Time and time again, I hear Republican politicians saying how "Obamacare" (i.e., the Affordable Health Care Act) will "ruin the country." They hardly ever say HOW it will "ruin" our country.
So that's my question: precisely what is it about the AHCA that will ruin our country? I would like to hear from those who agree with the objecting Republicans. Tell us specifically what it is about the AHCA that is going to "ruin America."
Some traditional answers:
1. The same way the public schools and public housing lowered standards in order to serve mass populations at the minimal quality levels to afford covering more people, the opposition envisions that medical care will be reduced in quality to be made affordable to people not paying for the services they receive, and will also lead to higher quality doctors and programs shutting down because they cannot compete. This is especially troublesome that people who would rather pay directly for programs and services by the free market system are financially penalized so that their money is taken from them and forced to pay for these subquality programs expected from govt. They no longer have free choice to invest in businesses or schools or charities directly to provide top services, as with private vs public schools, but would be penalized by income tax and forced to fund only govt care or buy insurance instead of the equal freedom as before of paying for health care which isn't the same as buying insurance.
2. integrity of both the Constitutional limits on federal govt, the rights reserved to people and the states, and the conscience not to abuse majority rule politically to push party agenda above constitutional representation and inclusion of all people across the nation
is at stake. The issue of pushing the faulty thinking that you can tax your way into paying and covering more services, without representation of the people you are taxing and depending on paying into the system for others who will be carried by it; so the concept of no taxation without representation is at stake, where somehow you are so confident your ideas represent the people protesting that you can decide for them despite their protests.
This is very dangerous, like saying those people's interests and representation don't count in public policy because they aren't really valid objections, but just political nonsense.
other issues at stake
3. disregard for real solutions to lower health care costs so more people can be helped
the system of pushing insurance and govt care excludes other solutions such as spiritual healing which is more cost effective and can be applied to cure mental and criminal illness at the root cause instead of just methods of using medications to placate symptoms which drives up costs while not curing the problem
4. forcing people to go through govt instead of rewarding taxpayers for investing in businesses schools and charities to provide low cost services directly by more efficient means since these do not depend on forced funding, but rely on working better in order to operate sustainably. so the forced way of funding does not hold institutions accountable for performance, and that is why public housing and public schools have gone down, while privately run businesses and charities have to operate effectively in order to keep growing.
5. failure to address other systems needing reform such as the criminal justice system
if people were held accountable for their costs to society, instead of taxing the people who earn more and expecting that to average out and cover the people not earning their keep,
then there would be incentive not to commit crimes, abuses, fraud, etc. that create more damages than people can pay back. if citizenship were based on responsibility as a requirement, maybe we wouldn't have criminals racking up costs at taxpayers expense.
currently lawabiding citizens spend billions of dollars on prisons and the costs including health care for inmates who don't work to earn or pay back those costs.
so why not address this waste and use that to pay for health care for law abiding citizens?
as long as politicians take some shortcut of going through insurance or taxing companies and working citizens to pay the costs of those who can't afford their costs, then they are NOT FIXING THE PROBLEM
so that is the greatest harm caused is costing law abiding citizens or punishing the successful people for earning more than poor people, and not addressing what causes the poor people to keep costing more and not being able to pay for their own services.
instead of rewarding taxpayers workers and citizens or businesses and charities for implementing better solutions than govt
this policy seeks to fix part of the problem by taking money from mandates pushed on people who can afford to pay them and trying to cover the costs of people not paying in
not only are you stuck with the same problems creating the poverty, disparity and sickness to go cured to begin with
but now thanks to ACA you've added a whole new level of distraction and cost of fighting to educate people and to push for reforms to correct the ACA on top of preexisting
problems that it still doesnt solve. so you added more problems to fix.
the benefits I see is that while ppl are sorting out solutions
some people have gotten lifesaving help through parts of this ACA
but that doesn't mean that help couldn't have been set up a beter way without ACA
and the problems it introduced
that is like saying although the war in Iraq cost us billions to destroy so much in collateral
damage, the benefits are that it did liberate some people from bad regimes. more children and infants were dying from sanctions before the war. but that doesn't mean the war
was the best way to solve the problem. sure it saved some lives but at the expense of
people who suffered and didn't want that imposed on them.
I forgot another thing with integrity of govt
it also hurt the political integrity and relations with parties
such as contradicting the prochoice stance and defense against prolife legislation
arguing that freedom is more important than saving lives which can be saved another
way besides removing the choice of abortion
well this ACA says that it is more important to save lives helped by changes to insurance
rather that freedom to retain choice in health care by those expected to pay for the costs
so it is saying the opposite message
clearly there are other ways to pay for health care besides forcing people to buy insurance
so that contradiction shows unhealthy denial and projection and
rationalizing away the cognitive dissonance as if there isn't a conflict there
this is dangerous both mentally and politically for the integrity of public knowledge
and due process and representation in govt to have that intellectual dishonesty
and partisan bias going on without admitting what is happening
it is on both sides, if you look at how people rationalize away the cost of war in iraq
and the true cost to society and taxpayers. so there is some on both sides.
but two wrongs don't make a right. themutual denial and projection of blame
is sickening and prevent honest understanding, sharing of information, and representation.
so that is another problem on top of the ones we act like are someone else's fault.
