SHIFT Guest Opinion – Common Sense from Seattle
The good folks over at the (very) left-leaning Washington State Budget and Policy Center (BPC) speak glowingly in support of a bill, HB 2588, which they say would, “prevent big companies from shifting costs to the state when they skirt their responsibility to provide health coverage their workers.” And they note that, “under the expansion of Medicaid, many more Washingtonians are gaining access to coverage, allowing employers to shift even more of the cost.
What is weird – or at least inconsistent – about this position is the BPC is a strong supporter of the Democrats’ Obamacare law, which creates strong incentives for employers to drop coverage and move workers on to Medicaid and Obamacare’s online exchanges. Follow their “logic” – liberals first support a law that massively expands Medicaid, AND includes a mandate that requires people to have coverage, AND creates a government website that automatically enrolls people in Medicaid, then they criticize employers for encouraging workers to join Medicaid!
Liberals are attacking employers and workers for complying with a law they support. They accuse people of “evading their responsibility” and “dodging federal penalties,” when people are simply trying to follow a complicated federal law the Democrats forced on the country on a straight party-line vote. You can’t “dodge” a law when you are complying with it.
These contradictions simply reflect the untruths (some call them lies) that were used to convince wavering Democrats in to pass Obamacare in the first place. Consider the deceptions:
- First, the President promised that “if you like your health care plan, you can keep it” (named “Lie of the Year for 2013” by PolitiFact.com).
- Then Democrats passed a law that cancelled the health plans of 3.5 million people, including 290,000 Washingtonians.
- Democrats (and every Democrat in the Washington congressional delegation, including Jay Inslee, voted for Obamacare in 2010) said while passing the bill that you could keep your doctor, and now many people find the coverage they have to buy doesn’t include their doctor or their area’s best hospitals.
As it becomes clear the health care law is hurting thousands of people in Washington and across the country, it is not surprising Democrats are looking for fixes to patch up an increasingly unpopular law. Doesn’t all this unseemly scrambling by liberals indicate there is something deeply flawed about this badly-drafted law?
Unfortunately, things will get worse. Thousands more Washington families are due to receive cancellation notices starting this September, as the employer mandate kicks in. Such mean-spirited hypocrisy is built into Obamacare, and no amount of complaining by liberals about “evaded responsibility” and “dodging” the health care law is going to change that.
Wonder how the “experts” at the BPC will spin those inconvenient truths?
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