As the old story goes “as Rome burned Negro fiddled” so what has been done to fix the Affordable Care Act (ACA) aka Obamacare. Nothing. Well President Trump ended a long and costly court battle that the Obama administration started by subsidizing insurance programs through executive order. Federal courts had already ruled that the order was illegal as it is Congress’s role to allocate funding. So instead of moving through at a snail’s pace the court system, President Trump rescinded the Executive Order and asked Congress to fix the issue permanently. Well when people, well let’s call them voters become angry you see reaction from Congress. So almost immediately you see a bi partisan reaction to pug the whole in funding. When something could be used as a campaign issue against someone, I mean a serious campaign issue then it will be addressed. So when a Republican or Democrat lawmaker realizes it could cost him a significant amount of votes he or she will jump from the Party ship.
What I find time and time again that after an election both parties do not get with the business of the people but rather position for the next election. Win or lose they always seem to talk about the next election. So what happens, they do nothing because they are afraid of the consequences of doing anything.
One of the greatest politicians to come from Illinois (besides President Lincoln of course) was US Senator Paul Simon. Senator Simon did one thing that in my opinion made him stand out from anyone else I have ever seen in politics. After being elected for a second term in the US Senate, he announced that he would not seek a third term. He told the people of Illinois there were a number of things that he wanted to accomplish that were not very popular but were the right thing to do. Unprecedented in politics.
So here now we have a number of politicians that are and some that are not running again but no one wants to touch the healthcare issue outside of party lines. They are not interested doing their jobs working for the people. They are more interested in electing members of their party and taking control of branches of government.
In the meantime medical insurance rates and out of pocket cost continue to raise at double digits for most everyone with no end in sight.
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