Opinion

Obamacare Is Rapidly Imploding: Will the Republican Congress Finally Do Something About It?

REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Seton Motley President, Less Government
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How much more Obamacare failure must mount in a titanic heap before Congress decides to get more involved? Congress was given in 2014 a bi-cameral, bigger, and deeper Republican majority — because of Obamacare:

2014: Another Election About Obamacare

The Second Obamacare Election

Obamacare Opposition Drives 2014 Election Results

Republicans were given the majority — based on their stated opposition to Obamacare.

John Boehner, Mitch McConnell Vow to Kill Obamacare

Republican leadership that has since the election done very little to adhere to their vow.

Obamacare Repeal Falls Off Republicans’ To-Do List As Law Takes Hold

The people who gave Republicans the majority have noticed.

Conservatives Fear GOP Leaders Giving Up on Obamacare Repeal

And lest we forget:

Conservatives Are Right About Obamacare

How do we know Conservatives are correct?

CBO: Cost of Obamacare Subsidy Will Increase 8-Fold in 10 Years

Health Insurance Cancellation Notices Soar Above Obamacare Enrollment Rates

O-Care Premiums to Skyrocket

Obamacare Deductibles Hit Patient Pocketbooks And Hospital Finances

The law’s damage is deep, and omni-directional.

CBO: Obamacare Hurts Workers, Sickens Economy

CBO: Obamacare to Cut Work Hours by Equivalent of 2 Million Jobs

How Obamacare Hurts Job Creation

Joe Biden: Losing Your Job Because of Obamacare ‘Is About Freedom’

Thanks, Mister Vice President. Obamacare: Liberating millions of Americans from all those hours wasted earning money.

Not all of the news is terrible.

Thousands of New IRS Agents Hired to Enforce Obamacare

Obamacare to Create 100,000s of Jobs in the Field of Explaining Obamacare

Oh wait — all of the news is terrible. Breaking things and then hiring bureaucrats to “fix” them ain’t exactly great.

And all of this nightmare mess is just at the federal level. How are the seventeen states that established their own Obamacare exchanges doing?

Failure and Corruption in the Massachusetts Obamacare Exchange

It’s no secret that Obamacare’s father is RomneyCare in Massachusetts, and as we look to the problems that plague a government run health care system, The Bay State is a good place to start. Case in point: corruption in the system.

Josh Archambault, senior fellow at the Foundation for Government Accountability has dug into the state’s $1 billion Obamacare exchange and found many discrepancies and issues that should concern everyone.

Just another “lone wolf,” isolated failure, right? Sadly:

Almost Half of Obamacare Exchanges Face Financial Struggles in the Future

A headline that could easily end with “So Far.”

Many of the online exchanges are wrestling with surging costs, especially for balky technology and expensive customer call centers — and tepid enrollment numbers.

The government’s “solution” to this utterly predictable, and predicted, outcome? Utterly predictable.

To ease the fiscal distress, officials are considering raising fees on insurers, sharing costs with other states and pressing state lawmakers for cash infusions.

They demand even more of our money. Shocker.

Some are weighing turning over part or all of their troubled marketplaces to the federal exchange, HealthCare.gov….

Some states have already done this.

Oregon Gives Up On State Obamacare Site, Switches to Federal Exchange

What else has happened in the Beaver State?

Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber Resigns Over Growing Scandal

Oops.

Kitzhaber Turned Cover Oregon Decision-Making Over to Campaign Consultant

Oregon Spends $300 Million to Achieve 44 Total Signups for Obamacare

Yet another unmitigated disaster.

Federal Investigators Issue Subpoena to Cover Oregon, Oregon Health Authority

Good idea. Except:

Former Gov. John Kitzhaber’s and Cylvia Hayes’ Trip to Dump Brings Police Sweeping In

The former governor and Hayes showed up at the Knott Landfill southeast of Bend in a pickup and an SUV about 2 p.m. last Friday and spent a few minutes dumping trash, according to Timm Schimke, the director of the Deschutes County Solid Waste Department….

(W)orkers recognized who they were dealing with and apparently decided the dumping might be of interest to law enforcement.

Old school, Hillary Clinton-style transparency.

This is where the Republican Leadership can do some good politics — by engaging in some good policy.

You say you want to undo Obamacare? A great move in that direction is to investigate the state-level Obamacare catastrophes currently unraveling all across the country. They represent billions of federal dollars wasted — with billions more to be thrown after bad.

And they all serve as outstanding visual aides for why federal Obamacare is also irretrievably heinous.

We must get to the bottom of Oregon and Massachusetts (and the others we already know to be corrupt as well as collapsed) to begin to mitigate the damage inexorably coming from all the others – up to and including the federal.

That is, after all, your job.

It’s good policy — that is also good politics.  

For what, exactly, are you people waiting?