Is there an alternative to Obamacare?
If good policies make good politics, then why are there so many in Congress with the timidity of Fredo Corleone from the movie, “The Godfather,” and the short-sightedness of every politician in history who has been more interested in the next election, than in the next generation? But like trying to answer the question of why millions of Americans watch “Honey Boo Boo,” or keep up with Kim Kardashian, there is not one singular, coherent or intelligible answer.
Even those in Washington, who routinely check which way the wind is blowing before actually forming an opinion, would nd gale-force headwinds against supporting Obamacare.
In fact, according to last month’s NBC/WSJ poll, just 34 percent of Americans see it as good idea, while 47 percent see it as a bad idea. And a Washington Post-ABC News poll found last month that even Democrats, at least those considered moderate or conservative, have turned against Obamacare – 54 percent of these Democrats oppose it.
Additionally, in a poll conducted in June by The Kaiser Family Foundation, when asked whether the country will be “better off” or “worse off” under Obamacare, 40 percent of Americans answered “worse off.” And this was the worst result for Obamacare in the past 17 surveys that Kaiser has conducted on Obamacare.
And if these polls were not politically windy enough for you to gather enough courage and stand with the majority of the American people, then consider that the most stalwart supporters of the Democrat Party and this administration now oppose Obamacare, almost as fervently as they supported it.
For example, Teamsters president James P. Hoffa (who represents 1.25 million members), UFCW’s Joseph Hansen (1.27 million) and UNITE-HERE president Donald Taylor (251,000) wrote a letter to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi saying, “We can no longer stand silent in the face of elements of the Affordable Care Act that will destroy the very health and wellbeing of our members along with millions of other hardworking Americans.”
And consider this is coming from the same Teamsters’ president who said, during the 2012 campaign, “President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. Let’s take these sons of b****** out and give America back to an America where we belong.”
So even the unions don’t feel we belong in a post-Obamacare America now, an America which the unions say will “shatter not only our hardearned health bene ts, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class.”
And they are absolutely right. And there’s a movement among a minority in the Senate to follow these political winds, and the will of the people, and defund Obamacare. It’s been tried almost 40 times in the House, with no success, but Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah), is leading a new initiative to block any government funding bill that includes any funds that would go toward the implementation of Obamacare.
His critics, including the Congressional Research Service, point out that Obamacare simply cannot be stopped. They argue that implementation of Obamacare will continue, even in the face of a government shutdown, because the Obamacare legislation already set aside billions of protected dollars for its own implementation, even during a shutdown of the government. And even if they run out of those dollars, the government can simply allocate itself the funds needed, in lieu of relying on spending bills from Congress.
That may all be true, but that’s just defeatist thinking there, and a fool’s choice. While it may be true that a government shutdown might not halt Obamacare’s march upon the American people, we must not stand idly by as if there is no other alternative worth our effort, especially when there are so many Americans who oppose it, and will be so personally affected by it.
Senator Lee is seeking to pass legislation into law that defunds both discretionary and mandatory spending for Obamacare, regardless of a government shutdown, and in the words of Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), this is “the only prayer we have ...”
Way back when, we all remember when Nancy Pelosi said, “We have to pass the bill so that you can nd out what is in it.” And we remember when Senator Schumer predicted that, “When people see what is in this bill and when people see what it does, they will come around.”
Of course, that was then, and that was party politics.
But our democracy must be much more than politics, and this is why the growing opposition to Obamacare in Congress, and throughout the country, must be championed, regardless of party, by all Americans who hold dear our liberty, self-determination, and a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
In the words of the late Margaret Thatcher, “I believe that parties and elections are about more than rivalries of miscellaneous promises – indeed, if they were not, democracy would scarcely be worth preserving.”
Louis R. Avallone is a Shreveport businessman and attorney. He is also a former aide to U.S. Representative Jim McCrery and editor of The Caddo Republican. His columns have appeared regularly in The Forum since 2007. Follow him on Facebook, on Twitter @louisravallone or by email at [email protected].
