WAS THERE A WINNER?

The Congress has voted and the President has signed it. Obamacare goes forward.  The Republicans tried to stop it but failed. They waited until the last possible moment to make the whole scene look dramatic because, let’s face it, deadlines make headlines and in that they were successful. But in the end, they failed to defund the health care act. Now we all are left with the result of that failure.

So, what do we have? We have a website that cost the taxpayers 630-plus million dollars that doesn’t work to enroll us in a program that cannot work. And this is all being run by the same people who run the post office, the IRS, Amtrak, and several thousand other over priced programs that are equally ridiculous and unnecessary. Why should I be worried?

I have heard a lot of talk that this failure by the Republicans is a pronouncement of their doom. What do you think? What if I told you that Obamacare might just have the opposite effect? What if it turns out that Obamacare will be such a disaster that it will be the Democrats who will be the ones to suffer? After all they own it. Obamacare is not a bipartisan law. It has never had any Republican support. Before the next election all of the politicians will have to deal with the after effects of this new fiasco. It will be interesting to see how they deal with it.

Some have counseled us to be patient and wait and see what this new law produces. Okay. I can wait. Some have even said that the left wing has never believed that Obamacare would work which would then cause us to go to a single payer healthcare system similar to Canada’s or Great Britain. Apparently they think that the thousands of new doctors and healthcare workers as well as the new facilities will just suddenly appear. Again, I’ll just wait and see.

I definitely think the medical industry is too expensive. I have written about this before. There is no doubt that something has to be done. Medical costs cannot continue the way they are going. It is unsustainable. I believe medical insurance just subsidizes the ongoing high costs of care. If the insurance disappeared, the costs would necessarily come down. All Obamacare does is add more money, taxpayer money, to an already bloated industry.

I certainly am not smart enough to know what the best answer is but neither, apparently, is the combined population of Washington, DC. When, and I do believe it is when not if, Obamacare fails, what then? When doctors and hospitals refuse patients with “government insurance” where will they go for treatment? When they show up at emergency rooms and there is a two week wait to see a doctor, what then? If anybody thinks this is just magically going to fix itself, they are the ones who will have to re-examine the situation.

The time is at hand for reasonable people of good character and honor and from all walks of life, including the medical industry, to sit down together and resolve what is not a political problem but a people problem. I personally don’t care whether Republicans or Democrats win. I only hope the American people win and the only way they win is if medical care becomes affordable to everyone. It is going to take imagination. It is probably going to take sacrifice. But whatever it takes, a better answer must be found.

Ron Scarbro