Washington’s Health Care “Fix” is Too Little Too Late

In an effort to save face and attempt to stop the imploding disaster that is Obamacare, President Obama came out and said that he would authorize health insurance companies to allow individuals to keep their current health plan, even if it didn’t meet Obamacare standards, for an additional year. This comes after more than 5 million people around the country have had their insurance plans cancelled due to regulations implemented by Obamacare. Democrats, in response to the backlash, have started to stampede for the door in an effort to distance themselves from this disastrous legislation.

While President Obama’s actions may have helped alleviate some of the political pressure against himself and some of his Democrat colleagues, his actions have done little to alleviate the pain being felt by the millions of Americans who have already lost their plans. Obama may act like he considers himself a supreme dictator, but the truth is he doesn’t have the power to force insurance companies to reinstate the plans they have already cancelled and many companies probably won’t.

Another little problem with Obama’s actions is that his executive order band-aid is unconstitutional. According to Ken Klukowski, the senior legal analyst at Breitbart News, “The Take Care Clause of the Constitution absolutely forbids any president from doing exactly what Obama did Thursday.” He goes on to say, “Everyone should know from their high-school government classes that Article I of the Constitution gives Congress exclusive power to make federal laws, and Article II of the Constitution gives the American president the executive power to administer and enforce those laws. Article II then includes the language about how the president must faithfully execute those laws.” Unfortunately, most people don’t remember their high school government class and don’t understand that what President Obama did is unconstitutional.

Some Democrats disagreed with Obama’s executive actions–and pushed back against them–when they voted for a Republican- sponsored bill in Congress that would allow individuals to keep their current health insurance policies. The bill also allows insurance companies to renew those policies, even though they don’t meet the new health care law requirements and allows insurance companies to continue to offer those plans to new customers. The only problem with this bill is that President Obama has vowed to veto the bill if it ever manages to get through the senate, which it never will, considering Harry Reid is still the majority leader; so their efforts are little more than political theater to protect themselves against the wrath of their constituents come election time next year. In fact, out of the 39 Democrats who turned on Obama and voted for Republican bill in the House of Representatives, 34 are up for a tough re-election next year. Never mind that most of these same Democrat Congressmen repeatedly voted to make sure the health care law was put in place.

Even if this Republican-sponsored bill manages to make it through the Senate and President Obama, for some unknown reason, signs the bill into law, it still cannot fix the disaster that has already been put in motion by the implementation of Obamacare. If insurance companies are allowed to continue selling these so-called sub-par plans at premiums cheaper than plans available on the exchanges, the cost of plans on the exchanges are going to sky rocket.  Fewer healthy people are going to sign up for those plans, and all the additional cost that is supposed to be spread out across new customers will fall squarely on the shoulders of the American tax-payer.

The only way Congress is going to fix this disastrous legislation is to repeal it and start over. The only way we are going to repeal Obamacare is to make sure that the legislators who voted for Obamacare are kicked to the curb–and to do that, we cannot let them hide behind temporary fixes and political sorcery. President Obama’s minions who helped pass Obamacare must be held accountable–and to do that we must vote them out of office in 2014.