What a mess the country is in right now. The last presidential administration passed a healthcare bill that poll after poll after poll showed most Americans either wanted it changed or repealed. The affordable care act, commonly referred to as Obamacare, has been one of the most controversial pieces of legislation in American political history. So controversial, in fact, that numerous politicians ran in 2010, 2014, and 2016 on platforms of repealing this mess. Now those politicians are in power, and the mess is just as hard to clean up.
Imperfect replacement proposal
The GOP has come up with their own healthcare proposal that critics say keeps much of the same framework of the original bill. The 2010 bill had a very unpopular provision known as the individual mandate that required people to get out and have some kind of insurance. The new proposal doesn't have the same mandate, but it does allow health insurance companies to charge people higher premiums if they haven't had health insurance for 63 days. Whatever happened to personal choice?
The increase of premiums under the 2010 bill was one of its biggest problems. Older people didn't like the 2010 bill because their premiums tend to be higher than those of younger people.
But apparently the new bill will allow insurance companies to charge older people five times as much for premiums as they charge for younger people, with the current limit being only three times as much.
A couple good things
Let's be perfectly fair. There are some things in the new proposal that make sense. Conservatives are the ones who were put into power to deal with Obamacare, and the new proposal has some emphasis on personal responsibility with use of tax credits.
Some parts of Obamacare that most people agreed with, such as capping how much someone could be charged once they started costing too much and letting kids stay on their parents' insurance plans until the age of 26, have been kept in the new proposal. Unfortunately, there are parts of the new proposal that not everybody's happy with.
You can't please everybody
One would think that taking some of the more unpopular provisions out of Obamacare such as the individual mandate while keeping other parts of the bill would make most everybody happy. That doesn't seem to be the case on Capitol Hill. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is leading the charge against the new proposal, saying it's imperfect enough he'll vote against it. Other Republicans in the House have said they have concerns with it, raising the possibility this proposal won't manage to get through Congress.
On the other side of the aisle, proponents of the original 2010 bill aren't happy with the new proposal either. Ron Pollack with Families USA released a statement saying the new proposal would take care from people while driving up consumer costs.
Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer of New York sent out a tweet saying the new proposal won't replace Obamacare, but it would instead force people to pay more for less care. And of course Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi of California is labeling it the "Make America Sick Again" bill.
What a nightmare
Not everybody is happy with what the GOP is proposing to do with the Affordable Care Act. Some conservatives aren't happy with it, and liberals are fuming. What really matters at this point is how much support the new proposal will get in the House and the Senate. President Trump has already expressed a positive viewpoint of the proposal. For conservatives who don't like the new proposal, let's just remember that not everyone wants full repeal.
And for liberals unhappy with it, let's all remember the original bill was so flawed that voters put people in power to deal with it. Barack Obama's legacy is the healthcare mess we're still dealing with. In a nutshell, Obamacare just continues to demonstrate that healthcare is not a place government belongs. In the meantime, are the American people going to keep choking on this poison?
