Why Obamacare and Planned Parenthood Are Still Here, Maybe to Stay

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After the Supreme Court ruled in June 2015 that federal subsidies were legal under Obamacare, Barack Obama said his landmark health care law is “here to stay”.

“This law is working. And it’s going to keep doing just that,” Obama said in a press conference.

Democrats then said, if it’s here to stay, it’s time to expand Medicaid, free health insurance for those with lower incomes. Talk of morphing it into Medicaid for all also hit the airwaves.

At the same time 80% of people on Obamacare received subsidies provided by federal taxpayers. This was done because it could only be paid for with exorbitant premiums – unaffordable for most. Obamacare increased the cost of healthcare by giving everyone everything imaginable.

The artificially-lowered premiums for some raised premiums and deductibles for the hard-working, average American and made it cost prohibitive for insurance companies who began losing money. Unable to keep up with the vast demands of mandatory coverage for everyone’s simplest needs, requires unmanageable costs for those who are not subsidized.

It serves as a warning to the unsustainability of the plan once it morphs into Single Payer as it is meant to do.

Healthcare has been successfully defined as a “right” and all Americans are being made to pay for, not simply medial necessities and emergency care, but items of hygiene, sexual desires, right down to the most minute need.

Half of America has bought into it, but of more concern are the unknown numbers who are opposed but subsidized and don’t want to lose the government money.

When Obama said it was here to stay, he knew he had successfully bought off enough Americans. He not only bought off the people, he bought off the special interests. Big money and powerful influences are so ingrained in what is now a morass of corruption that it will be impossible to defund it without a mass revolt.

Defunding Planned Parenthood (PP) presents a similar problem. In some areas of the country, PP has taken over healthcare for the poor and, without them, the indigent won’t get the care they’ve had. Women who get abortions through them will have more babies, allegedly costing even more than the funding the government now provides.

According to a recent annual report, Planned Parenthood affiliates got $553.7 million from federal, state, and local governments, accounting for almost half of its total funding, making defunding very complex.

NPR reports:

About 75 percent of that government support comes from the Medicaid program to pay for direct medical services provided to low-income patients, including contraception, cancer screenings and sexually transmitted disease testing and treatment. The remaining quarter comes from other sources, primarily the Title X federal family planning program. The Congressional Budget Office estimated last year that the group gets approximately $390 million annually from Medicaid and $60 million from Title X.

That money is said to not be used for abortions. Only half of Planned Parenthood facilitiess provide abortions though they remain the largest provider of abortions in the country.

Three liberal Republican Senators would not have voted for Ryancare if Planned Parenthood defunding remained in the bill and the Freedom Caucus didn’t want to vote for it because it only defunded it for one year. In other words, if defunding Planned Parenthood is kept in an Obamacare replacement bill, it won’t pass the Senate in all likelihood.

Ryancare would most likely have failed in the Senate. Trying to defeat the profit-making Planned Parenthood will be just as difficult. They are both ingrained, possibly beyond extrication.

There is a law standing in the way of dropping PP funding and that law guarantees most Medicaid patients with a choice of any qualified provider. That law has kept states from defunding the behemoth that also serves as a money launderer for Democratic Party candidates. PP is also a launching pad for the leftist war on women fight which focuses on the right to abortion anywhere, any time, and eventually at everyone’s expense.

With only a little over 50% of Americans paying federal taxes and with an overwhelmingly large underclass of illegal aliens, the U.S. is quickly becoming a country where people who are not paying the price or who have ideologically hard-left values control the rest of the country. Although it’s all unsustainable — ideology, a corrupt media, and a growing uneducated but dependent class will make it nearly impossible to overcome. Add the deep-pocketed special interests and it’s an overwhelming task.

Democrats have not only created a monstrous healthcare law that will fall under its own weight, they’ve succeeded in falsely advertising it as a right with the help of borrowed funds being lent on borrowed time.

Only 17% of the public liked the Ryancare bill but for all different reasons and it’s probably best it failed in the long run. The 14 million people losing their subsidized healthcare would have affected working-class Americans – Democrats – who voted for President Trump.

