Defund Obamacare? Really??
In the absence of much of anything on the economic front we are left to amuse ourselves with the sight of the Republican party hacking away at itself over Obamacare. We all know that health care reform was a hated event for the right wingers. Even the ones who acknowledge the need for our decrepit health care system to be fixed cannot bear the thought that in a scant few weeks several major parts of Obamacare come into force. The Republican problem is simply that the reform will work and will prove popular.
A very large number of people will see their health insurance costs drop – by as much as half in some cases. A much larger group will be able to get insurance for the first time. Another group will see their pre-existing conditions disappear as a block against new insurance. And even those with employer insurance programs will start to wonder why they don’t just quit those programs and buy insurance at lower rates in the open market – this cost pressure on those expensive employer subsidized programs is a hidden effect of the reform. Only healthy young people who take the risk currently and don’t buy insurance will suffer a setback – they will have to get insured.
So, overall, once Obamacare is up and rolling it will prove immovable. Too many voters will benefit.
This is why we are seeing such panic amongst Republican ranks right now. Unless they think of some way to stop reform taking hold their dreams of rolling back the safety net will take an irreversible hit.
And panic it is.
The more realistic wing – if such a thing exists anymore – of the Republicans privately acknowledges that the reform is here to stay. The problem is that after years of demonization, extreme rhetoric, and relentless misrepresentation they are stuck with a rabid core supporter base who actually believed all that criticism. Those supporters, naturally, want to fight to the bitter end. After all they have been told that Obamacare is a thinly veiled importation of communism into their hallowed and ruggedly independent US of A. Having “won” the Cold War and avoided socialism on the world stage, it must be intensely dispiriting for those rabid supporters to see the triumph of socialism and the provision of mass health care via the democratic process on their home shores.
So the fight is on.
The problem is that the Republicans have few, if any, credible weapons.
The law passed through the entire constitutional process. Is has been declared legal. It is the law of the land. The only way to stop it is to prevent Federal funds being allocated to any of its key components. Hence the “defund” mantra. Without control of the Senate or the White House the probability of such efforts succeeding is zero. Yet the drums of war beat on.
Extreme groups are beginning to pile on the pressure. The Heritage Foundation has bought $550,000 of TV advertising aimed at Republican members of the House or Senate who are wavering in the defunding fight. Mitch McConnell, in the middle of a tense struggle to fend off a Tea Party rival in his re-election campaign, has been branded a “chicken” for not joining the extremist crusade. This is one of those odd moments in American politics: McConnell, who has orchestrated over four years of stubborn nihilistic ideological and often quasi-acist opposition to Obama is now viewed as soft. He has done more to undermine bipartisan compromise than most anyone in history, and yet is deemed “chicken”.
There is no way we ought to feel sorry for the likes of McConnell. He and his cohorts cynically stirred up the dark muddy sediments at the bottom of American politics for their own advantage. They failed to produce anything, and certainly didn’t stop Obama’s re-election. Now it threatens to engulf them.
Good.
It will be healthy for the Republicans to be splintered as they fume and fret. The ultra-conservatives have to adopt a scorched earth posture. By so doing they bring the process of rehabilitating the GOP and aligning it with the public to a screeching halt. The Republicans lost the last election not because Obama was great – he wasn’t and still isn’t – but because they are dreadful and wildly out of step with modern America. This internal struggle over Obamacare threatens to highlight just how little concrete progress the party has made in getting to grips with its failure as a national force.
The problem the rest of us face is that the struggle for power inside the GOP is likely to spill out and could, potentially drown us all.
Why?
Because the extremists are so insane that they are actively talking about coupling funding for Obamacare with vital legislation such as raising the debt ceiling. So desperate are they that the prospect of American default on its debt and the possible subsequent collapse of the economy is seen as a reasonable price to pay to prevent health care reform gaining traction.
The entire episode is shameful and absurd. The Republicans have taken leave of their senses. Opposition is one thing. Indeed it is essential in a democracy. But it has to be loyal. It has to be balanced. It has to share a common and inclusive vision of the social polity. Right now the Republicans are not loyal or balanced. And they have a distorted and peculiar vision of America that is antiquated, small minded, and depressingly exclusive. Their entire brand is now based on redistributing income upwards from the many to the few. They have nothing else. They certainly have no alternative health care reform plan. If they had, they would, presumably, have advocated it. They haven’t. They remain silent on what they would do.
Instead they tear into each other with nasty and vindictive hatred as they prepare to make a last stand on Obamacare.
In the end we can hope that they deflate and bicker in private. And that the reform goes into effect. Millions of people will benefit. For some it will make the difference between life and death. That, surely, is sound public policy making.
What the Republicans have to offer is just nasty rhetoric and negative smear. Unfortunately we have about a month and a half of this.
Defund Obamacare? Really?? I doubt it.
