Obama Care on the Line: What Will Republicans Do?
When you think of November, you usually think of colder nights, Thanksgiving, and, this year, a midterm election. Well, now you can add Obama Care to that list because November 15th marks the beginning of the next annual round of enrollment. You remember the last round of Obama Care enrollments and how tens of thousands were supposedly going to be lined up around the block to sign up, a necessity in order to help cover the costs of the plan, but then only a trickle of signees actually showed up?
Remember how, when you went to the slick multimillion-dollar website to sign up on the exchanges, that after what seemed like half your life passing by, you couldn’t sign up for anything? There were glitches galore. Well, Obama care enrollment is back and looking for more takers. Now is the time to see how good the collective memory of our nation is. Will we remember all the broken promises of better health care for lower premiums? Will we remember all the empty promises of “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,” and “If you like your health care coverage, you can keep your health care coverage”?
The so-called affordable care offered by the Affordable Care Act saddles the average family with an annual deductible of more than $10,000 in addition to whatever monthly premium they have to pay. That forces many people to forego quality care providers for less-costly community care centers, thus going outside the plan to meet their medical needs affordably.
The Affordable Care Act has been anything but. Ever since its implementation, many doctors have discussed closing their practices and getting out of the medical field altogether. When politicians start casually throwing around numbers in the trillions as President Obama has done when talking about the Affordable Care Act, we should all know that nothing affordable will be coming our way anytime soon. We know we had better keep a firm grasp on our wallets. This fiscal monstrosity has got to be undone before it takes the entire nation down to financial ruin.
Carol M. Swain, Professor of Political Science and Professor of Law, Vanderbilt University.
E-mail: carolmswain@gmail.com
Website: https://carolmswain.com
