Numbers Just Aren't On Obama's Side

So the new numbers are out for the enrollees in Obamacare. 106,000 people signed up (but have yet to actually pay for a plan...so that number will undoubtedly be smaller!) since the big rollout on October 1st. But that's not the number that has Democrats worried. There are a myriad of numbers that are more embarrassing to the president's party than that!

How about the number of 27,000? That's how many people actually signed up on the federally run website. How about 14? That's the number of Democrat senators that are up for re-election this next November, and are worried beyond belief that the health care overhaul that they supported (almost at gunpoint), more than half are expected to lose their seats....and with it the Democrat majority in the senate. How about 39? That's the percentage of Americans who approve of the job Obama is doing in office, his lowest rating since he was elected.

Yeah, the numbers don't look good. I could go on. Oh, numbers like 10%. That's the percent of people that think Obamacare is actually fine just as it is. And 84% That's the percentage of people that are calling for either scrapping the plan altogether, or major changes. Here's why that won't happen:

Mary Landreau (D), the senator from Louisiana, who is really scared of losing her seat next year, is proposing that the government actually make Obama's "promise" law. Include in the Affordable Care Act, "If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it....and if you like your doctor, you can keep him/her". That spells trouble for Obamacare. If you start changing the laws to let what are known as sub-plans (plans that don't meet Obama's minimum standards) included in ACA, then you are forcing the law to collapse. If that law were to pass (and it has a veto proof majority in both houses of congress, even though Obama says he'd not sign such a law), any insurance plan would qualify for admission as "acceptable" under ACA. That means all of the crappy plans that Obamacare was supposed to weed out...the ones that didn't include contraception... the ones that didn't include maternity care...the ones that didn't include mammogram screenings... they all go by the wayside. There is no reason for anyone to buy such a plan if they don't want it. And that means that those that do are in a smaller pool. And that means that the cost of those plans that do include it just went through the ceiling.

That was the only carrot Obamacare had in it's large stick to younger people in the country. Making them pay for the higher premiums for the older people, who use more healthcare, was totally unacceptable. Only by making the older people pay for maternity (even if they were passed menopause), and birth control (again...passed menopause), could you keep costs down for the younger people. Without this carrot in the package, the whole thing blows up.

What if someone only wanted cancer insurance, but nothing else? It would have to be included if they had it before Obamacare and liked it.

Scrapping the plan now is an even worse idea. Those five million Americans who have already lost their insurance plan, are in a black hole. They have nothing at this point. Their insurance plan is gone. It's vapor. It doesn't exist anymore. If Obamacare is scrapped, he's just succeeded in adding an additional five million people to the rolls of the uninsured. Because if Obamacare is scrapped or falls apart at this point, your 25 year old daughter that's living with you because she can't find a job, can no longer be on your insurance. And your son that has a pre-existing condition can be disqualified from getting coverage, because pre-existing conditions will come back. Take the law away, and you've also got an insurance industry that would be in total chaos for years to come.

Obamacare has been, and continues to be a terrible solution to a problem that needed addressing. But it was rammed through congress amid all of the GOP screaming that this was going to happen. Well, it's happening. Don't be surprised. The GOP is terrible at being the majority party, but they're really good at foretelling the future of what happens when you leave the Dems in charge.

So what's the answer? If Obama were smart, and rumor has it that he is (though you'd never know it by this fiasco), he'd do what he does everytime he has bad news to tell....he'd punt it past the next election. Delay Obamacare at least through 2014 and let the next president worry about it. If the GOP ends up winning the White House and congress, it's toast anyway. Hell, if the GOP were to win veto-proof majorities in both houses, it's toast in January of 2015. The answer is, you have to take the individual mandate out. You have to open up the insurance market to a national audience (not just state by state), and you have to involve tort reform. The Dems won't like that last one a bit because they get a ton of money from the lawyers that make their living suing healthcare providers. But it has to be done.

Make some really needed changes to health care laws, and stop the socialist crap that doesn't work. Didn't we learn that from Europe over the last year? My hunch is, Obama isn't as smart as everyone thinks he is, and he isn't very good with numbers. Hello black hole!