Reaching into the 'bag of snakes' known as Obamacare

I wish first to thank the Daily Inter Lake editor for printing my recent letter containing several items of particular concern to me which I feel the incoming Congress should address ASAP. I also wish to thank the many readers who have been kind enough to contact me concerning that article. Your feedback is appreciated, and your comment that I somehow ignored one of the biggest problems facing the new Congress, Obamacare, is so noted. 

I assure you however my omission of this “bag of snakes” was intentional. This program is extremely complex with tentacles like an octopus from outer space that reach into the life, freedoms and pockets of every individual, every company and corporation, every “mom & pop” business of any appreciable size, every doctor’s office and every hospital and medical clinic in this nation.  

I, for one, am not smart enough to even pretend to fully understand all of the ramifications of this power-grabbing, job-killing, liberty-stealing, business-changing, tax-gouging welfare program. I estimate that to reach a position where I would feel comfortable taking a fact-based position on all aspects of Obamacare would require several months of study and analysis including in-depth consultation with experts in the fields of insurance, medicine, taxes, economics, business, law and welfare.

But I am not alone, for I can say without fear of contradiction that neither you who are reading this, nor anyone else in our wonderful valley, can at this point in time claim a fully fact-based position on all facets of Obamacare. 

Many are espousing judgments and/or opinions but none are factual. Some are political, some are based on rumor or something they read on Facebook or Twitter or some other proven to be highly reliable source and all contain an element of emotional involvement.

Having said all of the above I will now reveal what little I know or am relatively confident of: First and foremost is the simple fact that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or “Obamacare” is patently illegal. This act is legislation that should never have seen the light of day, it should never have reached the point of being voted on, much less the horrendous miscarriage of justice that occurred when it was passed into law. 

This only happened due to the laziness and utter stupidity of some of the representatives that we the public sent to Washington to do our bidding and protect our interests. Even they have admitted that they had no clue what was in the massive bill they voted into law. 

I am positive that the administration knew the bill was illegal and would not stand up to constitutional scrutiny. That is why immediately upon passage they suddenly began calling it a tax measure. This was a very shrewd move because the bill is far outside any powers delegated to the federal government under our Constitution if classified as anything other than a tax measure. Although this legislation contains several items that can and should be classified as de facto taxes, they are not by any stretch of the imagination the primary purpose of the Affordable Care Act. 

I was positive in my mind that our illustrious judges on the Supreme Court would see through this obvious ruse and settle the issue quickly before the Affordable Care Act became deeply entrenched. Unfortunately, I was wrong and as the current Supreme Court has become accustomed (think Second Amendment and the mythical separation of church and state) they once again found a way out without settling the primary issue. 

I often wonder why we continue to pay the court justices considerable salaries when they never seem to want to fully resolve any issue. It reminds me of our own Legislature and state Supreme Court and our stream-access laws.

So now we have Obamacare. What does that mean to you and me, and where do we go from here? Let’s address the latter first: it is probably too late politically to do what should be done and that is repeal the whole mess and start over on a totally different path that leaves the federal bureaucracy out of the medical insurance business except for enforcement of federal regulations. 

Therefore the next best alternative is cleaning up what we are stuck with. We must reduce the overly burdensome regulations (which are increasing daily), and we must minimize the impact on full-time jobs which the Congressional Budget Office currently estimates will result in an additional 7 million employees losing their employer-sponsored health insurance through elimination or conversion of their current full-time jobs. 

Why, you say, are we talking about jobs when the Affordable Care Act is about health-care insurance? Right on, but Obamacare includes very costly employer mandates. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce reports that one half of all small businesses impacted by these mandates say they will either cut hours to reduce full-time employees or will replace full-time employees with part-time workers to avoid these mandates. 

The problem we have here is these mandates were crafted by persons with a union mindset, which is that businesses are created to provide jobs while businesses are actually created to produce a profit and jobs are only created to the extent necessary to reach the necessary profit margin in the most cost-efficient manner possible.

We must drastically reduce the estimated taxpayer cost of this program and its administration, for which there are presently no fully reliable estimates but ALL agree that the figure is well in excess of $1 billion per year and perhaps multiple billions. (As an example, Bloomberg Government analysts report that as of Sept. 24, 2014, the cost of the Obamacare website alone is $2.1 billion — that’s your money, friends. I hope you are happy with how it is being spent, I for am not.)

We must also remove the requirement that insurance coverage include abortion-type drugs, which violates the religious beliefs of millions of citizens, as well as many organizations and small businesses.

There are many more issues buried within Obamacare that will require legislative attention but this newspaper only has a limited number of pages.

However, before I close, I would be remiss if I failed to acknowledge that even though the program as currently structured is far too expensive for the taxpayers to afford, the major burden of which will rest on the remnants of the middle class, it does have some redeeming features. 

First and foremost, the Affordable Care Act makes coverage available to millions who exist on incomes below the poverty level through the expanded Medicaid program (which Montana has opted out of until now) or the federal subsidy program which is simply a new welfare program that has the potential to add billions to the overall program cost. This of course would be wonderful if we could afford it along with all the other costly government expenditures we are forced to support with our ever-increasing taxes. 

Secondly, this enrollment of millions of the previously uninsured poor and the mandate that ALL citizens must be insured or pay a substantial fine (called a tax penalty) represents a massive windfall to the health-insurance industry as well as to the doctors, clinics and hospitals that were previously treating the uninsured without expectation of payment. The costs for treating these uninsured, which amounted to billions of dollars per year, was recovered by increasing the cost of service for those who could pay, especially those who were insured. 

If you had already been fortunate enough to afford insurance and able to pay your share, then you have been footing the bill for those who used medical care and were unable to pay. Your share has come through grossly inflated medical bills and insurance premiums. Now that cost will be transferred to taxes to support the federal insurance subsidy element of Obamacare. 

By all rights, we who have been paying for the uninsured for many years should expect to see a substantial lowering of our insurance premiums and medical costs, especially hospital bills, but if it’s all right with you, I don’t think I will hold my breath until it happens.

Metzger is a resident of Bigfork.