With all the news and among the conjecture, punditry and analysis that fits any twenty-four hour news cycle, I wondered with a few colleagues the other day, how predictable the events current with Obamacare were. Americans being who we are, our collective political memories and policy memories are short. I too, often find even the recent past a bit muddled in memory though in my case, I attribute the “muddling” to age and a ton of issues always at-play. Nonetheless, my files are always organized and my memory good enough to recall a series of prior articles and posts that I wrote as Obamacare emerged. For current and past readers, I’ve referenced each below.
When I go back through this list and my notes, etc., my first reaction is kind of an “I told you so”, smug feeling. The same is quickly buffered by a feeling of how so many folks couldn’t see this coming or refused to view the forest for the trees. The practical reality is that health care in this country is complicated. It can’t be re-configured wholesale. Additionally, experiments that rely heavily on failed math and distributive justice theories (or redistributive theories) are predestined for failure in a society where, like it or not, capitalism continues to reside.
I have colleagues that are small business men/women and self-employed (many consultants are). They are successful, for the most part, and premiere capitalists. They are the folks who rely purely on their own skills, intellect, etc. to forge a living for themselves and for the folks they employ. Virtually to a sole, each has had their small business insurance or personal insurance eviscerated by Obamacare. Unfortunately, none qualify for Medicaid or public subsidy. Their sole flaw? They work for themselves or own a small business (or both in most cases).
Certain elitists will claim that their success has come as a result of some oppressive force that hurts a sector of folk less well-off. The notion that it is about time these folks “paid their fair share”. Strange logic indeed. Truth told, these folks have always paid more into the system via taxation and their employment of others. Likewise, they didn’t get to this stage, nor did I, without committing a single flawed act – worked longer, harder, and sacrificing more disproportionately than many. Even in the U.S., one isn’t successful ultimately, without putting in a disproportionate share of effort and taking risks that many will simply, not.
The course of failure for Obamacare lies predictably, in its lack of practicality. It sought to level an artificial playing field created by government via a Robin Hood like approach. In as much as I love Robin Hood, the perversity in Obamacare is that no legislation can redefine the “haves from the have-nots” (recall, Robin Hood stole from an oppressive government, not from the people – a moral on taxation without representation). The problems of those who don’t “have” is fixable but not at the expense of those who already have and not through a Washington knows best recipe. The result is clear: Obamacare grew out of failed ideology that the “haves” were bad or disproportionately (more) rewarded than those who didn’t have. Now we know. Many of those supposed “haves” are nothing more than people who by definition, are middle class or the working class. The jab isn’t just to my self-employed and small business colleagues but to mid-sized employer plans (non-union) when come 1/1/14, they get a gut kick and thus, so do the employees. Wait until next year when the stomping ramps-up exponentially.
This mess isn’t about failed websites or cancelled individual insurance plans. It is about a systemic over-reach, destined to fail by design. Yes, folks point out that Medicaid expansion is by comparison, running smooth. Enrollment is one thing, access and payment for providers another. How good of a system is it (Medicaid) when those who now have benefits, can’t find a doctor willing to care for them? Or, as so much of the U.S. remains rural, can’t find access to a clinic, hospital, or other providers other than one that is hundreds of miles away? Not my definition of practical or for that matter, smooth.
As I wrote back in 2009, the ACA/Obamacare wasn’t ever about health care reform. Health care reform was and remains the practical target. All fixes now going forward are political dynamite and as such, this is the tragedy of Obamacare. Pragmatically, the flaws in the systems, Medicare and Medicaid, etc., remain and until addressed, finding another way to re-dress this pig with new earrings or a different ensemble will only change the pig’s outward appearance. Economically, socially and away from the political milieu, answers of a practical nature remain. We as a nation, need to demand these solutions be at a minimum, discussed and vetted.