The House of Representatives today passed the revised American Health Care Act with no votes from any Democrats. Indeed, the Democrats will never cooperate with Republicans on health care reform.
Here’s why – and this is important: The mission of Obamacare was to destroy the health insurance industry and force the country into a socialized health care system. The Democrats will fight to prevent us from saving the market-based health care system that they’ve worked so hard to destroy.
Here’s the proof: The original version of Obamacare for which President Obama fought with every fiber of his being included a so-called “public option,” which would have created a government insurance program to “compete” in the same market as private insurers. Obama and his Democrats knew that no private business can compete with a government program because the government does not need to make a profit and can subsidize what it’s doing with a limitless supply of taxpayer money.
In short, the goal of the “public option” was to destroy the private insurance industry.
The “public option” was not in the final bill that was passed into law only because a small but sufficient number of conservative Democrats (yes, there still was such a thing eight years ago) refused to support it. However, the defeat of the public option did not defeat the overall mission of destroying the private insurance industry. Obamacare, even without the “public option,” was designed to destroy the health insurance industry by ensuring that insurance companies’ revenues would not exceed their expenditures. I explained this scheme in detail in this column back in March.
The Obamacare scheme was deliberately designed to fail, and it is well on its way to achieving its mission. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price warned yesterday in an op-ed piece that Obamacare “is on the verge of collapse, buckling under the weight of its own toxic mix of mandates and regulations, and many of our fellow Americans are trapped inside.”
Now that the Democrats are on the verge of accomplishing their long-held dream of destroying our market-based health care system and forcing us into a socialized system, they are not going to cooperate with the Republicans’ efforts to save our system.
The AHCA passed in the House today only because the Democrats in that chamber have no power to obstruct a unified Republican caucus. Although every Democrat in the House voted against the AHCA today, the Republicans were able to pass it with their own votes alone (just like the Democrats did with Obamacare eight years ago).
The same is not the case in the Senate, where Democrats have the ability to filibuster most legislation. Ordinarily that would mean that the two parties would have to find a way to compromise. But there are times that two sides of an issue are so diametrically opposed that compromise is not possible.
For example, Iran wishes to destroy Israel, and no one expects Israel to compromise on how much of its country it’s willing to have destroyed. Likewise, the Democrats wish to destroy our market-based health insurance system, and the Republicans want to save it. There is no compromise on which the two sides could possibly agree.
There are only two ways that health care reform will pass through the current Senate: (1) design the bill to be revenue-neutral so that, under Senate rules, it can’t be filibustered, or (2) make the bill so popular with the American people that the eight Democrats whose reelection is in jeopardy next year have no choice but to vote for it for their political survival. (The combination of the 52 Republicans and eight Democrats would be enough to overcome a filibuster.)
No version of the AHCA is going to be revenue-neutral, so the real game is going to be in the arena of public relations. Donald Trump was elected in large part out of the public’s confidence in his skills at the Art of the Deal™. His skills are going to be put to the test in that he is going to have to close this particular deal with the American public in order to close it with the vulnerable Senate Democrats. This job will be made especially difficult in that the establishment “news” media will continue to vilify him and the AHCA at every opportunity, so he’ll be in a fight against both the Democrats and hundreds of hours of hostile coverage by their lapdog “news” media.
Today’s passage of the AHCA in the House was a positive first step, but in the end the fate of health care reform lies in the hands of President Trump’s ability to sell it to the people. It’s going to be a very uphill fight, but Trump has always relished such fights. Let’s hope he’s up to the challenge.
Author: Ken Falkenstein
Ken Falkenstein is the Managing Editor of Committed Conservative and brings a wealth of experience and expertise in public affairs to the job. Ken served in the U.S. Army in the last years of the Cold War as a Russian linguist for military intelligence and the NSA. After leaving the Army, he earned his degree in Secondary Education from Old Dominion University, where he also wrote a popular column in the student newspaper.
Upon graduation, Ken worked as a Legislative Aide to two Republican members of the Virginia House of Delegates. Ken also served as Corresponding Secretary of the Young Republican Federation of Virginia, managed several successful political campaigns, and managed governmental affairs operations for a local Realtor association.
In 1995, Ken moved to Washington, DC to serve as a Legislative Assistant to Sen. John Warner (R-VA). While working for Sen. Warner, Ken attended law school at night, earning his J.D. with honors from the George Mason University School of Law (n/k/a The Antonin Scalia Law School). Since that time, Ken has practiced as a civil litigation attorney, including serving for three years as an Associate City Attorney for the City of Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Ken previously was a contributor to the highly-regarded political blog Bearing Drift and was a weekly co-host of The Steve Batton Radio Program. In 2016, Ken ran unsuccessfully for the Virginia Beach School Board. Ken is also a former President of the Down Syndrome Association of Hampton Roads.
Ken now lives outside of Denver, Colorado with his wife, Kim, and three sons, Adam, Dylan, and Joshua, who has Down syndrome. Ken’s writing is motivated and informed primarily by his concern for his kids’ future.
