The Sisyphean task that is Obamacare has devolved into a train wreck. Along with the predictable failure of one of the simplest parts of the system, the exchange’s website, our country has also been graced with presidential promises that have been revealed as subterfuges. He campaigned on the pledge: “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan. Period.” He also told us that his law would “Cut the cost of a typical family’s premium by up to $2,500 a year.” So what does he make of the hundreds of thousands of currently held plans around the country that are being cancelled? What about the Wisconsinites who will, according to predictions from the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance, see year over year rate increases of 51 percent? And the average Madisonian 21-year-old whose insurance costs are predicted to increase by as much as 125 percent?
It would take a president practiced in wordplay and duplicity to even attempt a positive spin on these blatantly contradictory facts. But, lo and behold, the president and his Congressional pawns have done just that. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, tells us that these “cancellation notices” are actually “conversion letters.” She might be on to something, if only cancellation and conversion were synonymous. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney defends the cancellations and subsequent rate hikes as replacements for “substandard plans.” It’s a good thing he can tell the difference, otherwise I might never have known how “substandard” my plan really was. And Senator Mary Landrieu, D-La., tells us that Obama actually meant: “If you have a ‘good insurance’ plan, you can keep that plan.” Arbitrary? Certainly.
Another administration ploy is to downplay the real numbers. Obama and friends have claimed that “only 5 percent” of the currently insured will be affected by Obamacare’s “cancellation problem.” That translates to nearly 15 million people losing their present plans. Other estimates reach as high as 93 or 129 million cancellations. If you’re one of the privileged five percent, isn’t it heartening to know that now you won’t be swindled by the plan you chose for yourself? That plan the 60-year-old couple down the road used to have didn’t support maternity care, but, if Obama says they need it, we’ll throw it in. Their 25-year-old granddaughter with a cheap, catastrophic plan? Now that Uncle Sam is purchasing, they can rest easy knowing that her new, more expensive monthly plan will cover everything from alcohol abuse therapy, regardless of whether she drinks, to contraceptives, even if she has no intention of using them. You may think you’re perfectly happy with your current, cheaper policy, but don’t kid yourself. You simply can’t understand the complexities and dangers of insurance without federal oversight. If the bang-up job that public schools, the IRS, the NSA and other alphabet soup organizations are doing is any clue, health care should be a breeze; who are you to be worried?
It’s as if Obama mandated that every person must buy a new, flashy car with a jacuzzi and pop out wings to boot. It may be pretty, and it may be fun, but there’s no way to escape its higher cost. What if I’d like to save that money for a rainy day? What if I’m perfectly content to drive my old clunker Ford? I admit it may not have panache, but it sure gets me from A to B.
Now I can’t speak for anyone else, but my fingers are crossed in the hope that our benevolent government will soon be helping me with all of the other decisions I can’t make for myself. Maybe in a few years healthcare.gov can tell me whether to wear jeans or khakis (if it’s working by then), and I never can decide which brand of toothpaste to buy … Thank God we have such an efficient, trustworthy and ever-expanding government.
Ethan Kay ([email protected]) is a sophomore studying physics, math, english and philosophy. He is a member of the College Republicans Communications Committee.