Why NOT stopping Obamacare at all costs is suicide for the GOP. Expect Extreme Measures.

[TrollBuster9090]

There’s a lot of talk about how the GOP shutting down government, or defaulting on the debt (thus crashing the US economy all over again) would be ‘political suicide’ for the GOP. But what choice do they have? If the ACA is implemented, and people get to LIKE it, they’re finished anyway. That’s a fact.

The ACA will provide the third pillar of the American social safety net:

Universal Healthcare
Medicare
Social Security

All three brought to you by the Democratic Party, all three were fought against, tooth and nail by the GOP. They failed to prevent Medicare and Social Security…three strikes and the modern GOP (of which Lincoln would be ashamed) is OUT.

We’re at the ‘suicide bombing’ asymmetrical warfare stage now, where many members of the GOP are willing to take the country down with them. These are “Regime Dead Enders,” as Donald Rumsfeld said about Saddam’s Bathist Party old guard. They’re willing to take the country down, rather than see their own party fail because, like Saddam’s Bathist Party in Iraq, they are so utterly convinced that their way is the only way, and any alternative would be the end of civilization.

Opposition to Democratic Party sponsored universal healthcare didn’t begin with Obama. It began with Johnson and Medicare, which they failed to stop. It then moved on to CLINTON-care, which they SUCCEEDED in stopping.

Obamacare passed as a law, past the Constitutionality test in the SCOTUS, and all that’s left is to implement it in it’s entirety. This is the last chance the GOP will ever have to stop it. EXPECT EXTREME MEASURES, they’re desparate!


This excellent piece by Jon Perr details the CHRONOLOGY of the GOP’s existential fight against Democratic Party universal healthcare:

http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/real-reason-for-gops-all-out-war-on-obamacare

But what Utah Senator Orrin Hatch called a "holy war" to block health care reform didn't start when Barack Obama took the oath of office in January 2009, but instead when Bill Clinton was inaugurated in 1993. It was then that former Quayle chief of staff and Republican strategist William Kristol warned his GOP allies that a Clinton victory on health care could guarantee Democratic majorities for the foreseeable future. "The Clinton proposal is also a serious political threat to the Republican Party," Kristol wrote in his infamous December 3, 1993 memo titled "Defeating President Clinton's Health Care Proposal," adding:

"Its passage in the short run will do nothing to hurt (and everything to help) Democratic electoral prospects in 1996. But the long-term political effects of a successful Clinton health care bill will be even worse--much worse. It will relegitimize middle-class dependence for 'security' on government spending and regulation. It will revive the reputation of the party that spends and regulates, the Democrats, as the generous protector of middle-class interests. And it will at the same time strike a punishing blow against Republican claims to defend the middle class by restraining government."

Witness Michael Cannon's article for the Koch-funded CATO Institute entitled: "Blocking Obama's Health Care Plan is Key To The GOP's Survival."

http://www.cato.org/blog/blocking-obamas-health-plan-key-gops-survival

"After the Labor Party established the National Health Service after World War II, supposedly conservative workers and low-income people under religious and other influences who tended to support the Conservatives were much more likely to vote for the Labor Party"

And then there's Orin Hatch's famous gaffe, where he confesses the GOP's REAL reason for opposing Obamacare:

http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archives/001658.htm

"A step-by-step approach to socialized medicine. And if they get there, of course, you're going to have a very rough time having a two-party system in this country, because almost everybody's going to say, "All we ever were, all we ever are, all we ever hope to be depends on the Democratic Party."

So...think they won't push the button on the debt ceiling or the government shutdown? Don't be to sure. Remember what one of their founders of the Conservative Movement said....

[kelliekat44]

1. I don't think they can win on this. If they shut down the government the deficit will disappear.

Then Obama gets credit for cutting the deficit and their reason for gutting more government programs and cutting government spending disappears with it. This screws them and their hateful political agenda for the long term. I love the box they have placed themselves in.

[TrollBuster9090]

2. Heh, well, what a lot of Teabaggers don't know is that if the Debt Ceiling is reached, the Treasury

Secretary Jack Lew gets to prioritize which bills to pay and in what order. Tax revenues will still be coming in, but they'll be about 30% shy of output. So, according to the Constitution....the Secretary of the Treasury ALONE gets to decide how the available money is spent.

If I were Lew, I'd think of a way to do this that would do maximum damage to GOP Golden Calves, like FARM SUBSIDIES and DEFENSE CONTRACTS. Defund THOSE FIRST.

In fact, he should make a public statement, before the debt ceiling is even reached, that he will pay TREASURY BILLS FIRST, thus avoiding any downgrade in the credit rating.

One week of farmers not getting their farm subsidies, and the defense contractors not getting their payolla and they'll be BEGGING to fund the ACA.

[Politicalboi]

3. Heh, well, what a lot of Teabaggers don't know is that

They'll have their parents living with them in no short order if no SSI checks are delivered, or older Teabaggers who have theirs and their children don't will be at their doors. The US would look like the Walking Dead if it didn't make those payments. More people out on the street, more hungry people at grocery stores that can stay open.

