“Messy” and “Exemptions” – Two Words Describing Obamacare Implementation

Nothing is perfect. Life is messy. Relationships are complex. Outcomes are uncertain. People are irrational.

Hugh Mackay, Australian social researcher

There is no exception to the rule that every rule has an exception.

James Thurber (1894-1961), American humorist

Two words that describe the Obamacare rollout scheduled to take full effect on January 1, 2014, are “messy” and “exemptions.”

This should not surprise us.

Democracy, particularly a capitalistic meritocracy, is an inherently messy process.  But it may be preferable to the alternative, a state controlled centralized government.   It’s a choice between “messy’ capitalism, with its irrational economic swings, and “rational” socialism, with its economic stagnation and predictable equal sharing of misery.

With Obamacare, there’s an escape clause between the choices. 

It’s called “exemptions,” which are now on full display.

·         Robert Pear reported in yesterday’s New York Times,   “Democratic senators, at a caucus meeting with White House officials, expressed concerns on Thursday about how the Obama administration was carrying out the health care law they adopted three years ago. Democrats in both houses of Congress said some members of their party were getting nervous that they could pay a political price if the rollout of the law was messy or if premiums went up significantly?.
 

·         There was also talk on the Hill that Nancy Pelosi has asked Congress to consider an exception exempting federal legislators and their staffs from participating in the health exchanges, so legislators and staff would not have to pay “out-of-pocket” to join the exchanges like the rest of Americans.   

To which the Republicans naturally responded,” Why not exempt all Americans by repealing Obamacare?”

Exemptions  are becoming the rule to avoid Obamacare.

·         HHS has offered exemptions to some 1300 organizations, mostly unions, who complain Obamacare is too economically burdensome.
 

·         Small businesses, our economy’s backbone, are exempting themselves from Obamacare by self-funding and downgrading full-time employees to part-time 30 hour hours to avoid the dreaded 50 workers or more rule that they must pay for Obamacare –approved health plans.
 

·         Physicians are exempting themselves from Obamacare by establishing concierge and cash-only practices and by becoming hospital employees for economic security and to exempt themselves from malpractice payments. 
 

·         Five Red-State Democratic senators, who voted for Obamacare, have decided to retire and exempt themselves from angry voters rather than defend the law in what surely would be a nasty, perhals, losing re-election effort.
 

·         Millions of the uninsured may effectively have  exempted themselves from joining exchanges because they do not understand the law, which has not been explained to them in language they understand that would cause them to sign up for the exchanges.

·         Young working adults have exempted themselves from paying for health insurance as dictated by the Individual Mandate by not buying health coverage, instead accepting the penalty for not paying.
 

The question is:  When  exemptions  become the rule and not the exception, will Obamacare be workable, or a forgotten  figment of the progressives’ fertile imaginations?

Tweet: The number of exemptions from the various provisions of Obamacare is growing, among businesses, unions, young people, and physicians.