POTUS Spikes the Football, but the ObamaCare War-Game Isn’t Over
Last week as health insurance exchange open enrollment ended, President Obama spiked the football, announcing that 8 million people had signed up, and that the Obamacare debate is “over.” He put an exclamation point on it: that millions more had gained coverage through Medicaid expansion and new mandates on employers. Now, any further discussion of repealing ObamaCare was about taking coverage away from those millions of Americans.
Republicans, sickened by a blinding case of ObamaCare Derangement Syndrome (ODS — it’s in DSM-4, check it out ;)), predictably wailed. “The Debate Will Be Over When the American People Say It’s Over,” The Weekly Standard‘s Jeffery A. Anderson blogged the next morning.
POTUS is right. This train has left the station. ObamaCare, like Medicare Part D in 2006, is now a part of the firmament of the American health system, and can’t be dismantled without a Republican in the White House. And as far as the American public goes, they’re done with this repeal nonsense too. Last month, the Kaiser Family Foundation released its monthly polling and found approval of the law rising, especially among the uninsured. 53% of Americans are “tired of hearing about the debate over the ACA and want the country to focus more on other issues.” Can we get an amen? Look, it ain’t popular — yet, remember it took the Medicare drug benefit 2 years before opinion turned — but it’s not going away.
But that doesn’t mean the repeal fight ends. Oh no. Two things guarantee that: the tax on the wealthy that funds a big piece of ObamaCare, and the Citizens United and McCutcheon cases in the Supreme Court. The New York Times‘ explains: Under the Affordable Care Act, the Medicare payroll tax increased by 0.9% in 2013, but only for couples earning $250,000+ and unmarried taxpayers earning $200,000+. That tax hits just 2% of taxpayers, but helps to explain the spread of ODS among Republicans.
Combine that with virtually unlimited funding for campaign-style ads and events under the Citizens United and McCutcheon decisions, which enable a small number of families to donate more in one election cycle than most Americans will earn in their whole life, and we’re looking at a virtually endless ObamaCare war of dead-ender fundraising, attack ads, and futile repeal attempts.
What’s more, it seems increasingly likely that Republicans will regain control of the US Senate in the 2014 midterms, putting Congress entirely under GOP control. I wouldn’t be surprised to see articles of impeachment filed early in 2015 as ObamaCare Derangement Syndrome sweeps over Capitol Hill. It will be an ugly conclusion to the Obama Administration, but it won’t end in repeal, that much is certain. Republicans will just pretend like it could.
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