Debt Limit Crisis-Beyond Soundbites

Saturday, October 12, 2013--

  Now, the pain of the shutdown and the cost even in anticipation of the debt ceiling is starting to be felt.  I will post my historical analogy of this pending crisis with  previous catastrophes such as WWI and the Civil War for those who are interested in such an analysis. , and refer readers to the right side of my website for articles that I have written about specific failures in the ACA, just to illustrate that this is not a liberal screed, but an attempt to describe a potential collapse of the world's economy.

The damage caused by the impending default imposed by the debt ceiling to the  interconnected world economy has been expressed by a variety of sources of both political parties.The single animating force that is driving those who are willing to risk this calamity is antipathy towards  the Affordable Healthcare Act, which I will call ACA,  a law that has taken on the name "Obamacare" approved by the President in an attempt preempt the slur.  In actuality it has allowed the law to be associated with the man, his values and humanity, which should never have been accepted for something this meaningful.

I write this essay as one who carefully followed the process of passing this law, writing several articles on a Democratic web site with pointed descriptions of its serious defects.  I also foresee the extent of the calamity that will be caused if those, who like me, oppose this law use its defects to actually damage the rapid reliable exchange of securities and currency that is the electric current that energizes our worldwide economic system.  The United States is too big to go around, to much a part of this international grid to be avoided.  If those who fear this, people in key positions of finance and government fear a catastrophe, it is because there will be one of unknown proportions.

I also feel that ACA is much more than a way of providing healthcare to more people, but a law that was never evaluated on first principles, which should have been how does society marshal resources to provide a needed service.  In many respects ACA  was sold to the people and passed by Congress using the same dynamics as the Iraq War Resolution of 2002.  In that case the metaphor was "spreading democracy and combating evil." while the underlying forces may have been the military industrial complex in all its power using absurd buzz words to get revenge for 9-11 on the single country most opposed to Al Qaida, the actual perpetrators.  As bad a decision as invading Iraq was, that war would eventually end, and the loss of life will only be a million or so at a cost of several trillion dollars, and we can close the book on that chapter-ignoring the ongoing carnage that we unleashed on that country.

ACA is more than a health care law, but a redefinition of our culture. I claim the right to make this statement as during the development of this law I actively engaged members of the sponsoring party in an attempt to have a rational, rather than an emotional, evaluation of its effects.  I happen to empathize with the Republicans who are using their constitutional rights to hold the country and the world hostage to prevent this law from taken effect. Yet, they are making a tragic mistake in pushing this too far. 

With the thousand of Television hours of live Congressional coverage and pundit evaluation it reduces down to a few sound bites, that inevitably lead to an impasse--as it must given the embargo on acknowledgement of the deeper effects of ACA.  Paul Krugman  the New York Times Nobel Prize winning economist leads in depicting the "hostage takers" without any understanding of the reason for their opposition.  All he sees is a first draft of a law that will help the sick poor get well.  If we stopped there, if that were the sum total of ACA, his argument would be irrefutable.  But he does not go beyond the ranting of the media Rush Limbaughs to caricature the opposition, thus whether aware of it or not, bringing the discussion down to that level.  He ignores the willful distortions of those who promoted this law personified by the Speakers statement, "We have to pass the law to see what it does. "   Yet, after the law was passed and we could start to see what it does, especially since some provisions of the law had nothing to do with expanding insurance, but were modifications of Medicare regulations that have already taken effect, there was no Congressional openness to evaluations of the larger effect.

Just as "You can keep the insurance that you now have...." turned out to be a sales pitch rather than what would actually occur, so to was the implicit promise of the new law being only a first approximation that is open to change once we see what it does. I will relegate to the addendum, the references, a few my own, others by those with greater expertise, that support my argument I make here.  The first is from the times the day after the roll out, that shows how two thirds of the very poorest will get absolutely no addition care, now will that occur under this law.  This could have been anticipated by the compromises within the law and the details of the Supreme Court Decision that eliminated the mandate on expanded Medicaid.  

Those liberals who fail to understand what underlies the anger of the right wing Republicans, whose strength is focused in the House of Representatives, miss the essence of this historical conflict.  Such obliviousness to the legitimacy of their cause will not help to resolve this very dangerous impasse, but could make the disaster that it portends actually occur. 

We need to go beyond the soundbites that are repeated by each side ad nauseam to make resolution of this impasse not a victory for either side.  The promises that accompanied the passage of this law should not be ignored as simply "political promises" as it is represents too vast a cultural change to be so trivialized.  Those right wing advocates are not to be demonized for attempting to treat ACA for what it is, and to challenge it taking effect without any indication that the promise of revision will be welcomed by the promoters.

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Addendum:
Millions of Poor Are Left Uncovered by Health Law
This NY Times article shows the reality that the very target of ACA, the poorest who have no access to medical care, have only learned when the exchanges opened that they are not included in this program.  

Concierge practice will increase under ACA, meaning that the middle class who can't afford it will have diminished service.

 Being sick wont keep you from getting insurance, true or false-  You will be surprised at the answer.







My article in the Humanist that describes a one line provision in ACA that will change the doctor patient relationship and cause great harm among vast numbers of the elderly with memory loss, which is all of us.