The Irony of Obamacare

As we approach the congressional mid-term election the media conversation is all about how the Republicans are well positioned to come out of the mid-terms with control of both houses of Congress for the first time since the period from 1996-2007.

The last time voters trusted Republicans with the keys to Congress they managed to set the table for the biggest economic catastrophe since the Great Depression, and for dessert they invaded Iraq, an action that has destabilized the entire middle east, creating a quagmire of violently competing interests from which it is beginning to appear we will never be able to extract ourselves, and which it is beyond question we are not going to resolve.

How have the Republicans managed to convince voters to turn back to their leadership?  Most of the issues they flogged on the road to victory from 1995-2007, fear of the gay menace and immigrants, trust Wall Street but don't trust Government, have become losing issues with many voters.  Although Obama walked in the door in 2008 with impossibly difficult problems on the economy and in the middle east, the Republicans have managed to convince many voters Obama is the reason those problem aren't solved.  But Republicans can't make a lot of headway using those issues because too many voters remember that it was Republicans that made all the really bad decisions that blew up the economy and got us into Iraq.  But, the Republican fingerprints on the first big thing Obama did, enact a law to set up a framework to provide health insurance to all, are not so obvious.  So the biggest issue the Republicans have tied their hopes too the last couple years has been Obamacare.

Obamacare is a perceived as a bureaucratic mess (and this voter shares that perception to some extent).  Ironically Obamacare is mess mostly because of the Republicans in Congress were so intransigent, so stubborn and uninterested in dealing with the fact our health care system was the most expensive and least efficient system in the world, that they refused to support any kind of health care reform unless every possible lobbying group with campaign dollars was appeased.  

That universal medical coverage for all citizens is a good thing is a no-brainer (a fact currently highlighted by the Ebola fears).  Even arch conservative Richard Nixon had recognized that it was necessary for a smoothly functioning modern state 45 years ago.  Free market principles that work for efficient production of refrigerators or cars don't work for Medical care.  But Republicans were so dead set against any plan of "socialized medicine" Obama perceived the only way he could get some sort of Universal Health coverage enacted was to use a "Republican" model (Mitt Romney's Massachusetts plan) and cut deals with lobbyist for people making piles of money off the old system at every turn to get enough votes to get the law passed.

Obamacare is successful in one huge respect.  Voters now recognize the value of universal medical coverage.  Most Republicans no longer dare talk about repealing Obamacare but Republicans have been pretty successful at spinning reality to convince voters the bureaucratic snafu's associated with Obamacare are all Obama's fault.  That their strategy may put them back in control of both houses of Congress is historically nonsensical.  It's like giving a kid an ice cream cone for blaming his brother trying to clean up a broken window, forgetting it was he that threw the rock that broke it.  

But it does say something about who ultimately is responsible for stupid acts by Congress.  If voters really want to know who's screwing up the government many will see the culprit in their bathroom mirror.  

Postscript - One reader felt the last sentence did not connect with the rest of the article.  The point I was trying to make (unsuccessfully perhaps) was that in the end if Government is screwing things up, the solution will usually only be found when enough voters examine their preconceived notions about issues, immunize themselves from emotional name calling and exaggeration, and figure out for themselves the nature of reality.