Memo to Republicans: Obamacare is here to stay … get over it and let’s have some productive ideas to actually fix health care in America

Listens up tea drinkers or party or whatever you are, pay attention Limbaugh and company, Obamacare is the law, it is never, ever being repealed or significantly cut back, so get over it and move on.

Yes, it will eventually cause the same fiscal problems as Medicare, it does not lower health care costs, it has accelerated the decline of employer-based coverage, many people can’t keep the coverage they like , blah, blah, blah. So what, instead of fighting all this after the fact, especially with nonsensical so-called market based solutions, look at the law and let’s fix what’s really broken and harmful long-term. Let’s also look at the bigger picture of health care in America beyond insurance reform which is essentially what Obamacare really is.

Ladies and gentlemen of the far right, you are making fools of yourselves and destroying the Republican party and any hope of the majority of the American public ever accepting sound conservative policies on anything. Your tactics mislead and misinform, your efforts are childish and make you look incompetent. Listen to yourselves for Pete’s sake; try looking at statistics, you know, real numbers not tainted by left or right rhetoric. Deal in facts not death panels or scary Uncle Sam.

Look, the fact that Democrats steam rolled Obamacare because they could resulting in an ideological based highly flawed product, does not mean millions of Americans don’t like it now … and guess what, a lot more will like it in 2014, more in 2015, 2016, etc., etc, etc. Why? Because from their point of view they are getting more for less; something for nothing, something “free.” Think how many times you have heard the words “free, “affordable,” and “high quality.” Mr Tea Party member, people like those words; what’s your story to counteract that?

In the end the Law will have to be modified because it will implode. What will happen in 2016 when the stop loss claim reinsurance supporting exchange premiums goes away? What will happen when the tax on higher cost plans kicks in come 2018? Where will budgets go when the amount the government spends on tax subsidies is higher than projected and all the trial programs reining in Medicare spending end like most trial programs end?

How will people define “affordable” when they realize those lower than expected premiums are the result of high out-of-pocket costs and limited choice of doctors and in many cases, no ability to use “the best” hospitals in the area?

What will happen when we figure out that all this shifting around of costs from an ever increasing pool of spending simply means hundreds of millions of Americans who had employer-based insurance will actually be spending (along with their employers and unions) more themselves (taxes, premiums, out-of-pocket costs), leaving less and less for retirement and college savings?

The reality is all the issues in the previous two paragraphs will morph into normalcy just like the new higher payroll deduction for health benefits that so upsets employees when they hear about it, but is not even noticed after a few pay periods. That is, until the next crisis hits.

Obamacare is not going away and it is not the final solution. In fact, it creates more long-term problems. So Republicans and everyone else obsessed with Obamacare, rather than fritter around in an attempt to stop what can’t be stopped, get busy on fixing what needs to be fixed for today and more importantly for tomorrow and do so in a rationale way based on facts, not fantasy and rhetoric.