CENTRAL VIEW for Monday, February 29, 2016

ObamaCare: A deep insider’s perspective

Despite ObamaCare’s fits and starts, tweaks, do-overs, and even unlawful, unconstitutional changes, ObamaCare has been an unmitigated disaster. Few of ObamaCare’s lofty promises have proven to be true.

As a consequence, during the seemingly endless run of televised cage fights posing as political debates, the GOP presidential hopefuls always find time to pledge to repeal ObamaCare, either wholly or in part, and to replace ObamaCare with a better health-care system.

Recall, back in 2009, a Democrat-controlled Congress and White House had a clean slate on which to write a comprehensive health care program that had the potential to elevate a health care system that was already the envy of the world and make it even better.

So how did the roll out and the implementation of ObamaCare become such a bureaucratic SNAFU? For a partial explanation, we turn to the memoir of a now retired Secret Service agent who was on duty in the Obama White House while the over 2,700 pages of ObamaCare were being written.

In his New York Times bestseller, The Fight: A Secret Service Agent’s Inside Account of Security Failings and the Political Machine (2016), retired Secret Service agent, Dan Bongino, writes: "Working as a Secret Service agent during the negotiations and lead-up to the ObamaCare legislation was an eye-opening experience for me. From the perspective of an ’outsider’ on the ’inside,’ it appeared that everyone had a say in the design of ObamaCare -- with the exception of the people who mattered -- all of us.

"Watching the endless parade of lobbyists, connected insiders, corrupted academics, crony business leaders, headline-seeking politicians, messaging gurus, speechwriters, bought-and-sold politicians, and left-wing ideologues meet with the President and his staff, made me question if any of these people had considered the original Hippocratic Oath, specifically the portion that states ’According to my judgment and means, I will take care that they suffer no hurt or damage,’ before they upended the entire U.S. healthcare system.

"Watching this debacle unfold also reminded me that it’s not just politicians who are selling out the country’s future, but the legions of others, while either lecturing us about the perils of concentrated power in the corporate sector or about the dangers of ’big money’ in politics. The hypocrisy is nearly unbearable to watch from behind the curtain in Washington, D.C...."

On today’s debate stages, both GOP and Democrat, the presidential hopefuls profess their allegiance to taking care of Americans who had not purchased health insurance and then found themselves uninsurable due to their "pre-existing" medical condition. None of them, however, have addressed how the health insurance companies are pulling that rabbit out of the magical ObamaCare hat.

Actually, it is rather simple. The insurance company actuaries estimate the increased cost of insuring people with "pre-existing" conditions and then jack up the premiums of those who have already purchased health insurance. In other words, the insurance rates of the provident are increased to pay for the health-care insurance of the improvident. Maybe Americans are okay with that; however, it would be nice if politicians, both Democrat and Republican, would own up to who is actually paying for the rabbit.

Nationally syndicated columnist, William Hamilton, is a laureate of the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame, the Colorado Aviation Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma University Army ROTC Wall of Fame, and is a recipient of the University of Nebraska 2015 Alumni Achievement Award. He was educated at the University of Oklahoma, the George Washington University, the Infantry School, the U.S Naval War College, the University of Nebraska, and Harvard University.

©2016. William Hamilton.

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Email: william@central-view.com