by Paul Whitefield
guest editorial
The Los Angeles Times
October 29, 2013
As the old saying goes, even a blind pig finds an ear
of corn sometimes. And so it is with Republicans and Obamacare: They’re
right; it’s a mess and deserves to be euthanized, perhaps by its own
special “death panel.”
And I have just the thing to replace it with: a single-payer healthcare system.
You may also have read a thing or two about folks losing their health
insurance plans, something that wasn’t supposed to happen under the
Affordable Care Act — President Obama promised, as The Times’
conservative columnist, Jonah Goldberg, happily reminded readers Tuesday
in an article subtly headlined
“Obama’s big lie.”
(Oddly, I don’t recall him writing a similar column when the
Bush/Cheney crowd couldn’t find Saddam Hussein’s phantom WMD, but who’s
counting?)
So what’s a good liberal Democrat to do?
Well, you certainly don’t want to end up like Gen. Custer at the
Little Bighorn, whose last words were probably “Where’d all those
Indians come from?”
The truth is, Democrats are fighting for — and being torched over — a plan they never wanted in the first place. In fact,
Republicans are killing Democrats over the healthcare system
they
invented. Recall that it was a Republican think tank that came up with
the “individual mandate,” which the GOP now decries as the devil’s tool,
and it was a Republican governor, Mitt Romney, who first put in place
an Obamacare-like system in Massachusetts.
So, after the GOP successfully torched the Clinton administration’s
approach in the 1990s, Democrats in 2010 gave Republicans what they said
they wanted. But did that satisfy the GOP? It did not.
Dealing with the Republican Party these days is like dealing with
your 16-year-old daughter trying to buy a prom dress: “Too ugly.” “Too
cheap.” “Too expensive.” “God no, not that one.” “You’ve got to be
kidding!” “I know I said I liked that one yesterday, but now I don’t.”
So, as I see it, we have two choices. We can go with the Republicans’
new healthcare plan. Or we can go to a single-payer system.
Wait, what’s the Republican’s new healthcare plan, you ask?
Here, let Texas Gov. Rick Perry explain it:
“We’re going to do three things about healthcare. First, we’re going
to get rid of Obamacare. Second, we’re going to preserve our healthcare
system, the greatest in the world. And third, we’re going to do that by,
uh, by — oh, dang it, don’t tell me, it’ll come to me, by, uh ….”
(stage whisper: “Expand Medicare?”) “Naw, that ain’t it; just give me a
second.”
Or, we can do what we should have done in the first place and expand Medicare to include all Americans.
Oh no, the Republicans will wail, we can’t do that. It’s too expensive. How would we ever pay for it?
Easy. The same way you and George W. Bush paid for two wars and that expensive prescription drug plan: We’ll borrow the money.
I mean, if we could borrow $1 trillion or so to blow up a couple of
Middle Eastern countries, and millions and millions to buy the votes of
senior citizens, surely we can borrow $1 trillion or so to take care of
the basic healthcare needs of all Americans?
Because isn’t that what it boils down to? Isn’t healthcare a basic
need, a basic right, of a U.S. citizen? You know, the folks who live in
the greatest country on Earth; the “exceptional” America we hear so much
about?
So let’s suck it up. Admit Obamacare is a failure. Of course it is.
It’s the worst of both worlds: A Republican plan defended by Democrats.
Scrap it, and give us the single-payer system that the rest of the grown-up world already has.
Oh, and next time, make sure the website works.