President Obama, in a speech to Congress in September 2009, stated that the central goal of the Affordable Care Act was extending health-care coverage to the "more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage." Yet here we are nearing the end of open enrollment, and the number of Americans who lack insurance exceeds 30 million...So we are left with two not-mutually-exclusive conclusions we can draw about Obamacare: it's an abject failure in its stated goal, and/or its stated goal is not its actual goal.
BY THE NUMBERS
14: percentage of Affordable Care Act enrollees as of Feb. 1 who were previously uninsured
900,000: number of current enrollees who would be previously uninsured assuming the same percentage
10: estimated percentage of U.S. uninsured covered by the ACA so far
Either way, you have only the Democrats, and the people who voted for them, to thank for this. Remember, Obamacare passed without a single Republican vote in either house of Congress. Have Republicans ever passed such a debacle that way?
I don't know how the vote went, but I would imagine Reagan's SDI initiative went similarly ...not the same level of magnitude of course, but about the same rate of success. We could have achieved the same result by taking the money, telling the Russians we were doing it, and saving it to help pay off the deficit.
ReplyDeleteSince the vote is kinda the point, what did your comment contribute? There's no end to federal boondoggles, the point was excessively partisan boondoggles.
ReplyDeleteBesides, I don't think SDI had the impact on everyday Americans that Obamacare is having.
It didn't contribute much. BUT your point is that all Democrats and no Republicans voted for Obamacare, which I have consistently agreed to being completely worthless and spendthrift. As one who hates Ds and Rs almost equally, I was tossing out an example. Do I really have to look up facts I already know are true? Okay, I'll do it. Back to you soon.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ontheissues.org/HouseVote/Party_1999-4.htm
ReplyDeleteHere's the House vote ... 93 Dems voted fort, so it's not a clean sweep. BUT all but one Republican voted for it, and it was expensive idiocy.
A few minutes of Googling found that the 98th Congress had 177 House Democrats voting for an amendment to the Defense budget against developing an anti-ballistic missile system. That was out of 272 Democrats in the House. Nearly 100 Democrats were in support of the system so you imagined a fantasy scenario there Maxutils.
ReplyDeleteTry again?
No Max, I don't think running a pure bluff would have worked and, were we found out, it would have had precisely the opposite of the desired effect.
ReplyDeleteThe right thing to do, which Reagan did, was to go in assuming SDI was feasible if not immediately engineerable.
When we went public with various tests the Soviets knew we were really working on pieces of SDI and the pieces we were willing to go public with. Those public pieces of SDI lent credence to the suspicion that there were elements of SDI which were just as successful but hidden.
Obamacare's enjoyed the polar opposite in that the disastrous roll-out of just the web site, which is easily the most trivial part of the entire system, has undercut confidence in the rest of the system. You'd thin a guy whose supposed to have the legendary political sagacity that's credited to Obama would have realized that if the paint job sucks you won't get many people to committing to kick the tires let alone buy.
Steve, you're right, and I left that out only because a) I figured you could do the math from there, and b) the question pertained to one party blindly flying of a stupidity cliff, lemming like... in my numbers only 1 Republican did not ... and the 2 IND.s who joined were formerGOP. As to the Dems adding in ... yes, that is different. Let that be a tribute (sort of ) to Reagan's ability to cross aisles. It's still nearly 2- 1 against, though.
ReplyDeleteAllen ... maybe. Valid point. And I'll still agree with you that SDI has a better chance NOW of working than does Obamacare. I just hate the "Dems always do this and Reps never do it ... and vice versa stuff. Fact is ... there's a handful of them at best who are any goods in either party. Ano nt SCOUS.
Don't move the goalposts, Max. Have you found an instance where the Republicans shoved something this stupid, this partisan, this controversial, through the government and foisted it upon the people without a single Democratic vote in either house of Congress? That was the point.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think we have our answer, now, don't we?
Darren, if that's your point, then, no. The only unanimous decision I can think of is the Declaration of War on Japan in 1941. So, you win, although I think I put up a pretty good straw man ... and if you think I'm trying to argue Obamacare, you don't know me. What I would like, though, is compromise. As the guy whose party never wins? All I ask for is reps who are willing to trade ideas and work together ... and NOTDO ANYTHING if they can't come up with something good. That's not how this Congress is working. And as neither a D nor an R ... I think it just as much Obama being a pompous ass who's in over his head as it is the GOP being stubborn a-holes absolutely not trying to help. Personally, I lean towards inaction, so, I'm okay. Give me a Paul/Walker ticket i '16? I'm in.
ReplyDeleteI meant Paul/Ryan. I have NO idea where Walker came from.
ReplyDelete