Stop Calling It Obamacare

That’s the name we have all given to the admittedly flawed health care law, more officially known as the Affordable Care Act (not much better!). We don’t call Social Security “Roosecurity” or the Emancipation Proclamation “LincolnProc.” Why this insistence on giving important laws or orders people’s names, anyway? Like, “Megan’s Law.” It doesn’t add or detract from their legal effectiveness, or ineffectiveness, as the case may be.

In their failed attempt to get new legislation on the books, the Republicans in the House were undoubtedly motivated, at least in part, by a desire to erase a law that bore Obama’s name, to blot it out of history. But at what point does this issue stop being his or theirs, and become ours?

It’s true that President Obama put the first points on the board, to use a March Madness term, for the team seeking an inclusive national health care system. It’s not pretty, but it’s there, and the game is far from over. Let’s remember that he and other supporters tried to build this complicated and arcane law using the current private structure as much as possible. It will be hard to fix, but at least we have to try. There’s a lot of mourning or gloating about broken campaign promises today. So what else is new?

I am no policy wonk, but first we have to decide whether health care is a right or a privilege. I think in the end, it’s a mixture of both.

Another thing we have to work out is whether people should be required to buy health insurance. Well, in most cases, the law requires you to carry insurance before you get into a car and drive it on the highway. Sure, you have a choice, you can decide not to drive. But if you’re alive in this country, you have a body – a vehicle on the highway, so to speak – and it may be OK now, but you could wake up one day with a life-threatening illness. Then you get to go to the emergency room. In principle, you should do the rest of us a favor and just die – but that’s not how things work.

I am a senior now with no children. Why do I have to pay property tax to support public schools? Well, the theory is that an educated citizenry is something we all have an investment in. Whether our schools accomplish that goal is a separate issue, something we have to try to fix.

Some say we should leave heath care to the free market as much as possible. Then, we would be left to the tender mercies of the insurance industry. How do we think that’s going to work for us? Should we leave health care to the states to regulate? Should employers be required to offer health insurance at all? We have to find the answers. I think we can.

Our current president, as a CNN commentator pointed out, seemed to be acting like a fire chief watching a building burn down, preferring to let it burn because he didn’t start the fire, and the charred remains will make his arguments for him. But he likes to put his name on things. Perhaps that will move him to put it on something that really works, or at least works better, regardless of whose name was on it before.