HomeOPINIONWhy We Need ObamaCare Now More than Ever

Why We Need ObamaCare Now More than Ever

By ALEX PECHA
Staff Writer

Republicans have invented a new kind of stupid. For six, nearly seven years they have done almost nothing but rail and rally against the Affordable Care Act for being socialist, ineffective, implemented by Hitler 2.0 and much more. Many candidates ran on the platform of “Repeal the ACA” and have essentially become the party of “We’ll take down the ACA” instead of the values they once stood for.

So with six years of time to plan and prepare for the day they might be able to take down the ACA, why is it that with their recent takeover of the US government on almost all levels except Judicial (that will be in a few weeks), they don’t have anything ready to implement as they rip apart the ACA? Why is there no ready-to-go plan? Where is the alternative?

The right is so obsessed with dismantling the ACA for probably the stupidest reasons they don’t even care who’s caught in the crosshairs. There are millions of Americans who are currently enrolled with insurance under the ACA, what about them? Oh right, they don’t matter. Whether a few poor people go bankrupt or die while Republicans sit around shaking hands and smiling at their accomplishment is pretty much irrelevant.

I can understand the concerns with the ACA, I truly can. The penalty for not enrolling can hurt at the end of the year and premiums have been going up around the nation. But people tend to forget that a lot of this is due to the right-wingers who voted against provisions in the law that would have prevented this. But even ignoring that, as it’s in the past, why not work to fix the law instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater?

The answer is simple: the right doesn’t care. To them they’ve done nothing but rail against the ACA for six years now, they probably didn’t even think they’d really have the chance to dismantle it, as we can see by the fact that they don’t have a replacement ready. For them to keep their political promises to their constituents they have to kill the ACA as soon as they can so they can put it in the “win” category.

Speaking of their constituents, they’re the ones who are going to be the hardest hit by this repeal. The elderly voter and the rural voter are about to get a rude awakening when they realize that the ACA covered a lot of things like Medicaid and the ability to get insurance with pre-existing conditions. I’m lucky enough that I can sit back and mostly be okay- my parents have good insurance, I’m young, and God willing I’ll get a job after college where I can either afford insurance or get coverage through my company.

But not everyone is as lucky as me, and many millions of people are about to get lifesaving treatments, important services and medicines ripped away, and a lot of those people voted for the very people about to do this to them.

Where’s our ever-illustrious president-elect during all of this? Well, besides being the general buffoon he is, he’s actually pushing for Congress to work faster at removing the ACA and to work on getting a replacement “shortly” after. Then again, knowing our genius president-elect he’ll change his view on this at 3 a.m. on Twitter. Though it doesn’t surprise me that the man who literally has a bunch of buildings named after him doesn’t understand that medicine is expensive.

This whole situation is really just truly baffling to me, how we have disregarded those in need so easily to “win.” It’s hard to find words besides expletives to describe this kind of boneheaded move, as well as the people who are pushing and supporting it.

This blatant disregard for those less fortunate and those in need seems to be beyond comprehension and a great example of how truly ignorant and unaware the citizens of our nation are of more complicated topics. Instead they just eat up buzz-words like “Obamacare” and how bad it is and how it’s “socialist.”

This isn’t even going into how it’s playing into the insurance industry’s hands. They started moaning about not making enough money and we’re going to roll over and give them exactly what they want, allowing them to extort and exploit people who need to go to the doctor. Because the poor ‘wittle multi-billion dollar insurance company wasn’t making quite enough money.

In this Common Era, there is no good reason why a person should be afraid to go to the doctor’s office because they can’t afford it. People should not, under any circumstance, have to worry about whether they can afford to heal a broken limb or get a physical, much less survive completely treatable medical problems.

Alas, we are just seeing the opening shots of the Republican’s perpetual war on common sense and common decency. Meanwhile the right is constantly telling us on the left to “calm down” and to “just give this a chance” as always, even though every sign points to disaster for those who can’t afford disaster.

As I said, the Republicans have had years to come up with an alternative; they have had years to find a better way. They didn’t, but they’re going to rip down the ACA for cheap political points anyway, and hopefully, maybe, eventually, come up with a replacement. People don’t matter, the sick don’t matter, the dying don’t matter.

Just as long as we’re not socialist. That would be bad.

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