Fellow Patriot: The voluntary financial generosity of supporters like you keeps our hard-hitting analysis coming. Please support the 2024 Year-End Campaign today. Thank you for your support! —Nate Jackson, Managing Editor

August 15, 2017

Beware the ObamaCare-Industrial Complex

The danger of a Republican bailout of Obamacare is mounting with every passing day. Moderate Republicans calling themselves the Problem Solvers Caucus are quietly negotiating with Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to throw a multibillion-dollar lifeline to the Obamacare insurance exchanges.

The danger of a Republican bailout of Obamacare is mounting with every passing day. Moderate Republicans calling themselves the Problem Solvers Caucus are quietly negotiating with Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to throw a multibillion-dollar lifeline to the Obamacare insurance exchanges.

This bailout, of course, would be an epic betrayal by the Republican Party, which has promised to repeal and replace the financially crumbling health law.

Obamacare’s apologists object to the term “bailout” for this rescue package. The Left prefers the euphemism “stabilizing the insurance market.” It claims this is merely a payment to low-income families to help pay for escalating premiums. These payments were allegedly always part of the law as passed.

The hypocrisy here is towering. These are the same people who told us over and over again that Obamacare was going to “bend the cost curve of health care down.” These are the same people who promised that Obamacare was going to save the average family $2,500 a year in insurance premiums.

These were also the same people who swore to us that Obamacare wasn’t going to raise the federal deficit by a dime. Oh, really? Where is the $10-20 billion to pay for this new federal subsidy going to come from? Pixie dust?

Incidentally, is there even one single Obamacare promise that has been kept after seven years?

So why is everyone suddenly rallying for an Obamacare bailout? The answer is simple. The new health law has given rise to an Obamacare-industrial complex. The health system is now like a junkie hooked on federal payments.

This addiction explains why the insurance companies are lobbying furiously for these funds alongside their newfound friends at left-wing interest groups such as the Center for American Progress. The irony of this alliance is that these left-wing “allies” hate insurance companies and want to abolish them. The insurance lobby is selling rope to its hangman.

Hospital groups, the American Medical Association and the AARP are joined by the Catholic Bishops, the American Heart Association and the American Lung Association. (If you are donating money to any of these groups, you might want to think again.) This health care-industrial complex has only one solution to every Obamacare crackup: more regulation and more tax dollars.

Proponents argue that there was an innocent mistake in the language of the Affordable Care Act (imagine that — maybe next time they will read the bill before they vote on it) and that these bailout funds were intended to be automatic entitlement payments that would not have to be appropriated annually by Congress.

If they prevail, the insurance companies will get fatter and fatter checks from the government every year, no matter how much costs escalate. Financial accountability will be thrown out the window, and Obamacare will become an appendage of Medicaid, with exploding costs and a blank check from taxpayers.

This year the best estimate is that Obamacare will need at least $10 billion more to keep the system solvent. The death spiral in the program is intensifying with every passing month, so it’s highly predictable these costs will reach $20 billion next year and more in the years that follow.

You can call this a bailout or just a swindle of taxpayers who were fed a litany of lies about Obamacare’s virtues from the very start. Either way, taxpayers get shafted (again) and the Obamacare-industrial complex gets fat and happy. If Republicans are partners to this fiscal crime, then they are as culpable as the Democrats who passed this turkey in the first place and they certainly don’t deserve to be the governing party.

COPYRIGHT 2017 CREATORS.COM

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.