House Republicans have failed and secondly, President Trump has failed, but Obamacare itself is the worst failure and the ball is now back in the Democrats’ court.

As Ryancare came closer to a vote, Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, said Obamacare was a success and it is not imploding. They can now rest on those laurels until it does implode.

The reason Republicans do not have a plan to replace Obamacare is that it has continually grown with rules, regulations and tens of thousands of pages to legally intertwine itself into our system, making plans to replace it extremely hard to keep up. It’s the genius of Marxism.

The process Republicans followed was also flawed. They put it on the floor before everyone read it. That may work with the obedient servants of the hard-left but not with freedom-loving right-wingers.

There is a wide ideological divide in the Republican Party. While the hard-left is swallowing up the Democrat Party, there is no such movement in the Republican Party. The divide grows and scapegoats are established. Depending on the vantage point, the Freedom Caucus or the liberal Republicans or Paul Ryan can be the target.

The best thing they could have done is put everything they wanted in the bill to bring in the Freedom Caucus and let it fail and fall on Democrats. Then people wouldn’t be asking, can Republicans bring about any major legislation?

Congress in general has become far less than what the Constitution demanded it be – the first branch of government.

For 100 years, Congress has surrendered powers that were theirs alone to Presidents, courts, the Supreme Court, the Federal Reserve, regulatory agencies and the bureaucracy. Even the media has power over Congress. Together they make up the Deep State, the other government that possibly has more power than Congress.

Democrats don’t need Congress, they are enmeshed in big government rule.

The entitlement healthcare program has sucked in too many recipients who won’t give up the money out of principle. As Ronald Reagan once said, “A government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth.” 

Obamacare is imploding despite the Democrats’ latest claim it is succeeding and just needs a few fixes. Unfortunately, they will now push for something worse and even more unsustainable – Single Payer. It will mean bad healthcare for all but the wealthy and well-placed and, of course, that includes Congress.

President Trump, frustrated by the Freedom Caucus’s stance, has threatened to move on with the help of Democrats, something we saw Republicans do during Obama’s reign.

If Republicans don’t unite on infrastructure, the tax plan and border security, he will look to Democrats. He thinks he will find moderate Democrats but he will find Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer under every rock.

Do remember, Donald Trump is trying to enact the most conservative agenda but he is not an ideologue, he is a pragmatist who must get things done to fulfill his promises to the American people.

In the meantime, President Trump is erasing regulations, including onerous, business crushing climate change rules.

He wants to do tax reform next but he might have problems with the Freedom Caucus. Infrastructure would be a better next project. Democrats are itching to do it. Unfortunately, too much of the money we don’t have will go to the wasteful liberal-leftist states. It is, however, needed. Barack Obama never used the stimulus the way it was meant to be used and much of that money was wasted.

The White House is talking about taking on infrastructure and tax reform at the same time. Risky but why not at this point?

Will Congress get its act together? The White House doesn’t see how they can change the calculus in the Republican Congress and breach the divide. Tax reform probably won’t breach the divide without Democrats.

Democrats and infrastructure has the best chance of a successful outcome if they can get enough Democrats to replace the Freedom Caucus nay votes.

It’s somewhat encouraging to hear Speaker Ryan say that the Republican Party is undergoing “growing pains” because they are not used to being the “governing party”. It’s true they have been the opposition party under a near-virtual dictatorship with a hard-left President who had an obedient party following. If we are only seeing “growing pains”, we can hope for improvement.


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Patrick T Brown
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Patrick T Brown
7 years ago

The best course of action is to proceed w/ the 2016 Repeal act that OBAMA vetoed. With that removed we can begin an honest construction of a new healthcare program w/ all players & functions taking part. The Dems will WANT to be involved in the new construction & thus come to the table. They had not planned to be invested in Ryancare at all but if they are seen sitting out the construction plan for the NEW plan, their constituents will take them to the wood shed

Greg
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Greg
7 years ago

When we speak of the infrastructure plan we must realize there is a great deal of money budgeted for DOT. I recall there has been a ‘Highway bill’ that amounts to hundred of billions. Therefore, it seems to me there is already allocated money and only needs to be appropriated to the necessary entities.