words in the form or accusations must instantly act as though you have been caught in the act and are now subject to a Truth Commission (see South Africa).

  10. Nonsense. The system is designed to fail and take private insurers down the tubes with it.

    The government is only covering/subsidizing losses over 3% on claims paid for three years. Insurance companies cannot survive long even on 3%, they must not lose money on claims vs premiums, else premiums must rise, driving healthy people out of the market and hastening the collapse of the structure.

  11. I’ve noticed that the leftist website comment section trolls are still drinking the Obamacare kool-aid– they’re still insisting despite all evidence that the website is working fine, people will save money under Obamacare, etc., etc.

    Rats flee a sinking ship, whereas trolls ride it to the bottom, it seems.

  12. It is designed to prompt a single payer system. The problem is it is melting down too soon and backfiring from its grand design. The Democrats are playing the role of Wild E. Coyote. Republicans have to choose whether to be the Road Runner (or not).

  14. I’m not laughing at America (at least, the conservative side of America) because I feel your pain. But I AM laughing because just as the British National Health Service is collapsing around our ears, the lefty idiots over there are embarking on EXACTLY THE SAME MISTAKE! I mean come on….how dumb can they be?!! ROFL
    Reality: When you try to be all things to all people (which is what ALL health schemes end up being when they are brought in by lefty control freaks) you end up with an unmanageable behemoth that is sooo open to abuse it beggars belief.

    Human nature says it all: if it CAN be exploited, people WILL exploit it.

    Look forward to some very expensive medicine for lots of people that don’t deserve it.

  22. It’s amazing that de Klerk still stands behind what he did. Mandela was a terrorist righteously jailed. Freed, Mandela brought the ANC out of the shadows and while the country collapses around his ears, de Klerk can’t bring himself to regret what he did in betraying the country to those who would destroy it.

  24. So far, they’ve chosen to be the Coyote. They need to realize that the only one that thought Wile E. was a genius was Wile E. himself. McConnell and others have chosen to drink the koolaid so far. Hopefully, 2014 will be McConnell’s last year in the Senate. I’d like to Boehner and Cantor gone as well, but the voters of Boehner’s district have shown themselves to be pretty stupid over the years.

  28. Most of the left continues to delude itself into believing the problem is the web site and once that is fixed, all will be well.

    That is doubtful, the hits from ObamaCare will just keep coming up until the cancellation of employer policies starts hitting just before the 2014 elections. Then, after that will be the price increases because the risk pools will have included more sick people and less healthy people than expected. Voters will be furious.

    BTW, that increase in policy costs is going to affect consumer spending by the amount of the policy cost increases. The economy will be weakening next year and in 2015 because of ObamaCare. So, ObamaCare will lead into the 2016 Presidential and Senatorial elections. Way to go Democrats.

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