Fourth anniversary: Why Obamacare is beyond fixing
Four years ago today, President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act at a White House event packed with elated Democrats and covered by a largely rapturous media.
In 2014, things look vastly different with a deeply flawed law now known as Obamacare. Contrary to what Americans were repeatedly told, millions of people who liked their old policies haven’t been able to keep them — and, for many, their new policies are generally much more expensive. The president also recently admitted that Americans couldn’t necessarily keep their doctors, either.
Meanwhile, the prevarications continue. How many people have actually paid for policies purchased at government exchanges? The government won’t say.
Yet this stonewalling can’t obscure the fact that Obamacare isn’t just widely disliked by Americans who have health insurance. It’s also failing to help its prime targets: those without health coverage. Surveys show 90 percent of people who had no health insurance a year ago still don’t have it now.
It’s plain we need a serious bipartisan discussion about problems with the Affordable Care Act. Thankfully, it seems we’re moving that way. An increasing number of Democrats support the idea of tinkering with the law to get it back on track.
But is tinkering enough? The president already has asserted extraordinary authority to rewrite key provisions of the law. If there were easy fixes, he would have done them. Instead, the changes he has made only make the Affordable Care Act more difficult to salvage.
Remember, the president didn’t just tinker with his law. He delayed its core provisions: the employer mandate to provide health coverage and the individual mandate to have coverage. He’s also allowed insurers to continue to provide policies without all the benefits mandated in ACA.
The changes were ordered in response to complaints over the cost and hassles of Obamacare at the behest of Democrats who fear a vast public backlash. But all the changes also led to far fewer enrollees in state and federal exchanges who pay the full cost of their insurance. And Obamacare is unsustainable without a healthy balance of those paying the full tab and those getting subsidies.
Yet, if the president stops delaying the mandates, the howling over the costs and hassles that go with them will resume.
What our leaders need to do may be unlikely, but it’s obvious: Democrats should swallow their pride and acknowledge how unpopular the law is and how ineffective it’s been at helping the uninsured, then back a do-over on health reform.
That do-over could start with some face-saving: a bipartisan agreement to maintain popular ACA provisions such as allowing children to stay on parents’ policies until age 26. Then Congress and the White House could try to fashion a health reform law with a chance of working — one that is actually read by lawmakers before being enacted.
Sticking with a failing, far-reaching law out of partisan stubbornness shouldn’t be an option.
No comments:
Post a Comment