CARLTON FLETCHER: Partisan politics shouldn’t decide health care

You go back, Jack, and do it again.

— Steely Dan

I realize that in polite society you’re not supposed to use such harsh terms, but I’ve seen and heard some of the stupidest reactions since Republicans in the U.S. House decided last week to take the president’s health care proposal — the DOA American Health Care Act — off the table rather than face an embarrassing defeat if the act had been come up for a vote.

What that action did was, essentially, and for better or worse, leave President Obama’s signature legislation — the Affordable Care Act — in place.

Here’s where the stupid part comes in.

I’ve heard individuals argue passionately that House Republicans let the American public — and President Trump — down by not repealing ACA and replacing it with AHCA, as the president had promised while campaigning. And while I respect their passion, I cannot fathom the reasoning: “We need to get rid of anything Obama put in place and replace it with what President Trump wants. He knows what we need.”

Stupid.

Meanwhile, I’ve watched alleged Democratic leaders celebrate the Republicans’ failure to repeal and replace as if the Democrats had somehow earned some kind of victory, and many of their supporters lauding the news as if it somehow impacted their world in a positive way.

Stupider.

Of course, telling the blind followers of both parties that they’re showing their ignorance for using such logic is tantamount to blasphemy in these days of sordid partisan politics, but I’ll risk the fallout.

The Affordable Care Act — called Obamacare derisively by the Mitch McConnells of the country who’ll do anything to stir up the base — is maybe one of the 10 most flawed pieces of legislation ever enacted by elected officials in this country. In attempting to supply everything to everybody, the authors of the act created a law that is as disastrous for some as it is beneficial for others and confusing for all.

That’s not good government. That’s pandering … that’s accepting the praise of the group that benefits as reason enough to ignore the pain of those who are harmed.

The concept of ACA was a worthy one, to cut spiraling health care costs by making sure all Americans are covered, noble even in intent. But implementation has been a disaster. Frankly, I was looking forward to seeing what the new group in power would bring to the table as it worked to help the new president keep his health care promise.

The American Health Care Act, however, like the Affordable Care Act, turned out to be equally as flawed. It had some good things, some components that seemed destined to make improvements in certain areas. But it also had components that would create a different set of disastrous results. Because elected officials like McConnell, who has always put party ahead of people, were so obsessed with taking Obamacare off the books, AHCA came off as rushed, ideas thrown together in a hurry so that certain congressmen might prove that they had the new president’s back and maybe get a contact high off his popularity.

In the aftermath of the AHCA failure, parties and personalities aside, the perfect opportunity has arisen for our Clown Congress to put their moronic politics aside and work together to come up with a health care plan that works for the populace, not a bunch of random thrown-together concepts that survived the “see-what-sticks” test and benefits mostly just the give us more, more, more insurance industry.

That, truth be told, is where most of the problem lies. Government — especially at the federal and state levels — has become a shill for the insurance industry, more concerned with grabbing their piece of the influence-peddling money that’s abundant, even when they know the industry is taking their constituents to the cleaners. Oh, and doing so legally, since legislation is in place to keep us their wage slaves.

No one — except insurance companies and politicians — wins when we throw our support behind legislation that impacts our pocketbooks simply because it is endorsed by one political party over another. If Congress won’t put politics aside and do what’s best for us, there’s certainly reason enough to continue the voter revolution that put Trump in office.

Or, we could just continue to pick a big “D” or a big “R” and keep backing these same horses that have been bucking us, so to speak, since the time they took office.

As a great philosopher once declared: Stupid is as stupid does.

Email Carlton Fletcher at [email protected]. Follow @ABH_Fletcher on Twitter.