Repeal of Obamacare or the dog that caught the car

November 12, 2016

Much like the dog that spends its existence instinctively chasing cars, not really even understanding why, but doing so just because that is what it does, the republican party has existed, almost to the total exclusion of everything else, to repeal Obamacare.

When I was a much younger man, with way more time on my hands, whenever I found my car being chased by a dog, I would simply stop the car to see what would happen.  Invariably, the answer would always be not much.  The dog would take on a perplexed demeanor, turn around in a circle a few times as if chasing its tail, let out a few half hearted barks, make eye contact with me as if to say “you are not good at this game at all”, and then head on back to the house to await the next participant.

I suspect that something very similar is about to happen with the repeal of Obamacare.

For the record, I think Obamacare has been an excellent addition to the safety net of this country and benefits a great many people for various reasons, including many who are dead set on having it repealed. While I don’t have Obamacare coverage, I benefited from Obamacare by being able to keep my kids insured on my policy while they were in college for a very affordable price.  Thanks Obama!

I also, think Obamacare has been one giant pain in the ass, particularly from a tax standpoint.  Clients typically don’t have the Obamacare form you need to properly complete their tax return so they have to go talk to the HR lady to get the proper form.  She promises to get them the form next week, which doesn’t really help us much since we are doing your tax return this week.  Thanks Obama! Sigh!

But I understand that Obamacare is the way it is, because that is the way it has to be in order to work, anything less is useless, unless you intend to have a medicare style system for everyone.  There have to be mandates and subsidies and penalties otherwise everyone will try to game the system even more than they do now.  Repealing Obamacare root and branch will throw millions of people to the wolves and not just the poor people on medicaid.  People with pre existing conditions will once again be unable to purchase private health insurance at any price.  Talk about your job killing turmoil.

I have no inside knowledge or contacts, but I suspect that we are about to see what we should have seen all along, new tweaking legislation that fixes the problems that everybody knows should be fixed in the Affordable Care Act.  Perhaps we will see  the launching of “Obamacare lite”.  It will have a great new bell and a shiny new whistle and of course we will have to change the name, Trumpcare comes to mind.  But underneath the hood, it will look pretty much the same as classic Obamacare or it will be a complete waste of time and resources.  Obamacare is a giant Jenga board and if you pull the wrong pieces from the structure the whole thing comes tumbling down.  We may find that those who hate Obamacare with a passion will look back with fondness on the good old days when we had Obamacare.  Let’s hope the new regime knows what they are doing.

So now it appears the driver of the Obamacare car has just stopped and the Obamacare chasing GOP has finally caught the car.  Now what?

As we say in the south, “We fixin to find out”.

Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.