Ever since the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law by President Obama on March 23, 2010, the more conservative members of the Republican Party have been determined to repeal it, despite the fact that President Obama has been willing to work with them to modify it more to their satisfaction. On February 2, 2016, the House of Representatives voted for the 60th time to repeal the law, which brings to mind the definition of insanity. Insanity is defined as continuing to do the same action over and over again, and somehow expect different results.
The sheer stupidity of those conservative Republicans reached its peak (or its nadir) in October of 2013, when they shut down the government for 12 days in their effort to cut off funding for the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare due to the fact that it was championed by our 44th President. The 12 day shutdown cost the economy $24 billion in lost productivity, but failed to achieve its stated purpose. In addition, it caused the approval rating of Congress to drop to 9%, the lowest approval rate on record.
Its critics maintain that it is burdensome and a job killer, which is absolute nonsense. 20,000,000 people now have insurance coverage that they did not have before, and our uninsured rate is now at 11.4%, the lowest rate in our history.
As of November, 2016, our country had experienced a record 73 straight months of job growth, and the private sector has added 15.6 million jobs since Obama was sworn in. Our current unemployment rate is 4.9%, the lowest rate the economy has enjoyed since the 1950’s. The average unemployment rate for the period 1948 to 2015 is 5.81%. The peak was 10.80 in 1982, when Saint Ronnie was President, and the lowest was 2.5% in 1953, when Eisenhower was President.
The marginal tax rate in 1953, incidentally, was 92%, which means that high taxes don’t kill jobs. The top marginal tax rate in 1980 was 70%. The next year, it was cut to 69.13%, and in 1982, it was cut to 50%, which proves that cutting taxes does not lead to job growth.
After 7 years, the Republican Party still does not have a replacement plan in place for Obamacare, but with the election of our dictator in chief, they have taken the first steps to repealing the act.
According to the Washington Post, repealing the Affordable Care Act will lead to an additional 43,000 deaths a year.
In addition, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has estimated that a repeal will add $350 billion to our national debt over the next decade.
Since it appears the repealing the Affordable Care Act makes no sense at all, why do the conservatives keep pushing it? As usual, taking care of the rich guys is a priority. According to Forbes, repealing the Affordable Care Act will provide an average financial benefit to those in the top 1% of $33,000 a year. For the folks in the lower tax brackets, their tax burdens will INCREASE. A repeal could also cause 29,000,000 people to lose their health insurance.
There ARE ways to prevent this utter disaster from occurring, and the best possible way is for the citizens to get mad as hell and CONSTANTLY bombard our elected officials. Donald Trump is unlikely to last 4 years, for a variety of reasons, but the more sane members of the Republican Party will be, and they definitely need to hear from us.
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