Soylent Green is the GOP's future for us.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

4. You know what? Then I hope Obama and team pull out all of the gimmicks to go around their debt

ceiling thing. Just blow them out of the water and tell them to fuck off to their inbred mountain camps forever.

This is tyranny of the minority which is unacceptable. We did not elect any leaders in 2010. The U.S. with major help from the shitbags at FoxNews and Dick Army's astroturf group elected a bunch of traitorous shit stains.

[thetonka]

5. The ACA will not provide Universal HealthCare, not even close

[leftstreet]

6. Correct. It's Universal Health Insurance

And it's not 'providing' it, it's mandating it

[TrollBuster9090]

8. Uh...it IS providing it to the working poor who can't afford it.

And as we've discussed before, I have no sympathy for middle class people who CAN afford it, but choose not to buy it, and would rather let other middle class policy owners pick up their bills.

Yes, I'd rather have Medicare for all. But at the moment we only have two alternatives. THIS, or the pernicious clusterfuck we had before.

[thetonka]

15. What about people who save

and can afford to pay out of pocket for their basic health care? Why can't they have to option to buy cheaper health insurance that only covers major medical? Why do they have to pay for coverage from a Health Insurance company that they can pay out of pocket and save money?

Why is it that the for-profit Health Insurance industry needs to be provided guaranteed revenue from people who manage their lives and their health to the point they do not need Health Insurance to pay for their basic care, or preventative care?

What about people who do not believe in western medicine? The mandate is a mandate for them to buy a PRODUCT they will not use.

The ACA causes more problems than it solves, and just perpetuates the lie that Health Insurance is Health Care. Almost all the problems with Health Care in this country can be traced back to a problem with the for-profit Health Insurance industry.

The Democrats had the opportunity to give this country real Health Care reform, and real hope for the future. They gave us neither.

[TrollBuster9090]

7. I agree, but it's a start, and it's much better than the mess we had before...

...and which we'll go back to if we don't get behind the ACA. That's a fact. If you don't believe me, remember what happened to the pathetic excuse for gun safety legislation we almost had, and still DON'T have.

[bluestate10]

10. The far Left are living the fantasy that if Obamacare is repealed that things will get

so bad that voters will wake up and demand Single Payer. That fantasy ignores decades of reality where countless people have been bankrupted or died because they couldn't afford health insurance and had no defense against insurance industry rip offs.

[TrollBuster9090]

11. Meanwhile, both the serious conservatives (ie-Hatch's quote) and the serious progressives

like BARNEY FRANK and JACOB HACKER realize the only way to get to single payer/ medicare for all is in STAGES.

You start with something like THIS. Then, only when it is entrenched, and people like it do you add a PUBLIC OPTION or expanded Medicare. With a 2% overhead, the public option (or medicare) will put downward pressure on the profit margins of the private HMOs, eventually driving them out of business. The only things left will be the government run public option, and (ideally, IMHO) a handful of non-profit co-ops that compete with it.

[thetonka]

16. As long as our government is run by two good old boys clubs

I can not and will not get behind any Health Care solution that gives power over my Health Care decisions to our government. As long as your guy or your party is in charge, that power may be wielded in a way you approve of or at least can accept. What happens if the other guys get control?

Do you really want a George W, McCain, Romney, or even worse something like a Palin in charge of appointing the committee that will decide what your Health Insurance looks like?

If you don't think it can happen, just remember Obama popular vote lead over Romney was less than 5%.


Personally, I'd rather my Health Care decisions be between me and my doctor, with no lawyers, accountants, or politicians involved.

[IronLionZion]

14. Universal access to insurance for those who didn't have it before

and some pretty big reforms of the insurance industry. Bird in the hand worth 2 in the bush. Most freepers fear the ACA is one big step closer towards single payer.

I still think single payer is going to come from the state level.

[thetonka]

17. I would rather see the states implement it than the fed.

I have more influence over my state reps than my fed reps.

[indepat]

9. If extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, then what would extremism in the evisceration of

liberty be?

[TrollBuster9090]

12. Or better yet...would VICE in the defense of liberty still be a vice? I mean, could we start

selling drugs, and using the money to fund democracy movements in despotic lands? Maybe open up some casinos and whore houses, and using the profits to fund AIR AMERICA in the old Soviet Union? I wonder if Barry would have given that the green light.

[IronLionZion]

13. The party of war, terror, hatred, and greed

deserves to lose to the party who promotes access to healthcare, food, living wages, etc.

While GOP policymakers are a bunch of self-serving fatcats living in a fantasy bubble (we have those on our side too), access to healthcare is very appealing to folks who don't currently have it. Lots of rural conservative folks don't have insurance. Anybody who has friends and family would likely know someone who has been failed by the old system.

If they don't have something to be against (foreign enemies, abortion, gays, etc.) they get exposed for not being for anything. Republican policymakers lose sleeping thinking about running out of things to oppose.