ACA Makes Democrats Strong

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/6/29/02820/3138

ACA Makes Democrats Strong

by BooMan
Fri Jun 29th, 2012 at 12:28:20 AM EST

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Let's be honest. Most of these pols are smart enough to know that making people pay a small fine if they aren't insured isn't going to change the fundamental character of this country. It's not a slippery slope that will soon find the government taxing people for having children or getting married, as Rep. Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina suggested today. What these folks are afraid of is something different.

They are afraid that people will like these reforms when they are fully implemented and demand that the government continue to regulate and improve the system. Let's start with the CBO estimate that the bill will eventually result in 30 million people getting health insurance who would not otherwise have it. Think about that number for a minute. And then ask yourself, "who could possibly think that is a bad thing?"

The answer is obvious. If you don't like the Democratic Party, you are not going to like the idea of 30 million voters out there who only have health insurance because of the Democratic Party. Republicans don't like this bill because they know it makes the Democratic Party stronger.

If there is a slippery slope, it isn't that the government will use today's ruling to start infringing on people's rights in other areas. The slippery slope is created when a family of four, making four times the poverty rate ($88,200 annually) gets a $1,480 subsidy to help them afford their health insurance and sees their maximum out-of-pocket annual premium capped at $8,379 (or 9.5% of annual income).

The Affordable Care Act benefits too many people. Once people see those benefits they will be grateful for them and think the government is doing something nice and valuable for them. Anyone who tries to lower their subsidy or raise their cap is going to get punished. And the party that tried to destroy all of this at the Supreme Court? They're the new enemy.

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Republicans should be happy that America came up with a solution for health care that preserved a robust private health insurance industry. In that sense, the right won. But so many of them seem genuinely to believe that this health care reform spells doom for our country. Some of them are actually confused. The rest realize that the Democrats just won a great victory by winning many new adherents who will make it tougher for them to win elections and enact the kind of policies in other arenas that they would like to enact.