By Rick Manning
Remember the good ole days back in 2010 when no one had read the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and it was going to enroll millions of the uninsured?
All of us just blithely believed our D.C. masters who assured us that if we liked our insurance we could keep it, and that we wouldn’t be forced to switch doctors.
And given the name of the law, clearly we were going to save money on our health insurance costs as the evil profit motive was wrung out of the system.
Those were the days.
Just a few short months ago, President Obama shut down the government by refusing to delay the implementation of his signature law for even a year. This past week, he delayed the individual mandate for two years, after previously delaying the employer mandate. Apparently, he feels comfortable arbitrarily delaying the law, but uncomfortable doing it the old fashioned Constitutional way.
Now, the ACA is known as Obamacare by millions, and that is not a good thing.
The Administration even has admitted that they aren’t actually tracking how many uninsured people are benefitting, after using this group as the justification for breaking the system for the 85 percent of Americans who already had health insurance.
Amazingly, the number of uninsured today is about the same as when Obama took office, and about twice as many people have been hurt by the new law than have been helped and that number is going to accelerate throughout 2014.
And the “you can keep your health insurance, if you like your health insurance” Democrat party mantra has been deemed the lie of the year, and promises to be a millstone around incumbent Democrat necks in the upcoming 2014 elections. Just as former President George H.W. Bush has lived with the “read my lips” line, Obama and those who blindly followed him will wear the scarlet letter of the failed health insurance promise for the remainder of their careers.
All of this doesn’t even mention the “death panels” that Sarah Palin correctly identified and skewered, while Media Team Obama scoffed at her. Now we know that yes, Barack, there are death panels – not shockingly that same media is avoiding giving credit to the former Governor for her honesty and prescience. But, rest assured, Democrats are very concerned about these cost control-based health care terminator panels that they so recently argued didn’t exist in the law they didn’t read.
Finally, the coup de gras for the law was reached last week when Obama himself was caught telling the truth, when he urged people on Spanish language television to set their priorities correctly and get rid of their cell phone and cable television so they can afford the suddenly not so affordable health care that Obama insists they get.
This is quite a statement from an Administration that has dramatically expanded the cell phone giveaway program known as the Obamaphone, out of concern for the access to phone service. Somehow those who make more than 135 percent of the poverty level should give up their cell phone access to pay for a mandated health insurance program. However do not despair. I’m confident that Obama will solve the problem with a stroke of his pen and expand the eligibility for the Obamaphone to millions who otherwise would have previously been ineligible, so they can afford to pay the government health care tithe.
If none of this makes sense, welcome to Obama World, where the White House changes the law with the stroke of his pen with little regard for cost or consequences, and none of the promises about the law actually were true in the first place. In Washington, D.C., it’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
Rick Manning is the Vice President of Public Policy and Communications for Americans for Limited Government. You can follow Rick on twitter @rmanning957.