was going to write a new article repeating the idea that you don't have to take on
Obamacare head-on to get rid of it. Many others have said the same thing: it's not
necessary to repeal it. Just take away the mandate, allow people to choose, and
it will crash by itself.
Just to encourage people not to give up, I'm re-posting this two-month-old article, with apologies for those who saw it already.
Let's be honest. Obamacare is a disaster. It was intended to be: the plan was to create something so hellishly awful that the Democrats would be forced—forced!—to move to single-payer.
Unfortunately, the Democrats didn't plan on the fact that Obamacare would be seen, correctly, as a government takeover of the health care system and it would thereby cost them control of the House, Senate, and the presidency.
The Republicans must put it out of its misery. Here's how: Let it compete. If Obamacare can survive without support within a free-market system, then it will survive. If not, it will crash and burn.
The effect, and probably one purpose, of Obamacare, is to ratchet up prices to such an extent that we can never go back to a free system. But its baleful effects will percolate through our whole society. Americans have already started leaving the medical profession. This will create a vacuum that will have to be filled with immigrants, and drain other countries of their own medical professionals. Giving up on free enterprise is not just a disaster for us, but for everyone else as well.
So it could not be more timely that, like an angel from heaven, Paul Krugman of the New York Times came out with an idea that could be our salvation.
All that's necessary to kill Obamacare is to deprive it of one of the three things it needs to survive. As Krugman said, Obamacare is a three-legged stool. The three legs are:
- Coverage of pre-existing conditions.
- Forcing taxpayers to pay for it.
- Tax subsidies for those who can't afford to pay.
He wrote: “All three legs of this stool are necessary. Take away any one of them, and the program can't work.”
This is the key to eliminating Obamacare! Just cut off one of its legs and, to quote Richard Burton in The Medusa Touch, it will bring the whole edifice down on their unworthy heads.
Krugman is obviously in favor of single payer, but he writes: “Realistically, however, that's too heavy a lift for the time being,” meaning it would require a large tax hike. (If it's too much taxing and spending even for Paul Krugman, you know it must be a lot.)
Obamacare can't be repealed as long as it is alive. It must be killed first. Try to attack this three-headed dog head on, and you'll just get bit. But cut off one of the heads, and it will die on the vine of its own accord. When it's dead, no one will care whether it gets repealed.
Voters may look like their eyes have glazed over, but they're actually paying attention. Something, or someone, is going to get repealed and replaced in the next year. If not Obamacare, then it will be the Republicans who fail to repeal it. They are the men and women with the power to create catastrophe.
Best of all, if anyone complains, they can blame the New York Times, thereby stoning two Kurds with one bill . . . er, birds with one stone. Whatever.
Don't give up. Keep trying to slay this three-headed monster.
created jul 21, 2017; revised jul 26 2017, 5:51 am; last edit sep 09 2017, 4:19 am
