So Where Are We Now on Obamacare?

The Obama Administration and the Democrats in Congress are in deep trouble – and they know it.  Obamacare is crashing down around their heads.  Their fingerprints are all over it.  They’re trying to sell a turkey of a plan (sorry, Thanksgiving is next week) that the American people don’t want, at a price they can’t afford.  Americans are having their insurance canceled left and right as a result of Obamacare.  And the next election is just around the corner.

Even Bill Clinton has rapped Barack Obama sharply across the knuckles, saying that if you promised Americans that they could keep their healthcare plans, you better let them keep their plans (or at least act like you’re letting them keep them.)

Why would the former President weigh in at this time?  Maybe he’s just trying to be helpful.  I doubt it.  More likely he’s attempting to protect Hillary’s viability in the Presidential primary cycle next time around.  Or perhaps it’s payback time for when Obama essentially called Bill Clinton a racist in the Democratic primary back in 2008.

It does show that Bill Clinton still has clout, at least in Democratic circles, because the next day Obama announced that he was reversing himself (of course he didn’t call it that) and he would indeed let those who wanted to keep their healthcare plans keep them (even though he wasn’t really doing that at all.)  Got it?

Of course Obama had a second reason for acting like he was going to let people keep their plans.  The next day Congress, at least the House of Representatives, was set to hold a vote on a bill, which actually WOULD let Americans keep their plans if they wanted to.  And Obama was becoming more and more concerned that large numbers of House Democrats, (maybe as many as 100 of the 200 Democrats in the House) were ready to abandon him and vote with Republicans in an attempt to save their own skins.

So Obama held a press conference and announced a faux fix which, in reality, does very little (other than give some Democrats, maybe, some cover.)  The Wall Street Journal called it “Obamacare’s Non-Fix.”  Rush called it a “phony fix.”  And Congressman Steve Scalise of Louisiana, chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, said Obama is like a guy “who burned down your house, later showed up with an empty bucket, talking about how inadequate your house was before the fire.”  (I liked that one.)

Obama hopes that the public will blame insurance companies for canceling the insurance coverage of millions and millions of Americans, rather than blame him and the vast majority of Democrats who voted for Obamacare.  Whether this will work, remains to be seen.  But his sleight-of-hand announcement did have the desired effect of keeping enough Congressional Democrats on board that he only lost 39 House Democrats, rather than the feared 100.  As it was, the 39 Democrats, plus all Republicans in the House (including me) resulted in the Republican plan, called the Keep Your Health Plan Act, passing 261 to 157.

Obama breathed a sigh of relief that he only lost 39 Democrats, but it did pass.  Unfortunately Harry Reid in all likelihood will refuse to allow the Senate to even hold a vote.  So the effort to actually allow Americans to keep their healthcare if they like it, is probably doomed, at least for now.  Of course Obama will act like he’s allowing Americans to keep their plans, even though he’s really not.

So there you have it.  The latest chapter in the ongoing saga of the most transparent, wisest, most enlightened Administration in American history.  Our transformational President.  Change we can believe in.

God help us.

Post Script: President Obama, at a recent Rose Garden news conference, used a Washington state woman as an example of an Obamacare success story.  The single mom allegedly would be able to afford health insurance for the first time under Obamacare.  Obama boasted “That’s what the Affordable Care Act is all about.”

Well, it turns out, it’s not so.  Jessica Sanford wrote on her Facebook page yesterday “You guys really screwed me over.  Now I have been priced out and will not be able to afford the plans you offer.  But, I get to pay $95 and up for not having health insurance.  I am so incredibly disappointed and saddened.”

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