There was plenty of misery to go around with last week’s healthcare fiasco. Whether it was President Donald Trump’s apparent disinterest in the plan or House Speaker Paul Ryan’s obvious failure to sell the American Healthcare Act to anyone but his immediate family, this was not the GOP’s finest hour. In fact, with Republican power residing in the executive and legislative branches of government and poised to dominate the judiciary, it is mind-boggling to think how pusillanimous and inept the majority party appeared last week.
It was like watching a film for which no one cared to write the conclusion to — or perhaps they just wished to improvise that part. So we have reports of Ryan on one knee and the pathetic withdrawal of the bill like a movie from general release after one hell of a bad premier. Back, back, back to the studio for some additional cuts and new dialogue — perhaps we’ll have a rerelease in another year.
Not acceptable folks. And what of this notion being trumpeted by RINO Senator Lindsey Graham that we just recline and await the inevitable collapse of Obamacare as it slides into oblivion?
Sounds somewhat reasonable until you think that nothing has ever stopped any government from maintaining an idiotic and wasteful program on bureaucratic life support indefinitely. That’s specifically what defines the accounts for the longevity of the welfare state: the inevitable infusion of government cash.
It was obvious that Trump just didn’t want to think about healthcare. Mention the bill and he was apt to start talking about wiretaps, trade or And Ryan really seemed to think this exercise had something to do with repealing Obamacare when in fact it was had everything to do with perpetuating Obamacare under another name.
That’s the real misery, what is potentially the most toxic legacy of this round to attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare. It doesn’t take long for socialism to take root and begin to corrupt a free society. So despite railing against Obamacare planting the seeds of government growth, when the Republican Congress had the opportunity to uproot the socialist weed they choked and decided it was easier to just keep Obamacare alive because the American experiment in socialized medicine has quite suddenly become a vested interest, and, very nearly, another “human right.”
Make no mistake, this was Obama’s plan from the very beginning and it was one reason he campaigned so hard for Hillary Clinton’s election. Clinton was poised to introduce a single-payer, universal Medicare plan like Canada is supposedly so proud of but which drives its citizens to the United States if you need an operation in less than six months. Hillary made comments about her appreciation for socialized medicine, including one in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, where North American Medicare all started in the 1940s.
Well, you want to talk socialized medicine, let’s examine our neighbor to the north, where Medicare has been as integral to the Canadian identity as hockey and Tim Horton’s coffee since the mid-1960s. Not only is there a chronic doctor shortage throughout the country but, as mentioned, there is a waiting list for every significant operation. People do routinely travel south of the border for treatment — sometimes it’s either that or die.
Yet to serious politician would even attempt to vaguely question the efficacy and intrinsic morality of the Canadian healthcare system. It would be political suicide; Medicare has become a sacrosanct institution beyond any reach of any intrusive reform, raucous rollback or ridiculous repeal.
As the first version of Trumpcare was going through the death throes last week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was releasing his government’s annual budget. It contained virtually no money for national defence, postponing some vital procurement projects decades into the future, but it promised more money for Medicare. Canada can barely manage to spend one percent of its GDP on defense — in utter contravention of its promise to NATO to contribute double that — but the provinces devote an average of 40 percent of their budgets to healthcare.
Had she won the November election, you can bet we would not be arguing over how to repeal Obamacare without really doing so, we would be watching Clinton take the Unaffordable Health Act to this next illogical level.
And we all thought this process had been arrested with the election of a Republican president and Congress but apparently this is not the case because they lack the will to rollback the encroaching socialism that Obama initiated.
Instead, they’re playing games and perhaps even privately conceding that Obamacare is now perceived as a right by the American people.
It’s not too late to rectify that catastrophic misperception.