The Obamacare Debate

Seeing as how Sen. Ted Cruz is currently on the TV filibustering the legislation known as Obamacare, now seems the appropriate time to throw in my 5 cents. I'm going to offer my top 3 reasons for opposing Obamacare, even though much more could be said about it. For the sake of brevity, I've limited it to just three though.

I'll start by saying that I'm no expert on the law. I haven't read the bill. I mean, it was 2,700 pages, who has time to read 2,700 pages of legalese? Certainly not our politicians. Certainly not Ms. Nancy "We Have to Pass the Bill So We Can Find Out What's In It" Pelosi. But you don't have to read the bill to fundamentally see how detrimental this law will be. 

First of all, there's the matter of the individual mandate. A government mandate forcing all Americans to buy a product or be fined for it. That is about as un-American as it gets. I don't need to have read the bill to know that I fundamentally oppose the government forcing an individual to buy a product, any product, be it broccoli or healthcare, for any reason. And it is being forced upon us. The government is sticking a gun to our heads and saying "You must buy healthcare or else you must pay a fine". So I must buy healthcare, pay a fine, or go to jail. What kind of legislation is that? Since when was it acceptable to be told by your government that you must buy what they order you to or pay a price? This sets a very disturbing precedent for further encroachments of our liberty down the line. That's just the first absurdity about Obamacare.

Next, there are all of the disincentives for jobs. According to Obamacare, full-time employment is 30 hours. Anybody working 30 hours or more per week is considered full-time. That's strange. Last time I checked, most people considered a full-time job to be 40 hours a week. Regardless, with the newly defined full-time work week, it creates an incentive for employers to slash employee hours below 30 hours per week. For many businesses, it will be much more cost effective to hire 2 employees for part-time work than to hire one full-time employee and have to bear the burden of their health insurance. That means that one of those employees who might have had a decent full-time job now no longer is working the same hours as before, not earning as much money as before, has to go hunt for another job (probably part-time) in this shitty job economy and still won't have health insurance after all of that. How is that a recipe for success for the future of America?


The other perverse incentive is the 50 employee threshold. If a business has over 50 employees, they are forced to provide health insurance for all of their employees or, once again, they will be forced to pay a fine. Yet again, we see government holding a gun to the heads of businessmen and women nationwide and forcing them to act in a way that they otherwise would have. If a business is just under that 50 person mark, they must then start hiring part-time employees or slow their business growth down. If a business is just over the 50 person mark, they might have to layoff employees or cut their hours. In the middle of a recession that we still haven't recovered from, we pass legislation that actually provides incentives to slow job growth, cut hours, or cut jobs altogether? How does this make any sense?

Of course, not every business will experience these grievances. Not every wage worker is going to be relegated to the realm of part time work. But there are hundreds of thousands of verifiable employers and employees who have expressed their outcry at having to comply with these arbitrary standards. Sen. Cruz is making that very clear right this very moment with his reading of some of the tweets and letters of the millions of voices who oppose this legislation for personal reasons or as a matter of principle. There are new headlines every day highlighting these stories. Not to mention all of the hundreds of thousands of people who were promised that "if you like your coverage, you can keep it" who are receiving letters from their insurance companies saying that either their policy is changing or their premium is rising due to Obamacare.

The supporters of Obamacare will surely trot out their success stories. The stories of people who had preexisting conditions who can now receive coverage for their illnesses. The young people who can remain on their parents' insurance (because they can't find a full-time job to provide it for them). And whatever other successes might arise out of this law. But the question remains, is it fair to burden and disenfranchise one group of people for the sake of another group? Is it fair to bestow privileges on one group of people at the expense of many others? If the negatives outweigh the positives, is it worth it? Is it moral to help one group of people at the expense of another? My answer to all these questions is, 'no'. Government shouldn't be in the business of picking winners and losers and that's what it's doing here, trading one set for another.

My final reason for opposing Obamacare lies simply with Congress themselves. The proof is in the pudding. If Obamacare isn't good enough for them, then it's not good enough for us. If Congress wants to exempt themselves (and their union buddies), then you better be damn sure that it exempts EVERYONE. We don't have a ruling class here in America (supposedly). We don't have a separate set of rules that govern our lawmakers from those that govern everyday Americans (at least that's what I've been told). If it's not good enough for them, then it's not good enough for us. NUFF SAID.

Obamacare is about force. Forcing people to buy things they don't want, don't need, or can't afford. Forcing them to pay fines if they don't buy the insurance or comply with its mandates. Forcing people and businesses to act in a manner that is counter to their own best interest. Any law that is based on force is inherently immoral and must be rejected. The role of government is to protect liberty, no more, no less. Its role is not to force people to comply with its mandates for the sake of some and at the expense of many others. I don't need to read a 2,700 page tome to understand that. And that's why I oppose Obamacare.

Update: I was wrong about the part about individuals being forced to pay a fine or go to jail. At the moment, the law states that no criminal action or liens can be imposed on people who don't pay the fine. That doesn't change my qualm with individuals being forced to buy a product against their will. Also, that could change in the future too if enough people are smart enough to realize that they don't have to buy the insurance or pay a fine and the young, healthy people needed to subsidize the sick, older Americans don't sign up for the programs and cause premiums to skyrocket