Faulty Healthcare Law Highlights Fundamental Problem

Obama Discontinues Long Term Care Insurance Program

I am certainly no fan of the Obama healthcare law.  The idea that government can provide healthcare better than the private sector is lunacy.  Being forced to purchase health insurance is an affront to liberty, rule of law and common sense.  Unsurprisingly, the law has been under legal challenge since its passage, and its opponents have found some degree of success.  However, the recent removal of a long-term care insurance plan emphasizes a more fundamental issue with government, regardless of which party is in control.

The issue is the passage of legislation due to its own nobility.  There is no denying that the idea of providing healthcare for every person in this country is both lofty and admirable.  The problem is that politicians on both sides of the aisle have limited ability to anticipate side effects and unintended consequences of their actions.  Prohibition ushered in the Mafia.  The Smoot-Hawley Tariff deepened the Great Depression.  And now, the healthcare law is part of the reason that companies continue to sit on trillions of dollars of cash.

So...the law continues to be a millstone around the President's neck.  Right or wrong, his name is forever linked to the bill.  No matter which candidate emerges from the Republican primary, he will have to dodge slams about it.  In each Republican debate, the opposition of the law has been universal, even from flip-flopping Mitt Romney, who will know to come down on the right side of the debate this time (which, of course, is the point of flip-flopping).

The biggest problem is the fact that, as the article mentions, the administration knew that this section of the law was unsustainable, yet they disregarded the warnings.  George W. Bush did the same thing once it became clear that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.  Both notions were very noble in concept...stopping terrorism...taking care of the elderly.  Both failed because the President only heard what he wanted to hear.

We need a president who deals with what works, not what could be.  Quite frankly, we're all living on a budget, and cannot afford to do otherwise.