What’s up with the GOP?

One must wonder about the
Republican Party and why it hasn’t yet stuck a fork in Obamacare. Perhaps the
GOP really wants it to stick around.

In a recent column, Michael Tanner
of the Cato Institute, says Republicans “waste” the opportunity to end the
healthcare bill once and for all.

First, he cited a recent Kaiser
Family Foundation poll that indicates the bill has reached an all-time low in
popularity. The poll says only 34 percent of the population is now in favor of
the plan. Tanner said the Kaiser Family Foundation has previously found more
support than other groups have found.

According to Tanner, the loss
in popularity is due to several factors: the high cost of insurance premiums,
fewer choices, more debt with fewer taxpayers and the individual mandate.

The foundation said insurance
premiums — now averaging $15,000 per year — have increased by 9 percent this
year, three times more than previously, that, despite the president’s promise
that premiums would drop by $2,500. Two percent of the increase is due to
provisions in the law itself.

The bill is driving some
insurance carriers out of the market, reducing choices for consumers. It’s a
simple matter of supply and demand. The lower the supply, the higher the demand
and the more the cost. Tanner cites Florida and Iowa as states where this is
happening on an increasing basis.

Now comes word from the
Congressional Budget Office that the bill’s provisions will add $1.36 trillion
to the debt during its first seven years. This is at a time when 47 percent of
Americans pay no income tax.

Adding to the fire is that
voters in Ohio this week voted, according to the Plain Dealer, against “being
forced to participate in a health care system. The official language says it is
a proposal to ‘preserve the freedom of Ohioans to choose their health care.’”

So, with a bill this bad and
unpopular, why don’t Republicans go into a full court press to get it repealed?
Because they like the bill.

Tanner does not go into this ,
but anyone who watches U.S. politics can understand that there are two reasons
for Republicans to keep it around.

One reason is to bring the
uglier points as the November 2012 election approaches to give the president a
political black eye as the election fight gets tighter. Maybe it will draw
blood — read that votes— from Mr. Obama.

Yet there is another reason. No
matter how unconstitutional, no matter how fiscally unsound and dangerous as a
national healthcare plan might be, Republicans know that a lot of people want
some form of such a law and the Republicans want to deliver one of their own,
not one that came from a Democrat. They want to keep some of Obama’s framework
in place, sort of like a legislative infrastructure.

There is ultimately no
difference between the two incumbent parties. They both want the same things:
votes and power. People are only a means to those ends while the Constitution
is seen as interference.

Michael Tanner’s column can be
found at http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13819

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