Discover more from Hennessy's View
I was talking about defunding Obamacare before it was cool
Okay, I’m fired up. I’m fired up about Obamacare.
I don’t know what got me onto this, exactly. I talked to Jim Durbin tonight, so maybe that was it.
I’ve been looking for video of a speech I gave at the Million Med March in Clayton, MO, in 2009. Two-friggin-thousand-and-nine. (I’m a quarter German, so I hold a grudge.)
I found it. Here’s the clip I’ve wanted to show Congress since last August. Again, this is November 21, 2009–four months before the House finally passed Obamacare.
Man, I wish I’d found this last August. I knew in 2009–before the damn thing became law–that we’d eventually be fighting over funding.
And I know now that promoting defund was the right thing to do. Here’s why.
Obamacare is a nightmare. Very few previously uninsured people have obtained insurance under Obamacare. Most of the enrollees who’ve actually paid a premium were already insured. They lost their insurance because of Obamacare.
The uninsured ante Obamacare are uninsured post Obamacare. The big change is that those who lost their pre-Obamacare insurance face much higher premiums and deductibles now than before.
Plus, the CBO says Obamacare will reduce the workforce by 2.5 million. And it will cost trillions more than Obama told you when he was lying about “you can keep your plan.”
At some point, young people are going to ask Congress, “Did you do everything in your power to stop this travesty?”
Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, and a few others can say, “Yes! I used every weapon at my disposal to spare you the horror story you’ve experienced.”
But 90% of Republicans can’t say that. Senator Roy Blunt has to admit, “I folded up like a cheap suit.”
Leadership often requires standing for something uncool and sticking with it until it becomes cool. Like birth-control glasses and stubble. Now that people see the horrors of Obamacare, Republicans who wanted to be cool in the moment look like parents who teach their kids the dangers of heroin by giving them clean needles and an ounce of Mexican Brown.