For all the media hand-wringing over the government shutdown the fact is only approximately 750,000 of the over two million non-military federal workers are being furloughed. Most federal programs will continue operating, including the major entitlement and welfare programs. The national parks will remain open, if understaffed and with closed visitor centers. Unfortunately, the shutdown will not affect the military-industrial complex.
President Trump’s supposed “master plan” to implement mass firings of federal employees will only fire 16,000 employees.
Democrats are refusing to vote for a short-term continuing resolution unless it extends the increase in Obamacare subsidies that was part of the Biden-era covid relief legislation. Republicans, who for years campaigned on repealing and replacing Obamacare, are not opposing extending the subsidies. Instead, they are focusing on concerns the Democrats want to allow illegal immigrants to receive taxpayer-funded health benefits. Republicans are also emphasizing that they want to negotiate over extending the Obamacare subsidies, not simply shove them into a “must pass” continuing resolution. Republicans also want to ensure that laws barring illegal immigrants from receiving the subsidies are in place.
Republicans’ de facto embrace of the increased Obamacare subsidies, which were supposed to be a temporary increase to help Americans who lost their jobs because of the covid lockdowns, is a little noticed but major milestone in the history of Obamacare. For many years Republicans campaigned on a promise to “repeal and replace” Obamacare. Opposition to Obamacare, along with opposition to the big bank bailouts and the cap and trade scheme, fueled the “Tea Party” movement, which led in the 2010 election to a Republican takeover of the House of Representatives. In 2013, as the federal government was implementing Obamacare, Tea Party Republicans orchestrated a government shutdown. The argument was this was the last chance to repeal Obamacare because once it was fully implemented the number of people who would become reliant on the program would make Obamacare politically impossible to repeal.
These Tea Party Republicans were mocked for their efforts, but history has proven them right. Even though Donald Trump and many Republican candidates for House and Senate promised to repeal Obamacare in their 2016 campaigns, they never even held a vote on full repeal of the healthcare law. Instead, they pushed legislation repealing the “unpopular” parts of Obamacare even though the way the program was structured it was impossible for the popular parts to work without the unpopular parts. The legislation repealing the “unpopular” parts of Obamacare was opposed by some Republicans who had previously voted to repeal all of Obamacare.
In the 2018 midterm election, the Democrats then turned the tables on Republicans by running as champions of healthcare who would protect Obamacare from the Republicans. This helped them retake the House.
Now, the majority of Republicans appear ready to ratify President Biden’s increase in Obamacare subsidies. So, Republicans have gone from promising to repeal Obamacare to promising to repeal the “unpopular” provisions to de facto supporting the program.
Republican failure to effectively oppose Obamacare is because of failure to acknowledge that the pre-Obamacare healthcare system was seriously flawed because of government interventions. Therefore, a way to “fix” healthcare is via measures giving patients and providers control over the healthcare system, such as tax credits and Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). Unapologetic advocacy of free markets is the only effective way to oppose big government schemes like Obamacare and advance liberty.
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