Granting the general political ineptitude of Republican pols and the continual creep of executive power at the expense of congressional restraint, why isn't the riposte to the assertion that the 2012 presidential election was a referendum on Obamacare that the GOP won the house? Every congressional district in the country had an election on the same night, and Republicans came out 33 bodies ahead, the vast majority of the victors having incorporated opposition to Obamacare as part of their campaign platforms (is there a single one who did not?).
Obamacare was passed by a Democratically-controlled House and Senate, but by the time the question of funding had come around, the public's dissatisfaction with the law had served as a catalyst for a return to divided government. The stupid party would be able to strike an oh so sought after moderate pose by claiming that the American people are divided on the question, and consequently the law should be put to a national referendum, or, in a more republican style, people should be allowed to opt out entirely for the first year or something similar.
I'd love a red pill review of Obamacare, and of the state of health care in the US more generally (this is a solicitation--please feel free to oblige in the comments). Much like our mutually exclusive national ideals of liberty and equality, our simultaneous insistence upon providing everyone access to the best health care available and also on making health care affordable for all tells me the whole enterprise is hopelessly saturated in a thick paste of contradictory, quixotic nonsense that conceals the perpetual, mendacious special interest plundering that is taking place on the inside.
I attempt to take a citizenist perspective on the issues of the day, but I scarcely feel like I can make out the top letter of the chart when it comes to this byzantine subject. Thus handicapped, I'm reduced to free market utilitarian analogies and firsthand experiences. Regarding the former, imagine how expensive and inefficient auto insurance, care, and usage would be if insurance companies footed the bill for every driver's flat tire, fuel up, and rim upgrade, or, even more profligately, if private auto insurance was abolished and instead all a person had to do was provide a driver's license to have these services performed, or if a home insurance provider was required to indiscriminately sell a home insurance policy to a home owner whose house had just burned down.
As far as personal experience goes, the head of my company's benefits department has earnestly told me that if one of our employees requests reimbursement for a pack of condoms, the affordable care act requires us to pay up. With a doc in the box that completely covers me and my family without my having to (directly!) pay a dime, I'm sensitive to concerns over--outright hostility to, really--the law's implementation among our corporate brain trust. I've been fortunate not to have ever fallen ill in the decade I've been an employee, but with a baby on the way, I've finally started trying to get to work on some long overdue homework.
Other questions linger. Will other companies follow the lead of Walgreens, UPS, and IBM and begin dumping their employees onto the public exchanges in the future, bringing about an effective socialization of health care in the US? Will the seemingly inexorable trend away from a national norm of working for a living necessitate the separation of health insurance and employment?
Obamacare was passed by a Democratically-controlled House and Senate, but by the time the question of funding had come around, the public's dissatisfaction with the law had served as a catalyst for a return to divided government. The stupid party would be able to strike an oh so sought after moderate pose by claiming that the American people are divided on the question, and consequently the law should be put to a national referendum, or, in a more republican style, people should be allowed to opt out entirely for the first year or something similar.
I'd love a red pill review of Obamacare, and of the state of health care in the US more generally (this is a solicitation--please feel free to oblige in the comments). Much like our mutually exclusive national ideals of liberty and equality, our simultaneous insistence upon providing everyone access to the best health care available and also on making health care affordable for all tells me the whole enterprise is hopelessly saturated in a thick paste of contradictory, quixotic nonsense that conceals the perpetual, mendacious special interest plundering that is taking place on the inside.
I attempt to take a citizenist perspective on the issues of the day, but I scarcely feel like I can make out the top letter of the chart when it comes to this byzantine subject. Thus handicapped, I'm reduced to free market utilitarian analogies and firsthand experiences. Regarding the former, imagine how expensive and inefficient auto insurance, care, and usage would be if insurance companies footed the bill for every driver's flat tire, fuel up, and rim upgrade, or, even more profligately, if private auto insurance was abolished and instead all a person had to do was provide a driver's license to have these services performed, or if a home insurance provider was required to indiscriminately sell a home insurance policy to a home owner whose house had just burned down.
As far as personal experience goes, the head of my company's benefits department has earnestly told me that if one of our employees requests reimbursement for a pack of condoms, the affordable care act requires us to pay up. With a doc in the box that completely covers me and my family without my having to (directly!) pay a dime, I'm sensitive to concerns over--outright hostility to, really--the law's implementation among our corporate brain trust. I've been fortunate not to have ever fallen ill in the decade I've been an employee, but with a baby on the way, I've finally started trying to get to work on some long overdue homework.
Other questions linger. Will other companies follow the lead of Walgreens, UPS, and IBM and begin dumping their employees onto the public exchanges in the future, bringing about an effective socialization of health care in the US? Will the seemingly inexorable trend away from a national norm of working for a living necessitate the separation of health insurance and employment?
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