OBAMACARE HAS TO BE REPLACED

OBAMACARE HAS TO BE REPLACED

A federal judge in Texas has found Obamacare unconstitutional. He ruled that since the individual mandate, that being a required participation or a fine if you choose not to participate, was eliminated by the Trump tax cut of 2017, the entire law was now illegal.

Of course the response has been predictable. The left is up in arms screaming that this is all Trump’s fault. They will immediately appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the most liberal court in the land, who will doubtlessly overturn the Texas Judge’s opinion. It is easy for the Ninth Circuit to rule the way they do because they either don’t read the Constitution or they do not understand it.

The next step is also quite predictable. The whole matter will be appealed to the Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit will again be overturned. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is the most overturned court in this country. Obamacare as we know it is finished.

The fact is it should have been finished before it even started. The only reason the “Affordable Care Act” became law was because the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, changed the language in the law and made the individual mandate a tax. Congress clearly stated it was never intended to be a tax but Roberts decided to write law rather than just do his job of interpreting law. By renaming this mandate a tax, it passed Constitutional muster. With the subsequent elimination of that particular tax by the tax cut, Obamacare immediately became unconstitutional.

Now the Congress is going to have to enact a new law to cover up for the disaster of the past.

The number one problem is pre-existing conditions. Now remember, we are not talking about health care. No, we are talking about health care insurance. The only way any insurance can work is if the vast majority of participants pay for the coverage but never use it. Imagine if you decided to never buy health care insurance but found one day that you were diagnosed with a catastrophic disease. Do you think it would be right to then go out and buy insurance? No insurer could survive if this were the situation. With no individual mandate, only the government would be able to subsidize such insurance.

This then is the problem facing the Congress. Had Obama stayed out of this in the first place, private business would have found a way of dealing with the situation. But he didn’t and now we must clean up the mess that has caused.

Here is a little fact that is going to upset some liberals. Medical care is not a right. It is a commodity and just like all commodities, it is for sale. Here is another fact. The high cost of medical care has been caused in large part by the availability of health care insurance. Imagine what care would cost if there was no insurance and the medical industry was left to competition just like all other commodities.

The other side of that coin is that we have some of the best care available and that is due in large part to the vast amount of money flowing to that industry.

This is just some of the reality that Congress is going to have to deal with as they consider new legislation. Here is another fact. A large number of our citizens will never have enough money to pay for medical care, nor will they willingly buy and pay for medical insurance. Couple that with the knowledge that government run health care doesn’t work anywhere in the world and it won’t work here.

The Congress has a big job ahead of them. They need to concentrate on that and leave partisan politics aside.

Ron Scarbro