History of ObamaCare

Democracy is a great word, whose history, I suppose, remains unwritten, because that history has yet to be enacted.

Walt Whitman (1819-1892), Democratic Vistas

When my history of Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as ObamaCare, is written, it will consist pf 4 books.

Book 1 – The Road is Hell is Paved with Good Intentions, March 2010 to October 2013

For 1oo years, universal coverage had been the America Left’s dream. It was President Obama’s fondest dream when he took office in January 2008. He had a Democratic House and Senate, and he acted accordingly. After passing a massive $1 billion stimulus bill to save the country from a deep recession, by March 23, 2010, the Obama administration had crafted and passed ObamaCare . From the start, Americans opposed the health law by double digit margins. Not a single Republican voted for it. Over the next 4 years and 9 months, its implementation became a form of political Chinese water torture, with dribs and drabs and drops of negative daily news being dropped on the foreheads of a restrained public and a minority Republican party.

Book 2 - Broken and Misleading Promises End in Disastrous Healthcare.Gov Launch. October 1, 2013 to March 31, 2014

The second book records details of launch of healthcare.gov and the 6 month sign up of about 6.7 million people in state and federal health exchanges and Medicaid. No one knows the exact numbers of those legally enrolled . The numbers are still being disputed. But it is generally agreed the first 6 months of health care.gov created and cemented an image of the Obama administration’s incompetent management , its failure to deliver on promises of keeping your doctor and health plan and lowering costs, and misleading of the people on the consequences of the ACA.

Book 3 - End of Initial Launch to Midterm Elections. April 1, 2014 to November 4, 2014

This 7 month period was essentially a heated and partisan campaign. The 3 main issues were a stagnant economy, negative ObamaCare effects , and botched foreign affairs. Republicans focused on Obama deleterious effects – rising premiums and deductibles, plan cancellations, and the Jonathon Gruber affair. In a series of videos, recorded before academic audiences, Gruber, often referred to as “the architect” of ObamaCare, proclaimed as such by prominent Democrats and a frequent visitor to the White House, said writers of the health law obfuscated its contents and its message in order to fool “stupid” voters. Those Senators who had voted for ObamaCare in 2010 were swept out of office, and the GOP gained 8 Senate seats (soon to be 9 if Mary Landrieu loses in Louisiana) to gain control of the Senate. They also added 12 seats to their majority in the House, gained control of 31 governships, and dominated most state legislatures. Of the 50 Senators who voted for ObamaCare in 2010, 29 are now gone, and their leader, Max Baucus of Montana, is ambassador to China. The strategic plan of the GOP Congress will probably be to have a symbolic vote to repeal ObamaCare and when that is vetoed to chip away at defunding the health law and delaying its Individual and Employer Mandates.
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Book 4 - The Party’s Over, November 4, 2014 to November 4, 2016

The future of ObamaCare has yet to be played out or determined . It will feature further debate, delay, and defunding of ObamaCare, more controversy on Grubergate (Gruber is scheduled to appear before Congress on December 6, 2o14), results of the outcome of the 2nd healthcare.gov sign up from November 15 to February 15, and the decision of the Supreme Court, to be announced 0n late spring or early summer of 2015, of whether the Obama administration violated the health law by extending subsidies to 37 federal health exchanges.