Health care is too critical to rush
Haste makes waste, especially in Washington, D.C. There, undue haste to replace the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, could make things worse.
As its unofficial name implies, the national health care takeover law is President Barack Obama’s baby. He and Democrat strategists are making plans to stymie a Republican campaign to rescind and replace the law. It has been reported the Democrat strategy will be to exploit differences of opinion among Republicans in Congress about a replacement for the ACA.
That will not be difficult. The law is so complex and now so entrenched that it may prove impossible to craft a substitute fully acceptable to all conservatives in Congress. The Democrats’ task will be to make GOP lawmakers forget the old advice that politics is the art of compromise.
But give and take in politics requires time. Both President-elect Donald Trump and Republican leaders in Congress have said repealing and replacing the ACA will be one of their top priorities this year. Mr. Trump has urged Congress to act “very quickly,” but thoughtful GOP strategists have suggested the obvious: Don’t try to do it all at once. Phase in desirable changes, a little at a time.
After all, attempting a massive remake of Obamacare all at once risks playing right into liberals’ hands. Disagreements among Republicans could scrap the whole project.
This is, after all, the nation’s health care — one of the most vital of all services, which millions upon millions of Americans need, which is also a gigantic part of the economy. It’s been treated largely in partisan terms, but it deserves much more than that from all of us. Americans need to really think about what kind of system would work best, how much they will pay in taxes vs. in bills, and how much they’re willing to compromise for the public good. Congress members should not take it lightly.
We suspect they would be less partisan if they had to rely on whatever health insurance they assign to the rest of us, but they give themselves a plan that is luxurious by modern American standards, the kind their constituents can only dream about.
Before the Affordable Care Act, the government provided health care for those who were old, poor, veterans, active military members and many other federal employees, including themselves. Many states, including New York, cover children from middle-income households. Working adults were left to insurance companies, which found all kinds of ways to — to put it gently — take advantage of them to make more profit.
We don’t want to go back to that, but the ACA was also problematic. For one thing, it was massively expensive, both for taxpayers and premium payers, and those costs led many people to downgrade their level of care. Millions of hard-working people found themselves paying more and getting worse insurance every year.
We think American can do better, but it won’t be easy.
Those corporate interests that would lobby hardest for fast abandonment of the ACA have the most to gain from it, largely at the general public’s expense. That’s another reason not to rush.
Perhaps the best advice for those seeking to get rid of Obamacare — for the good of millions of Americans hurt, not helped, by it — is this: Don’t bite off more than you can chew.