Friday, July 19, 2013

Et Tu, Unions?

As public confidence in Obamacare suffers one blow after another even Democrats are heading for the tall grass. Senator Max Baucus called it a train wreck a few weeks ago. Then a vote Tuesday in the House of Representatives on legislation that would make licit Mr. Obama's legally dubious postponement of implementation of the employer mandate secured 35 Democratic votes despite Mr. Obama's vigorous opposition to the bill.

Mr. Obama's disapproval put the House Democrats in the peculiar position of incurring the President's displeasure by agreeing with him that the mandate should be delayed.

Anyway, a second vote to postpone as well the individual mandate garnered 22 Democratic votes.

One must wonder why so many Democrats are bailing out? I'm reminded of an old cartoon that showed the interior of an airplane. The cockpit door is open, and the passengers are startled to see the pilot and co-pilot - hands in their pockets, casually whistling, looking at the ceiling and trying to appear unconcerned - nonchalantly walking down the aisle toward the rear exit door of the plane with parachutes strapped to their backs.

It looks like the people who brought us Obamacare are strapping on the parachutes. The most recent group to express their disillusionment are some of the Affordable Care Act's biggest boosters, the nation's unions. Union leaders are beginning to realize that Obamacare is going to be a disaster for a lot of union workers who'll lose either their jobs, their hours, or the excellent insurance coverage they'd won via collective bargaining.

Charles Krauthammer discusses their epiphany:
Captain Obama tried to allay concerns with a speech yesterday in which he assured us that Obamacare is doing just fine. Unfortunately, as is his wont, he spun so many yarns and tall tales that an AP fact check almost ran out of column space trying to correct all of the misrepresentations and deceptions.

Some are predicting the ACA will, like an overloaded plane, never get airborne and will crash to the ground under its own weight, complexity, and unworkability. The question is how high will the plane rise before it falls out of the sky and how many passengers will go down in flames with the plane.