Obamacare and the fight ahead

In the early 16th century, Hernan Cortes and his army of conquistadors were prepping themselves to invade, and ultimately conquer the Aztec empire.  As the soldiers prepared for battle, their ships sat anchored off the coast of what is now Veracruz, in plain sight of his anxious troops.

If all else failed, they thought, they could make a quick getaway to the ships and sail to safety.  Cortes realized that some in his crew where getting uneasy, and ordered that the ships be scuttled.  Knowing that they would be faced with only two options—fight to survive, or die.

On Thursday, Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the majority opinion to uphold Obamacare, writing that the individual mandate is equivalent to a tax, and therefore, constitutional.

For months prior to the ruling, as Mitt Romney made his way through the GOP primaries, the debate over both Obamacare and Romneycare loomed as a political sticking point for his campaign (and for the Obama campaign as well).

As the case against the law made its way through the federal courts, speculation built that it would head to the supremes and the belief that the court would strike down the individual mandate, and thus, the entire mess of it, grew stronger.

Personally, I felt that if the court struck down the law, it wouldn’t be the dominant issue that Romney had to deal with during the campaign.  I’m sure this suited most conservative s and Republicans just fine.

I didn’t see how Romney could honestly make a case against Obamacare after his Romneycare experiment in Massachusetts.   Making this argument eventually would end up doing more harm than good for Romney.

But John Roberts scuttled our ship.   With the stroke of a pen, the lines in our political battle were redrawn.

The campaign is now about (or should be about) those who want to repeal Obamacare in its entirety, and those who want to embrace and keep this monstrosity of a law, along with its onerous regulations, bureaucracy and a price tag of over $1 trillion.

This makes things interesting for Democrats this election season.  Democrats now have to make the case for defending Obamacare and embrace this law during their town halls and campaign stops this summer and fall.  All this with high unemployment, an anemic economy and a toxic President.  Good luck with that, Democrats.

If this is going to be an honest debate, I encourage the Democrats defend all aspects of the law.  But of course, they’d rather talk about the long list of Obamacare ‘benefits’, and not about the reality of its costs.  And certainly not the fact that Obamacare is about more government control and numerous new taxes, taxes that eventually will be paid for by the majority of taxpaying Americans, which is to say, the middle class.  In fact, despite the court’s ruling, the White House is already trying to twist the truth.

As for Republicans and conservatives, I agree with Paul Ryan.  This is our last chance.  Democrats have their hands full, but as a party the GOP have to have the right conditions–the White House, a majority in the Senate, and build on gains in the House.  On top of that, the Republicans need leadership with intestinal fortitude to make the right decisions when all of that is obtained.  Remember, repealing Obamacare was a priority of the 2010 campaign also.

Repealing Obamacare means catching lightning in a bottle and it needs to happen within the next year.  If all the conditions are met, there should be no reason why it can’t happen over the next twelve months.  I for one, don’t trust politicians enough to play a waiting game.  The repeal process is like cement, the longer we wait, the harder it is to remove.  Just like the conquistadors, there is no turning back.  The America we know is at stake.