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Obamacare confirming Republicans’ biggest fear
A few weeks ago I wrote an article that was shared widely titled “Obamacare Is The Path To Single Payer Universal Healthcare.” I got some pushback on DailyKOS. One commenter said the following.
I don’t think there is anything about the ACA that is a positive step to single payer. I think single payer will start in the states, just like Canada. If anything I think the early stumble of the ACA set back single payer.
Another said the following.
Ending employer provided insurance and dumping more costs on struggling working isn’t “the path to single payer”. It’s the path to more suffering for workers and lower pay. You might note that those of us who disagreed with your contention that a seven year hard ban on State level Single Payer efforts was a “path to single payer” also pointed out that your desperate efforts to empower insurance profiteers would have this result.
While those too statements are true when one reads the letter of the law, it isn’t based on the politics of the law. One should always think through many levels of indirection. For every action there is some reaction and one must examine how said anticipated reactions would effectively change the implementation of the law.
Lo and behold the method for transition seems to have been accelerated by Republicans’ failure to embrace state control of their exchanges. The inefficiency of multiple exchanges state by state at this time is also a prescient factor.
It is true that true single payer may begin in a state, Vermont, because of that states lack of hang-ups with the term. The centralized control of a working and effective healthcare.gov that maximizes efficiency will allow an easy switch to a new payer when insurance companies ultimately falter further; that payer a single payer.
The Huffington Post article “GOP’s Obamacare fears come true” shows a groundwork that has been sped up by those who wanted the opposite. It states,
The federal option was supposed to be a limited and temporary fallback. But a shift to a bigger, more permanent Washington-controlled system is instead underway — without preparation, funding or even public discussion about what a national exchange covering millions of Americans means for the future of U.S. health care. It’s coming about because intransigent Republicans shunned state exchanges, and ambitious Democrats bungled them.
Now that healthcare.gov is fully functional and working as it is supposed to, there is no reason for those who did not build their own exchanges to do so.
Even when red states shunned a role in running Obamacare and a handful of blue states also turned to Washington, the federal system was still seen as a short-term bridge to a state-based system.
Not anymore. After its fiasco of a start, HealthCare.gov is working. No one is pushing states with successful programs, like California and New York, to switch. But there are only a few of those. Most of the other states are in HealthCare.gov. And they‘re staying put rather than start their own exchange.
Some may think it is wishful thinking to believe all these signs lead up to Obamacare morphing into a single payer Medicare for all type system. It is not. Ultimately for the sake of America, math must rule.
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