Writing for this site has turned me into a bit of a news junkie. Any day that I’m posting I’ll check the front pages of almost every major news site and a few local ones just to find stuff to write about. Last week I didn’t post due to work, comedy on the road and dealing with the whole divorce transition thing. In that week I didn’t really check up on the news. This morning I go online and THE FUCKING GOVERNMENT IS SHUTTING DOWN.
In case you haven’t heard, the government has to pass a spending bill by the end of today or the government will shut down. This normally mundane bill keeps getting rejected because the Republican led House keeps writing stuff in the bill to kill Obamacare while the democrat led Senate keeps saying they won’t pass a bill that has any language that would hurt Obamacare. These men and women, all people with expensive law degrees who hold almost the highest and most respected offices in the land, elected by majorities of thousands and millions of people, are playing a stupid fucking game of chicken that will shut down the government and we’re letting them.
Why? Why are Republicans still fighting this tooth and nail? Is Obamacare really that bad that you have to take it to the Supreme Court (unsuccessfully), tried to pass 42 Obamacare killing bills (unsuccessfully), hold a 21 hour quasi-filibuster (unsuccessfully) and now hold the whole government hostage? I understand how conservatives wouldn’t love Obamacare but is it really worth all this? What is so fucking bad about this health care bill? Let’s take a quick look at some of the popular arguments against Obamacare
SMALL BUSINESS WILL HAVE TO CHANGE THEIR EMPLOYEES TO PART TIME BECAUSE THEY CAN’T AFFORD TO INSURE THEIR FULL TIME EMPLOYEES OMG
Okay. This is one of those parts that most everybody will agree is a bad part of the Affordable Health Care Act (I can only type “Obamacare” so many times in a row before it feels stupid). Small businesses will have to provide health insurance for their full time employees. Some of them can’t afford that and one way to work around it is to cut them down to part time. But according to obamacarefacts.com only 0.2% of businesses have more than 50 full time workers and don’t already offer insurance. Also, the employer mandate was delayed until 2015 so that can’t be the reason…
HOLY SHIT NAZI SOCIALIST HEALTHCARE HITLER!
Obama is a president. Hitler was a president. YOU DO THE MATH.
This one’s really not a widely held belief but it’s big enough to where there’s plenty of crackpot websites out there comparing Obamacare to Nazi Germany’s health care plan and comparisons to Obama and Nazis sprout up everywhere from pictures like the one above to Ted Cruz’s speech comparing his fight to fighting Nazis. But this is just the wacko conspiracy freak belief, this can’t be what’s driving the fight…
OBAMACARE MIGHT ACTUALLY WORK
Here’s the thing. If Obamacare is such a rotten idea, the Republicans would actually stand to benefit if it passed and was a huge disaster. Next year’s elections would be a landslide victory over the Dumbocrats who plunged us into a socialist death panel hell, right? Threatening a government shutdown proves that the Republicans in congress have no problem burning down their own homes for the insurance money so why would they fight so hard against something that could be a huge help for them next election?
Because Obamacare might work.
Imagine that Obamacare passes (and it will) and little or none of the horrible things we were warned about happens? What if overall healthcare spending went down because fewer uninsured people go to the emergency rooms leaving the rest of us with the bill? What if hospital visits overall went down because more people have access to preventative care? I really don’t know how Obamacare is going to play out but if people love it, that’s going to be a huge blow to the Republicans who tried so hard to kill it and they’ll feel that next election.
Whatever the reason, a government shutdown is probably going to happen for the first time since 1995. Don’t worry, though. Congress and the President will still get paid during a shutdown. They deserve no less with all the hard work they do.