Republicans and Obamacare

It’s time again for the recurring spectacle of raising the debt ceiling.  CNN is once more orgasmic as it reports the “fatal split” in the Republican Party over whether to shut the government down.  Tea Party types are posturing, and justifiably so, over defunding Obamacare.  Never mind that most of it is already funded! 

Obamacare is the single worst government domestic policy since Prohibition.  It is already collapsing around the edges.  Within the next year just about every major company will shift a large portion of its full time workforce into the “exchanges.”  Most service type jobs will be shifted to part time.  Hospitals will be cutting services.  The Cleveland Clinic just announced a massive reduction in workers through layoffs or attrition as it prepares for Obamacare, and it will get worse. 

For seniors, who will see the least financial consequences, Obamacare will be experienced through greatly restricted access to doctors, services, and hospitals.  Those under 35 will experience Obamacare by IRS thuggery and the individual mandate.  For those in the middle, meet exploding premium costs and the 30 hour work week. 

Government systems will not be able to cope with the massive amount of information that has to be processed.  The intrusion into your privacy as the doctor asks about your sex life when you go in for a cold…if you can get an appointment…will shock our sensibilities.  The unions have finally come to their senses as their Cadillac plans face taxation and the forty hour work week becomes a distant memory. The sticker shock to Americans will push the economy into a tailspin. 

The low information voter and the American liberal press will learn a hard lesson.  Maybe then they will pay attention.  Don’t bet the rent.  Many of the unintended consequences are already here, but when it comes to Obama, the press reports news imagined rather than news that is.

Nevertheless, as the American public begins to experience this wonder of utopian experimentation, it will slowly wake up to the fact that the best health care system in the world has been destroyed, and in the process so have our pocketbooks.  It will take a year or so of “WTF” before the public figures it out.  But by spring of 2015 the mantra will be “Nobody told me that.”  We have.  You just didn’t listen.  As Mom and Dad taught us, experience is the best teacher.

As for the Republican Party, taking a last ditch goal line stand in the current budget debate is admirable but futile.  On this issue, you lose.  If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result, then Republicans should have been committed a long time ago.  

Here is the truth.  Obamacare will go into effect.  Rather than trying to stop it, Republicans should be preparing to pick up the pieces.  Republicans should be doing two things right now: a) Get ready to communicate with the American public directly, bypassing the press,  as the proverbial “you know what” hits the fan; b) Prepare legislation that provides a realistic alternative to the coming disaster as it unfolds, including solutions for insuring pre-existing conditions and the elimination of insurance caps. 

If the Republican Party does those two things in a serious manner, it can become the dominant party for the next twenty years.  Failure to do so may result in the demise of our current two party system as those in the middle look for sane alternatives to the current parties that have directly or indirectly foisted this monstrosity upon us.