Apparently there is a bit of irony in the November air in Washington. More Americans have lost their health insurance because of Obamacare than Americans who have signed up for it. The president botched the health insurance exchange website, and the strong unity of Congressional Democrats who pushed the Affordable Care Act through Congress and onto the American people is starting to chip away.
Fear not: Red-state Democrats have fixes that can save Obamacare.
Take Senators Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), for instance. Manchin wants to delay the individual mandate and Shaheen wants to extend the deadline for enrollment. They assume when the website is up and running again, the exchange market — with the help of their quick fixes — will ensure the health care legislation is implemented smoothly.
These “quick fixes” — when you look at the larger picture — will not help the Affordable Care Act. These remedies would gut the law. Manchin’s delay of the individual mandate and Shaheen’s deadline extension discourage the young, healthy invincibles from signing up for the exchanges. These invincibles will subsidize the older, sicker Americans. If young, healthy people do not sign up for the exchanges, the Affordable Care Act would go up in flames.
No one is more vulnerable in the 2014 midterm elections than Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.). In order to save herself politically, she proposed legislation that would ensure that those people who have lost their health insurance because of the Affordable Care Act would get it back for a year.
However, The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein said the Landrieu bill “will lead to a sicker, older risk pool … (and) higher premiums are a real danger.” This is not exactly what the chief executive wants.
To the average American, these solutions seem like sensible ideas. Who would not like to keep their recently dropped health care plan for another year? Who wants to be forced into the health care exchange market in its shaky state?
Obama told the press he would veto these congressional fixes if they passed Congress. He has good reason to because these solutions would undermine his signature piece of legislation. But deliberately saying no to pieces of legislation many people will believe could fix the Affordable Care Act could be a political nightmare — not just for him, but for his congressional Democratic colleagues. Red-state Democrats told their constituencies they would be held accountable for Obamacare — even Sen. Landrieu. Good luck to her.
It is unbelievable to think that the quick fixes and solutions to Obamacare do not actually fix or solve its problems. The legislation is unfixable.
Yes, Obamacare does have provisions that many people like, such as eligibility for insurance even with preexisting conditions and allowing young people to stay on their parents’ policies until they are 26.
But no one could predict all of the negative effects of the health care law, Obama included. All of the quick fixes in the world cannot heal the wound of a president misleading the people.
What is left is a political nightmare for the Democrats in the short term. A glitchy website, the dropping of health care plans and a lie to the American people are not things that many politicians would like to campaign on or defend. Even if the fixes proposed undermine the law, looking like you are trying to solve the problem looks good politically.
People thought the website glitches were the worst thing that could happen to Obamacare. But it appears it’s actually the Democrats.
Michael Beato is a UF economics sophomore. His column runs on Tuesdays. A version of this column ran on page 7 on 11/19/2013 under the headline "Democrats gut Obamacare"
