ON TARGET

3/12/17     by Dave Gunn

Bait and Switch

     Let’s face it.  Obamacare is an unmitigated disaster, and the longer it goes on the worse it gets.  Given a little more time, and the entire program will collapse.  So something has to be done, and done soon.

     The Republican leadership in Washington, with the approval and support of President Trump, has offered “The American Health Care Act,” or the AHCA., as the conservative alternative to Obamacare.  However, conservatives inside and outside of Washington are not buying it.

     Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has labeled the AHCA “Obamacare-lite.”  In the House, Speaker Ryan is twisting arms but the Republican Freedom Causes is threatening to block the bill.

     A careful analysis of the AHCA will reveal that it is not what President Trump promised for the last year, and not what Republicans have promised for the last six years.  Rather, it is a classic bait and switch.

     On the plus side, the individual mandate will be repealed.  No longer will the American people be assessed a fine for not participating in the plan.  However, there are penalties for those who jump in and out of the plan.  This prevents people from using the plan only when they are sick or injured, and not paying in the rest of the time.

     Also most of the Obamacare taxes on such things as medical devices, tanning beds, pharmaceutical manufacturers and others will be repealed.  This will help to lower the cost of health care which has ballooned under Obamacare.

     On the other hand, there are too many problems with the AHCA.    For instance, it keeps the federal government in the driver’s seat when it comes to health care.  The conservative approach would be to remove government altogether and allow the market place to determine health care provision, costs, and insurance for those costs.

     The AHCA also keeps the provision allowing young people to stay on their parent’s health insurance until they are 26 years old.  When are these youngsters supposed to grow up and fend for themselves?  In addition, the AHCA keeps the requirement that insurance providers cover pre-existing conditions.  This changes insurance from a risk acceptance to a welfare provision, with the insurance

companies footing the bill, raising the rates on all of us.

     Another alarming provision of the AHCA is the one-year suspension of funding for Planned Parenthood.  This would allow for your tax dollars to be reinstated to fund the wholesale murder of children in the wombs of their mothers the following year.  The abortuaries of Planned Parenthood should be permanently defunded by the federal government.

     Another problem of the AHCA is the supposed tax credits for people who do not pay taxes, which are really a welfare give away.  A number of years ago when Republicans were proposing a tax rebate for tax payers, Democrats insisted on what they called a rebate for those who did not pay taxes.  At the time I railed against it, and so in intellectual honesty I must now rail against this Republican

Rino welfare plan.

     In an attempt to whip conservative Republicans into voting for the AHCA, Rinos have said that the only choice is to vote for this bill or vote with Nancy Pelosi who will vote against it.  That is a false scenario.  Republicans can go back to the drawing board and bring out that which they promised.

     The right approach, the thing that President Trump and the Republican Party promised Americans to gain their votes, is to scrap the entire Obamacare program, and enact some small adjustments that will enhance health care in America. Two such adjustments would be to allow people to buy health insurance across state lines, and to allow people to form associations that would give them group rates.

     The American people gave the Republicans the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives largely on the promise to get rid of Obamacare, not replace it with a half-socialist turkey.  What the people have given in 2012 and 2016, the people can take away in 2018 and 2020.  The Republican Party has been warned.

[Dave Gunn is the nom de plume of Dr. David E. Gonnella, Pastor of the Magnolia Springs Baptist Church in Theodore, Alabama.  The opinions expressed are his own, and do not necessarily reflect those of the church or its membership.]