Always begin any analysis with a unified theory. And any unified theory about repealing, replacing, or repairing Obamacare must begin with natural law, more specifically the natural law of politicians.
The natural law of politicians is that they are a race of cowards. All of them.
Now, politicians all have several constituencies, even Lady Nan Pelosi, Lady Disdain (Hillary) and certainly the leadership of the Republican Party. And they all fear one constituency more than the others.
Finally, as we all know, “the American people” have been sitting fairly low on the totem pole for most elected politicians as to who they fear for many years.
That all changed just a few months ago..
For years the Republican leadership has marched to the tune of their donors (more than one), who, in recent years we have learned have taken on a more ominous globalist halo, with a hint of authoritarian leanings. These are the people the GOP leadership fears and much of their time is dedicated in making what these donors want them to do to seem palatable to the second group they fear, the voters, who allow them to stay in office.
There’s never been any question who’s on top in this relationship, so I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.
But enter Donald Trump, who has a deck full of card tricks to prove to the GOP leadership that he can make its politician fear the voters more, often without saying a single word. I would refer the GOP to the scalp of former Senator Kelly Ayotte, of New Hampshire, hanging on Trump’s lodge pole…without any effort by Donald Trump whatsoever. A really fine lady who will reemerge in politics, likely with Donald Trump’s help, but whose only sin is she misread the humor of the voters. Sen Ayotte went out of her way to place her scalp up on that lodge pole simply by believing she could keep NH voters in tow without endorsing Mr Trump in the 2016 election. As I’ve said elsewhere, that’s always a crap shoot.
It’s also a lesson that should not be lost on the GOP leadership should Mr Trump ask of them to put their voters first.
Donald Trump recently announced that he had no idea how terribly complicated the Affordable Care Act was.
In truth it is today, only, American health care wasn’t complicated in 2008. The purpose of the way Obamacare was designed and implemented was to make it so convoluted that it would be impossible to undo, based on the competing interests the many segments of the law would invoke in the Congress, as well as the large number of people hired almost immediately who will have to be fired. That’s always a heart-string issue with Congress…not so much with voters anymore.
As I’ve said before, the Democratic Left has been very good for many years at designing bureaucratic Gordian-knots which, once constructed, inside-the-box-thinking Republicans are too squeamish to even think about cutting. FDR did this with New Deal legislation, intentionally dragging out the Great Depression and high unemployment for eight years…actually ending with Pearl Harbor, where there were suddenly jobs aplenty for America’s young men, and having nothing to do with federal policy. Even in Vietnam we never looked upon war as a jobs-program, although Democrats always do.
There are only two ways to end Obamacare:
The first, recommended here, is by throwing ACA over the cliff in one fell swoop, in three days or less. Blitz, in tandem, McConnell, Ryan, and Trump can pull it off inside a week, leaving the Dem’s and Media reeling, and out there somewhere, Barack Obama sucking his thumb.
No, really.
By removing the federal government from national healthcare with the stroke of a pen, removing the Congress, and their grasp of all that power and money ACA brought to their government, and persuading a naturally cowardly Congress to take a blind leap, only to wake up the next day knowing they must then move with dispatch, as the Congress had to begin on December 8th, 1941, to finish the job, in fear of the greater fear, that is the best possible use of the instinct.
Trump can do this, I’m sure.
Finishing the job will still take many months, piece-by-piece, but most of that work will be delegated to the states by the repeal. Still, they will be driven by fear…only fear of the right people, in the right order. And time will be of essence. No time for dilly-dallying.
Regarding the “other way”, the GOP “naturally” wants to tip toe toward an Obamacare-lite solution that will satisfy their donor base, who they still fear more.
Trump needs (and I think he can) to redirect this inclination, by injecting courage, or, better stated, a higher sense of fear of their voters first, not second, and get the GOP to jump in the water head first.
For once done, three days later a newly-baptized Republican Party can emerge from the water with a new sense of purpose, and urgency, really afraid of the voters in the proper order.
Then Congress can begin devising new powers to the states, with guiding legislation about insurance competition across state lines, and encourage employers to beging providing 40-hour week insurance plans again, sending the insurance back to a pre-2009 status quo, under the almost-sure expectation that lower insurance rates with return as well. Taking care of America’s un-insured or unable-to-pay-for-insurance group was never hard to do, especially once the Republicans, who do not want to emblazon them into a permanent victim-group, as the Democrats have always wanted to do, can design the plan with state help.
Call if Repeal, then Back-and-Fill
Once wetted and bloodied, I think the GOP Congress will do very well in fixing this, while still multi-tasking other matters the president will present them.
Or else.
Donald Trump has all the tools to whip them into shape.
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VASSAR BUSHMILLS
Contact: vbushmills@yahoo.com
Publications: Famous Common People I Have Known and Other Essays
Donald Trump, the Common Man and the American Theology of Liberty
(Both books in Kindle format only, Publishers and agents welcome, as both need to revised)
Support: Yes, I’ve never been a nickel to write.
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