The reality of repealing Obamacare

You’ve got me, Robert Gibbs. I really do want babies to go without health insurance, and families to have to choose between rent and health insurance premiums, and cancer patients to go without treatment and die. What on earth gave me away?

This was the message from our Press Secretary during a White House briefing, the day after Congress passed health reform, in response to attempts to repeal it.

Turning off my TV, I proceed as usual with my daily check-in on Facebook, because that's what ordinary, non-political class, working moms like me- the general populace- do. There it is again in the status updates:

"So thankful millions of Americans won’t have to die over health care now"

"Millions of Americans won’t have to choose between treatment and death"

"So many more children will live now because they’ll have access to health care"

I try to show restraint with political commentary on my Facebook account as that's my fun place, but the impulse was too great not to reply to one status that read:

“35 million Americans won’t die today”.

Just think! If we only spent a few $ trillion more, then 0 Americans might not die today! As an added bonus, a few $ trillion more might entice Democrats to reveal our actual expiration dates, so we can budget accordingly, you know.

In all seriousness, these sentiments give a whole new meaning to the adage of taking candy from a baby and predicates a big PR problem towards any attempts to ‘Repeal the Bill’.

Reciting all the quotes in the world on liberty and freedom and the guiding principles in the success of America will not sway these sentiments. If the average American who supports Obamacare already appreciated the merits and effects of liberty and freedom, we wouldn’t have Obamacare today. While attempts to repeal the legislation, or de-fund it, or any other moves made by the oppositional Congress are grand gestures, I believe these strategies will be none other than a one-way ticket out of office.

We can shout from the rooftops that the authors of Obamacare are in bed with the very people they love to hate- big Pharma and the insurance companies.  But we have learned that principles are situational. Seriously, if a leading representative can give up his own amendment on federally-funded abortions in exchange for funding for airports, we’re on our own, folks. Call me a cynic.

Just as democrats opposed the war in Iraq, efforts to de-fund the war were wasted moments. It would have been (and was for many) political suicide not to support the troops or to finish what we started. With that in mind, one can see the headlines now:

“Right-of-center policies will cause an epidemic in babies”

“Granny should turn down the electricity if she really needs her meds, so says the GOP”

 “Teabaggers tell terminal cancer patients to suck it up; there’s no hope, they’re dying anyway”

Why are you laughing? You don’t think for a minute that the media will show any professional integrity, do you?

Further exacerbating the situation, our reps in Congress either believe that most Americans are centrist enough to know better than this and won’t justify it with the time of day. Lessons have not been learned from the Presidency of GWB. If you tell a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.  If you don't believe me, just look at all those hearts and minds on Facebook.

Amid my despair, I came across the suggestion by Megan McArdle over at The Atlantic to project predictions of the success of Obamacare so we can measure its effectiveness. 

Ms. McArdle writes:

If this helps families stave off financial ruin, we should see a meaningful and sustained reduction in the number of bankruptcies. If it improves health, that should show up in life expectancy. If it doesn't, then the bill doesn't do what you said you expected it to do. That's valuable information! Not so much about you, as about health care bills.

If you don't think that any of the effects of this bill will be large enough to measure and hopefully, large enough to justify the price tag of this bill, then I have to ask two questions:

1) Why the hell are we spending $200 billion a year, plus the mandated spending by individuals and employers on premiums, plus the new money the states will have to spend on Medicaid?

2) Why on earth did you bring up all these apparently irrelevant statistics?

I'm all for accountability for beliefs. That's how you make your beliefs better. That's why I want to see all the people who threw around all sorts of theatrical arguments commit to what they are actually reasonably willing to predict will happen. Then explain why the outcomes that they are actually confident enough to predict justify spending about $2000 for every household in the country.

Benchmarks, target dates, withdrawal plan. Initiating, by law, accountability measures is simply the least we can do, and probably the only effective thing we can do, in my opinion, now that Obamacare is here.