‘Open Enrollment’ Redux
“At some point, we’re going to have to tackle healthcare again..”
Rarely do I repost an edition of Jason‘s Newsletter so soon after it was initially sent. But our video commentary posted the last week of November was prescient in a tragic way.
The brutal murder in New York City of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO apparently came at the hands of a deranged and vengeful assailant upset over the dysfunctional delivery of health care. The suspect faces forgery and gun possession charges in Pennsylvania and murder charges in New York.1
The alert action by a McDonald’s employee leading to the suspect’s arrest was citizenship at its finest. The fact that the usual online trolls on the hard left would attack this individual or applaud the death of anyone is merely the latest testament as to why they lost so decisively in this year’s election.2
But Jimmy Kimmel thinks it’s funny. Too bad he’s not.
There is, however, another perversion that few have noticed. The same trolls who for years were harassing those of us trying to reform healthcare are precisely the same ones now complaining—and threatening—the loudest over the failure of the system they helped preserve.
In ‘Open Enrollment,’ I lay out how the economics of the Affordable Care Act (AKA Obamacare) had the opposite effect—just as some of us predicted. That, however, didn’t stop the disgusting tactics of those defending it from our reform efforts in the 115th Congress.
As I described in Party Animal, The Truth About President Trump, Power Politics & the Partisan Press:
They would later ascend on my front lawn (which has since become another favorite tactic), scaring the neighbor’s kids. The ugliness was manifest at Republican town halls where puerile 'Indivisible' groups would ratchet up the rhetoric and confront attendees in the most disruptive way possible. While Obamacare architect Andy Slavitt was holding Potemkin ‘town halls’ of his own, Democrat activists were making it nearly impossible for Republican incumbents to do the same.
That perhaps was the least of it. You can ask Steve Scalise and my former Republican colleagues who were driven off the road.3
The astroturfing by hysterical and dangerous ‘resist movements’ put enough pressure on Sen. John McCain and others in the Senate they eventually wound up killing even a ‘skinny repeal’ of Obamacare in the American Health Care Act of 2017.4
Our House bill was dead and I believe the failure to pass a modicum of healthcare reform was the principal reason behind the 2018 ‘blue wave’ that cost the GOP the House.5 Politics aside, I nevertheless wondered aloud just what the status quo was trying to “preserve”?
The so-called Obamacare subsidies had never kept up with the rise in healthcare costs and as I warned in 2017, things would only get worse. They did and healthcare is even more problematic than it was seven long years ago.
Again , as I point out in November’s ‘Open Enrollment’ Newsletter, decades of government dictates (including Obamacare) have all but destroyed both the affordability and efficacy of modern medicine. For sane human beings, however, that hardly justifies the actions of a lunatic in New York.
It only points to the urgency in reforming healthcare, including third party payers dominating the system. But providers, such as hospitals and drug companies, are every bit to blame. They continually find new ways to expand expensive ‘treatments’ for every imaginable malady (see last week’s Translunscy Newsletter) for government and private networks to absorb, or worse, cost-shift to the uninsured.
“At some point,” Republicans should know, “we’re going to have to tackle healthcare again.”
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Here’s a quick reminder for the gift-giving season. Party Animal, The Truth About President Trump, Power Politics & the Partisan Press; Power Divided is Power Checked, The Argument for States Rights and my new paperback pamphlet, Rethinking SDI, A Cold War Thesis all make great little stocking stuffers for Christmas.
Naturally, so does a subscription to Jason’s Newsletter. Click on the individual links or find out how to get them all for your family’s favorite conservative at https://jasonlewislive.com.
https://www.newsweek.com/unitedhealthcare-ceo-shooter-manhunt-updates-cops-question-man-brian-thompsons-killing-1997858
https://www.msn.com/en-in/entertainment/news/snitch-rat-why-mcdonalds-worker-who-helped-catch-unitedhealthcare-ceos-killer-is-facing-online-hate/ar-AA1vC6e6
https://nypost.com/2018/07/29/when-will-democrats-condemn-the-lefts-growing-turn-to-violence/
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R44785#page70
https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-lost-the-house-john-mccain-1541968422?mod=trending_now_4
I feel like we're finally coming home from a long, dark, scary four-year nightmare, concocted by the left. Thank you for your well-researched insights.
As Megyn Kelly said about her mom on this topic “I cannot respond to irrational behavior rationally.”