Contradictions Over PPACA

The politics surrounding the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act (PPACA, Obamacare) is full of contradictions.

1.  The PPACA was supposed to do several things including lower premiums, insure the uninsured, and improve quality and access to health care.  Yet more the five million insured families had the insurance cancelled, and only 5% of those purchasing insurance via health care.gov were previously uninsured.

2.  Most people purchasing insurance in the exchange have reported increased premiums, increased deductibles, and limited choices, or combinations of the three.  The exchanges only permit three levels of insurance plans: silver, gold and platinum.  And some states don't allow all three of those.

3.  Labor unions overwhelmingly supported the passage of the act, but now many are asking for relief from the requirements and mandates that come with it.

4.  As good as this act was billed to be, it came with delays built into it.  Many of the more painful provisions did not take affect until after the presidential election cycle ended, and Obama was safely re-elected.  If it was actually that good, why wait?

5.  This is the biggest contradiction of all.  The republicans have tried and tried to repeal the law, and delay the law if not repealed.  Senator Ted Cruz tried to include the repeal of the law in the budget dealings which resulted in the government shutdown.  If Cruz had been successful in his tactics to delay Obamacare in the budget deal, the president said he would have vetoed it.  In fact, the president has said on multiple occasions that he would veto any bill aimed at delaying Obamacare.  Meanwhile, the president issued 29 separate executive orders doing just that, delaying various mandates and parts of the law.

6.  Is it a tax or a penalty?  The answer to that question depends on who is asking.  The supporters of Obamacare argue it is a tax when it suits their purpose, and a penalty when that is the politically expedient answer.

7.  Congress voted on the bill without even reading it.  Talk about not only the strangest contradiction, but also the most stupid.  Exactly how can you argue the benefits of 2400 pages of legalese without reading it, and then claim you have to read it to know what's in it?  Not so incidentally, the HHS has added nearly 20,000 pages of regulations to explain and interpret the 2400 pages of the bill.  Those pages were added after the bill became law.

8.  Finally the contradiction on what republicans offered to the conversation before voting on the bill.  Months before the bill was written there was a meeting of members of both parties, and the president and vice-president which was televised.  During the discussions, several republicans, including a couple of medical doctors, suggested several options for debate, including legal and insurance reforms.  To their collective face the president responded with praise for the good ideas and room for further discussion.  Then the president left the room for a press conference where he quickly stated the republicans had no new ideas worthy of discussion, and suggested we "...must do something."

Now that democrats have realized what they're up against in the November mid-term elections, they are beginning to talk about fixing Obamacare.  Even though the government spent more than $700 million and 3 years developing the web site exchange, they are are not talking about fixing that.  They are talking about fixing various parts of the original bill.  Too late, I say.

The bill is so comprehensively bad, that it must be repealed and we must start over.  Closing half of the people out of the debate by improperly declaring they have nothing to offer is bad legislative process.