The Moocher Conservative: Why Republicans will have a horrible time repealing Obamacare now that they have actual power
President-install Pussygrabber released a video on Monday, giving his subjects an "update" on his agenda for the first 100 days to make the White House White Again, I'm sorry, to make America Great Again. What was missing? Any mention of Obamacare, let alone its repeal or replacement.
During the campaign, though, Donald Trump often beat his chest claiming that he would send a bill to Congress to fully repeal Obamacare on Day One. Republican officeholders - who are now poised to be in complete control of the federal government, yapped all kinds of bravado about ripping the heart out of President Obama's signature achievement.
But you see, now they have actual power. Total, unchecked, unadulterated power. Which means that anything they do, and anything they try to do, they will own. They are not going to have the black guy to kick around anymore.
Now that their legislation will have actual consequences, Republicans have started running into one bit of a problem: The moocher conservative. This is the type of conservative who rails all day against the "nanny state" and then holds signs directing the government to keep its dirty hands off of Medicare. This is the type of conservative that ousted a Republican incumbent in a blood-red House district the last time Republican went after the "nanny state" less than six years ago.
One can even say the moocher conservative carries a pretty typical American quality: he hates entitlements until he's got a piece of it and it's about to be taken away.
And if we are going to be honest, aren't most all conservatives moocher conservatives? They all like to talk a good game on government dependency for "those" people, but will immediately get bent out of shape if you try to take away their government benefits.
It's starting already. In completely irony deficient news, NPR reported Saturday that a poor Kentucky county is suddenly worried that they might lose some of that yummy Medicaid tied to Obamacare that covers almost a third of the county's population. In all, 60% of Clay county is covered for health insurance by the despised "nanny state."
About 60 percent of Clay County's 21,000 residents are covered by Medicaid, up from about a third before the expansion. The counties uninsured rate for nonelderly adults has fallen from 29 percent to 10 percent.
Since Donald Trump and Paul Ryan's unfettered Republican government is poised to gut Medicaid altogether rather than just the expansion under Obamacare, all 60% of Clay county residents can lose coverage. By the time Paul Ryan is done with Medicare, there may not be anyone left with medical coverage in Clay County.
Donald Trump won Clay County, KY, by a whopping 87-11 margin over Hillary Clinton. The moocher conservatives invited their own destruction, and now they are worried they might just get their wish. The struggle is real.
Clay County or Kentucky are hardly alone, of course. Nearly 10 million people across this country now enjoys expanded Medicaid coverage under Obamacare, and millions more take advantage of government subsidies to buy private insurance.
To make matters worse, it is only those parts that the Republican government can take away. Republicans have to dismantle the law through budget reconciliation to avoid a Democratic filibuster in the Senate, and reconciliation cannot repeal parts of the law that outlaws discrimination in insurance based on pre-existing condition or health status or the essential coverage requirements.
If Republicans choose the reconciliation route, Medicaid expansion would immediately go away, as will the subsidies and perhaps the individual mandate, which would immediately skyrocket private insurance premiums. The pain will be felt the greatest in moocher red states, as those were the ones with some of the the best improvement in coverage under Obamacare. My guess is, more than a few "working class white" folk get caught in the shockwave.
In an irony of all ironies, the Republicans' rush to repeal Obamacare might just screw up everything for their insurance company benefactors. Because Republicans have no plan to replace - none that would provide coverage and security for the tens of millions who would lose it. When that happens, whom might we imagine could the conservative moocher come for at the ballot box?
And that is making the math terribly complicated now that Republicans find themselves with absolute (and unexpected) power. For all their bravado, some key Republicans are already beginning to backtrack and slow-walk their so-called "plans".
The GOP wanted the keys to the car they have been constantly ruining the engine of. Now that they have it, now that they have the power to actually do what they have been bitching about, they (and their voters) are in for a rude awakening.