It is hoped that Big Chuck will not be ejected from Daily Kos for suggesting that we should consider letting states opt out of Obamcare.
At this moment, 27 states have indicated they will not cooperate by creating insurance exchanges. A few have toyed with creating some, but with the provision that would make it hard for the working poor participate.
Companies are already ending insurance programs, and it is likely that a total of 7,000,000 workers will be thrown off of company insurance.
Republicans refuse to consider tinkering with Obamacare to make it better or address their concerns.
They want its total failure and think this will give them a larger majority in the House after the 2014 election..
All this is about ideology and rage that there is an African American in the Oval Office. Oddly, Governor Jan Brewer finally did the arithmetic and sees that Obamacare would be good for Arizona. The problem is that most Republican leaders are so filled with rage and suspicion that they cannot add to make pragmatic judgments.
We have reached the point where it is impossible to reason together. John Henry Newman wrote that when deep ideological positions are involved, 1000 difficulties established by reason and investigation would not create a problem for an ideologue.
The United States is where it was in the 1850s, but the difference is that there cannot and will not be a Civil War. Instead, we will have long-term gridlock unless the Democrats simply surrender on numerous fronts.
It is impossible for the media to cover debates in a reasonable way or do any fact checking because that would inflame at last 40% of the electorate.
Republican rage seems to surge even when there is no reason for it. They misrepresented the facts of the Beghazi incident and there are now videos circulating suggesting Obama was sympathetic with the Islamic fanatics. The facts on the IRS scandal show that a very conservative Republican section head asked the advice of a DC based IRS lawyer. But still, Representative Issa and many others hint that the White house was behind all of this. Isa dribbles out bits of information to the press and refuses to let Democrats on his committee see anything.
We are approaching gridlock. The Democrats should offer to let states opt out of ObamaCare. The amount of revenue that comes from each stat should be calculated. They the amount of the federal budget should be calculated as a percentage of the total. Multiply that percentage against a state's contribution and refund the money.
Getting the formula right is important because it guarantees that no state is reqarded for irresponsibility.
There would have to be one proviso. No citizen of a state that opts out can be covered in a state with coverage until he or she has paid premiums under that state' health exchange program.
By allowing the red states to opt out, implementation problems might be reduced. The IRS is suppose to enforce Obamacare, but one wonders if it really administer penalties and premiums in states that have not implemented Obamacare. Republicans understand this, and this is why they keep trying to pump life into the so-called IRS scandal.
If the Congressmen from state opting out were honorable, they would not stand in the way of legislation meant to improve Obamacare and eliminate kinks. But that would be too much to expect.
The fact is that there is a massive gap between political culture in red and blue states, and some solution is needed to reduce tension and make governance again possible.
Some may think that once an African-American is no longer president that governance
will again be possible. The level of fanaticism, hatred, and paranoia will not diminish, but its rate of expansion may slow a bit.
Far less unites us than did three decades ago, and that will not change. AS economic inequality and suffering increases, it will be even more necessary to appeal to suspicion, cultural differences, and opposition to pluralism. Republicans may not go off on Tom Tancredo rants anymore, but their base expects signs of hostility to blacks and Hispanics, and maybe even young people--given what is going on with student loans.