The Republican scramble to save Obamacare.

No thats not a typo in the headline. The truth of the matter is that, right now, behind the scenes, the biggest problem facing the Republican party is how to save Obamacare from the Republican party.

Alright, so you might have heard Obamacare is going to be up in front of the Supreme Court again. (arguments started yesterday in fact).

This time the case, King vs Burwell has to do with the specific wording of the law, so I need a minute to explain.

So, basically if you enroll in Obamacare you can qualify for tax subsidies to help make the cost more affordable. Seems simple enough.

Except there are two different kinds of Obamacare exchanges, the ones run by the states, and the ones run by the federal government. But the law, as written only refers to State-based exchanges.

So the republican argument is that the states that chose to have their exchanges managed by the fed's arnt technically state based, and therefore the people in those states arnt eligible for the subsidies.

Now the idea behind the Republican position was to make Obamacare look worse than it is by basically running up the prices/making healthcare unafforable by running up the prices, even in the states that are state run (because as the number of people enrolled in Obamacare goes down, prices would go up across the board), creating a death spiral that would kill Obamacare.

Now of course under this idea the states that have state based exchanges would take a while (years) to feel the affect, but the people in the federally run states would basically lose their insurance as soon as the Court ruled.

Which is actually the easily predictable and fully preventable problem the GOP is trying to save itself from.

You see the list of states that have created state run exchanges are as follows:
Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, Kentucky, Minnesota, Colorado, New Mexico, Idaho, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii. (on top of that New Hampshire, Iowa, West Virginia, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa and Arkansas all run state/federal partnerships and could easily transition to solely state run to keep subsidies.)

Now if you pay even the slightest attention to politics you might notice that most of those states have one thing in common, they are solidly Democratic. And those are the states least likely/would take the longest time for the Courts decision to reach.

Which leaves the other states, the Republican controlled states, as the ones who residents are going to get massively fucked over with skyrocketing and disappearing healthcare overnight, if republicans win.

Oh, and it should be pointed out, that the taxes being taken to support the subsidies would still be taken nationwide.....just only distributed to the blue states (+Kentucky Arkansas and Idaho)

So in short, the GOP has devised a system in which, the GOP will fuck over all of its own supporters by stripping them of their healthcare overnight, while still requiring them to pay for the healthcare of Democrats, who will be largely unaffected by any ruling, and will have years to make any needed changes.

I wonder, what do you think the chances are GOP voters might get a little pissed off about that????

You got to hand it to the GOP, thats basically the Mona Lisa of shooting themselves in the foot.

And like I said, its not like it was hard to see this coming, all the GOP had to do was google "Which states have state based healthcare exchanges"  to realize this was a very bad idea.

Which brings us to now,, over a year after they started down this road, the GOP is kinda waking up to the fact this is one of those "extra stupid with a side of moron"  ideas, and they are pretty desperately trying to stave off the negative affects they would bring to themselves if they win.

Case in point, earlier this week Republican Senators Orrin Hatch, Lamar Alexander and John Barrasso (all from states that will get fucked if the GOP wins), wrote an Op-ed entitled
"We have a plan for fixing health care", just to assuage the fears of any republican voter who is worried the people he voted for are going to fuck him over.

Thing is, the plan, is pretty fucking hilarious in its own right. Now if you want to read the whole Op-ed, just click on the link in the last paragraph, but here are the 3 paragraphs dealing with the republican plan to fix healthcare:

"First and most important: We would provide financial assistance to help Americans keep the coverage they picked for a transitional period. It would be unfair to allow families to lose their coverage, particularly in the middle of the year.[...]"

Second, we will give states the freedom and flexibility to create better, more competitive health insurance markets offering more options and different choices. Republicans understand that what works in Utah is different from what works in Tennessee or Wyoming. We want to give states the time and flexibility to design health-care systems that work for them, not for the bureaucrats in Washington.

People who live in states that have state exchanges will continue to be subject to Obamacare’s costly mandates and rules, along with the subsidies. But their states could also have the benefit of our solution. Every state would have the ability to create better markets suited to the needs of their citizens.

We have had many discussions with our Senate and House Republican colleagues on this issue, and there is a great deal of consensus on how to proceed. Many of our colleagues have good ideas, and we look forward to working together."

Translation:
First, we are going to pass legislation basically undoing the Court's ruling should we win. Now of course such a law would be temporary lasting only as long as we need to create an alternative (indefinite :P ).

(Which would be more reassuring of the GOP wasn't continually failing to pass their own bills, like the abortion bill that died in the House, or the DHS bill the Senate wouldnt pass ect.)

Second, on the subject of creating an alternative this is it:

Cause yea, in the last 6 years, we aint come up with shit and we hope by screaming freedom loud enough and long enough you kinda wont notice that, or the fact we are hoping to vote to save Obamacare if the Supreme Court wrongly decides we are right.

So there you have it folks, the new republican plan to save Obamacare by overruling the supreme court by really loudly yelling freedom. But hey, at least the blue face paint is going to be optional......