If You Don't Stand for Something Then You Will Fall For Anything

 Allen J. Novosad of the great city of Edna reminds me of the wind -up kid toy where the child picks a farm animal and then pulls the string to hear the sound of his choice. The first paragraph of Allen's recent letter- to- the editor is devoted to heading of his letter " Obama will not say Affordable Care Act is faulty" and the rest of his letter is about our government's economic policies. 

I read Mr. Novosad's letter three times to make sure I understood his message because he left out the major cause of our current financial doldrums.. He conveniently left out the 2007-08 Wall Street monetary crash. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) did not have anything to do with the melt -down ,besides the reason for passing ACA was that the costs had been skyrocketing for a least a decade. Did Mr. Novosad ever mention jobs? The right has been wishing for inflation for 4 years but if they knew anything about economics ,they would understand why inflation is low.

I'm going to stick with health care,because it's people like Mr. Novosad  who keeps this issue widely misunderstood. Recent polls revealed that 42% of Americans don't know that ACA is the law of the land. I don't know what government study indicated that the program was going to cost trillions but CBO estimated that it would cost $5-$10 billion over ten years. I do know that the GOP has only funded a third off the cost it took  to fund their Medicare Part D prescription-drug bill. I also know that the  GOP leaders in both houses will not send a representative to the ACA Advisory Board.  Next week,the House  will again waste taxpayer money by voting to repeal the ACA for the 37th time. When a reporter asked John Boehner why he was allowing another repeal,he said " some freshman members of Congress have not been given the opportunity to vote for repeal." So it amounts to ritual.

On October 1st,30,0 million people will start applying to get health insurance for the first time  and there's no doubt it will be problematic because of  confusion,reluctance of GOP governors to participate and lack of congressional funding. Democrats lost 46 seats when they passed Medicare,and now it's a savior for many seniors. Republicans forgot all the problems that came with the Medicare Part D prescription drug bill they passed. I bet Allen Novosad doesn't know that Part D 

was put on the credit card.

It is a confusing piece of legislation because according to polls only 37% fully approve of the ACA;probably because it's known as Obamacare

Yet:

1. 88% approve of the small business credits

2. 80% approve of the health care exchanges

3. 76% approve of the subsides for private insurance

4. 71% approve of Medicaid expansion

 5. 66% approve of guarantee coverage

The Affordable Care Act will be culprit for everything that's wrong with our health care system because it's a big available target much like Social Security,Medicare Part D, and Medicare was. People forget that insurance companies have always raised their rates and people have always lost their jobs along with their health insurance. I'm willing to bet companies are using ACA for laying off people or not hiring new ones as an excuse. Some major companies have taken the heat for using ACA as their excuse for cutting employees or their hours.   

Unlike Mr. Novosad,who didn't offer any solutions,I will continue to try to separate myth from facts. The Affordable Care Act will need a lot of young healthy  people to participate in order to offset the costs of  new more sickly enrollees. The young people will probably opt to pay the $95 fine rather than get a bare bones catastrophe plan. We need the advisory board before we can start to reform Medicare because it's time  to let our seniors know that we can no longer pay for some procedures and as cruel as it may sound,we have to educate families about Hospice.