Should Graham-Cassidy, the latest manifestation of the seven-year Republican promise to repeal and replace Obamacare, manage to pass the Senate next week, ironically enough, conservatives will owe a debt of thanks to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), the man single-handedly responsible for saving Obamacare in the last vote-around.
Had McCain not held out, we would not have Graham-Cassidy, which is a much, much, much better piece of legislation.
No, it is not a full repeal, and I get the anger over that. Again and again we were promised that this monstrosity would be pulled out by the root. Of course that would be preferable.
Other than enforcing whatever commitments are made by either party, the government — most especially the federal government — should remove itself completely from the relationship between the health insurance provider and the customer. There is just no question that government interference is a big part of why the system is such a mess, and so artificially expensive.
Nevertheless, we cannot all be Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who looks like he could end up taking John McCain’s place next week as Obamacare’s sole savior. Because he is not getting everything he wants right away, Paul is refusing to support Graham-Cassidy, and his no-vote, his oh-so principled stand, could forever saddle our country with Obamacare. Some legacy.
Some of us who despise Obamacare every but as much as Paul, are more pragmatic. We understand that repeal has to start somewhere and that anything that ends Obamacare’s fascist and destructive mandates (every American must purchase a Cadillac health coverage), is a damn good start. Not only does Graham-Cassidy do that, it does something pretty wonderful — it punts healthcare back where it belongs, to all 50 states; it allows the citizens of each state to decide on the kind of coverage they want.
If the positive aspects of Graham-Cassidy are news to you, I suggest you stop reading the leftwing Politico and the rest of the MSM, all of which are First Degree Liars who do not give even a tinkle of a damn about public health. Our media sees itself only as The Guardians of Precious Barry’s Legacy, as The Flamekeepers of Centralized Government.
And so, in order to fulfill that sinister duty, our national media lies and lies and lies and lies and lies. As a result, all we are being told about Graham-Cassidy is the lie that no one really knows what is in the bill, that “the substance doesn’t really matter,” and that people will lose their health insurance and die – millions of people, most especially the children.
Here is what the media does not want you to know about Graham-Cassidy:
- Obamacare is a Failure
What is the media fighting to protect and preserve? A total and complete boondoggle, a government program so hideously awful, millions of people are choosing to pay the fine rather than sign on.
Obama’s central planners blew it bigtime. Health care costs are rising, premium costs are exploding, millions have lost their doctors and an insurance policy they were perfectly satisfied with. Worse still, as the death spiral marches on, more and more insurance providers are fleeing the program, leaving hundreds of counties flat, with either no access to insurance or a single choice.
This of course is madness, un-American, and a real-life horror story for millions.
The media, however, will not say this. While blasting away at Graham-Cassidy, the indisputable fact of Obamacare’s failure is buried under paragraphs of lies and fear-mongering.
- Failed Obamacare Is Replaced With 50 Laboratories
The most important and exciting aspect of Graham-Cassidy is that it allows each of the 50 states the opportunity and flexibility to come up with a health care system of its own.
Rather than this one-size-fits-all madness of Obamacare, an unforgivably stupid concept when you are talking about a huge and diverse country filled with 330 million people, health care will now be in the hands of a state government that is much more accountable to voters than the monolith of a federal bureaucracy.
What works in a state filled with heavily populated cities like California is not going to work in a Wyoming.
If a government is going to handle your health care, you want that government to be as accountable as possible, and as knowledgeable as possible about the people it is supposed to serve.
And with 50 laboratories, our country will eventually to come up with the best way to handle health care.
- If You Like Your Socialized Medicine, You Can Keep Your Socialized Medicine
If the left and its mainstream media allies were not so hopelessly addicted to running everyone else’s life through central government planning, they would see that one of the biggest benefits of Graham-Cassidy is that a blue state can now go ahead and socialize medicine.
If a California or Vermont or Oregon wants to embrace the European model, Texas and Mississippi cannot stop them, nor can a federal government run by Republicans.
Knock yourselves out. Use the federal money to socialize medicine in your state. Unless your dream is a fascist one that utilizes the power of the federal government to force the rest of us into it, you can now make all your socialized medicine dreams come true.
- Flexibility Is Always Superior to Mandates
Even coming from a bossy-pants statist like Barry, the idea that everyone in America must pay for a Cadillac health insurance plan –which is what Obamacare requires — is unconscionably destructive and stupid. No wonder premiums and deductibles are sky high.
With some flexibility that actually takes into account things like human nature, free will, and countless other things, just like the free market found a way to get cable TV and the Internet into almost every American home, it can find a way to insure almost everyone.
For example, bring back the catastrophic insurance plans stupidly outlawed by Obamacare, those plans with low monthly premiums and high deductibles that were perfect for healthy Americans worried about a freak car accident or an unexpected and costly illness.
Outside of a catastrophe, with those plans (I had one for years and loved it), you paid for own health care. The best thing about these plans, which every government should encourage, is that by paying out of pocket, people shopped around for the best service at the best price. This added a market pressure missing from the healthcare industry, which is another big reason prices are so artificially high. Because insurance pays for everything, no one shops around.
While the cost of medical services not covered by insurance, like plastic surgery and Lasik, continue to decrease, the cost of those services covered by insurance are exploding.
See how this works?
- Forcing Insurers to Cover Pre-Existing Conditions Is Stupid
Before Obamacare came along and outlawed everything that was working, here in North Carolina the state had set up a program, a specific pool, to help those with pre-existing conditions obtain health insurance.
This was a great idea.
By separating those who did and did not have this problem into separate pools, the Did Nots paid a much lower premium, and the Dids got some government help in paying their premiums.
Lumping everyone together into one giant welfare program has only proven to be the catastrophic failure we all predicted it would be.
- GLORIOUS FREEDOM or … Not Everyone Wants or Needs Health Insurance
In the United States of America we are using the power of the federal government to force freeborn men and women to pay for a product they neither want nor need.
This is as immoral and un-American as it gets.
This is not like choosing to drive a car (auto insurance), this is saddling me with a responsibility to chip in just because I was born. This is especially immoral when I don’t need health insurance, when I am young and healthy, when I would prefer to use that money for college or rent or beer or pot or whatever the hell I want because I am a freeborn American, dammit.
Which brings me to…
- Americans Use Their Feet To Vote For The Healthcare They Desire
The beauty of federalism, the beauty of allowing the 50 individual states the flexibility to take care of their own people, is that we the people are allowed to vote with our feet.
If we want our government to force everyone to purchase health insurance, we can move to Massachusetts. If we want to be left the hell alone, we can move to a red state.
The fundamental bottom line of Graham-Cassidy is choice. And unless that choice involves the murder of a helpless baby, only our lying media could oppose such a thing.
BONUS #8. Jimmy Kimmel Doesn’t Know Squat About Health Care
This limousine leftist only knows how to suck up to a left-wing media for good press, clicks, and do-gooder points for a terribly destructive government program he will never have to deal with – a debacle that does terrible things unto millions of others.
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