Just over 15 years ago, when the Democrat-controlled House and the Democrat-controlled Senate were debating the healthcare proposals offered by the Democrat president, nearly everyone on the political right was unified in opposition. It may well have been the last time the right was united on anything, but it was indeed unified and resolute.
Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann (MN) warned that “This monstrosity of a bill will not only destroy the private healthcare market, it will lead to massive increases in premiums and rationed care.” Congressman (and eventual vice-presidential nominee and Speaker of the House) Paul Ryan (WI) complained that “This bill is a fiscal Frankenstein. It’s a government takeover that will explode costs and kill jobs.” Senator (and Republican Leader) Mitch McConnell (KY) insisted that Americans “want reforms that lower costs, not a trillion-dollar government experiment.”
Even the Heritage Foundation — in the news lately for purportedly exacerbating rifts in the conservative coalition — likewise agreed with everyone in the movement, insisting that Obamacare was a disaster waiting to happen and would keep none of the promises that it made, all while destroying what was good and valuable in the private insurance market.
More than a decade later, when it was clear that the system was in trouble and that only greater government intervention and spending could save it, the Heritage Foundation took something of a victory lap, detailing Obamacare’s manifest failures and arguing that it was long past time to scrap the whole experiment.
The ACA dramatically increased health insurance premiums and cost-sharing in the individual market…
The ACA collapsed insurer competition in the nation’s individual markets…
The ACA failed to meet official enrollment targets in the individual markets…
The ACA is pricing middle-class Americans out of individual market coverage…
The ACA expanded government coverage while wrecking the private individual health insurance market…
The ACA compromised access to care for persons — including those with pre-existing medical conditions — enrolled in the nation’s individual markets…
The ACA failed—and failed miserably to attract young people into the exchange insurance pools…
The ACA’s vaunted delivery reforms did not yield the anticipated savings.
Everything Republicans warned would happen did happen. And the Democrats’ response was to offer a massive “temporary” increase in subsidies to help paper over the failures. Again, every sentient person in the country insisted that doing so would be a disaster, that the subsidies would only increase costs, and that they would not be temporary.
Worse still, in addition to sticking their fingers in their ears and ignoring the experiences of the last decade and a half, the Democrats are actually blaming the Republicans for all of the healthcare system’s problems, insisting that the GOP is somehow responsible for their delusions.
Normal people, of course, think that the institutions created by Obamacare are destructive, costly, and ultimately ineffective. And we know they believe this because so many of them said so before the system was ever put in place. The Democrats disagree, and they will not be dissuaded from their course by any appeals to theory or experience. They want to keep the institutions and keep reforming them until they inevitably find the right formula.
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