Yesterday, Congressional Republicans voted unanimously to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act which is President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement. They didn’t offer — much less approve — replacement health care reform legislation, despite the fact that many of them campaigned in 2010 on a promise to “repeal and replace” Obamacare.
If the Republicans win this crusade, there still will be 50 million or more Americans without health care coverage; health insurance companies will still deny affordable policies to children and adults with pre-existing conditions; those who get really sick will still find their policies cancelled; others will discover that they have exceeded the limit their policies will pay; families with offspring will discover they can no longer keep them on the family policy until they are 26; seniors will be told they must pay more for prescription drugs — in short, all of the holes in America’s health care system will spring wide open again.
But yesterday’s House vote was purely political. It was the 31st measure to repeal or defund Obamacare that House Republicans have passed. The Senate will ignore this one as it has the past 30.
Republican strategists believe that killing health care reform will put them in a stronger position in November’s election. If the current atmosphere prevails they may be correct. The health care bill is unpopular, even though public support for many of its particular provisions — see above — remains dominant. The vote to repeal, despite the fact that it does nothing at all to reduce health care costs or improve health care coverage or achieve its goal, may therefore win votes.
Maybe enough votes to elect Mitt Romney, give Republicans control of the Senate and bury Obamacare six feet under.
THOSE WHO believe the present health care system in our nation is unsustainable and must be replaced with a single-payer system supported with taxes — as is employed by nearly every other modern nation on the globe — are greatly disappointed with Obamacare, but see it as a first step that should be supported until it can morph into effective reform.
The U.S. spends more than 17 percent of its gross national product on health care; more than one dollar in every six pours into that insatiable maw. That’s about a third more than any other nation spends. Health care outcomes in many other modern nations are as good as or better than those in the U.S. If America could swallow its pride and copy the successful systems of nations such as Canada, England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Belgium, Sweden — the list goes on and on — the reduction in costs to our economy would be enough to balance the federal budget and relieve the pressure on every state budget.
But making the change would be traumatic. The health insurance industry would disappear. Medical drug companies and those who retail those products to the public would take a hit. Many health care providers such as medical specialists would see reductions in income.
Today’s health care costs are income for those in the many-faceted health care industry. It goes without saying that there has been and will continue to be fierce resistance to bringing down U.S. health care costs to rich world levels.
It is equally obvious to those who can see the big picture that the United States cannot continue to spend such a huge percentage of its annual wealth on health care without being forced to greatly reduce its investments on the other areas of human need.
The sooner our political leaders screw up the courage to deal with the facts as they are, the less painful the absolutely necessary transition will be.
— Emerson Lynn,jr.
