Top 5 Ways To Fail At Eliminating Obamacare

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Even though millions of people want to keep President Barack Obama’s Health Care “Reform” law, millions more want it gone.

With the June Supreme Court ruling allowing the mandate to continue — and most everything else too — people are trying to focus on just that and asking themselves, “What should I do to spend my time and resources most effectively?”

More than 50 percent of the country wants to see it repealed. Political candidates are basing their electoral success on their position on the law. Groups are holding educational rallies about what to do next.

Here at the Tenth Amendment Center, we’ve offered our own advice on what to do next. But we haven’t really addressed some of the other actions people are being encouraged to take. I figured this was a good time to put together a Top-5 list. But this is not a list of the best things you can do. Instead, these are the things I think you should avoid supporting most.

Why? First of all, because they will fail or cause more problems down the road. And also, since virtually everyone — especially in difficult economic times — has limited time, energy, money and other resources, it’s even more important to spend those resources wisely and effectively.

With that, here’s my Top 5: How to Fail at Getting Rid of Obamacare.

5. Wait for it to collapse under its own weight.

Some people are under the belief that the amount that Obamacare will cost will result in a failure of the program, or some even believe it could collapse the entire economic system. So instead of taking an active role in pushing to end it, they’re spending their own time doing personal preparation. Some sit, wait and do nothing. Others buy storable food, ammo and other things that would be needed under such economic chaos.

I believe the maxim that “things that can’t go on forever, don’t.” But there are loads of things which can’t go on forever — that seemingly do. For decades people have said that American foreign policy can’t continue on this path. It does. We’ve heard that the Fed can’t keep printing and printing… and printing. But it still does. Or that the next violation of individual liberty is going to wake enough people up to bring things to an end. But yet, Constitutional violations continue unabated.

Yes, Obamacare is certainly an economic monstrosity. But waiting for it to fail under its own weight won’t help, even when taking responsible steps for your own emergency preparation. And guess what. Tomorrow never comes.

4. Eliminate it by executive order.

While pure Presidential power isn’t an extremely common talking point for ridding us of Obamacare, I consider it pretty important to discuss. The use of executive orders has ballooned in recent years for virtually everything.

Both Obama and his predecessor Bush have made a mockery of Constitutional restraint with their use of executive orders. And of course, both sides of the political aisle make excuses for their President when he’s been in office. All of this is part of our never-ending path towards an executive dictatorship.

Last fall, Rick Perry made a statement that if he were elected President, on day one he would issue an executive order to eliminate “as much of Obamacare as he could.”

Look, there are many ways that executive action could, theoretically, put enough roadblocks in the way to bring the Affordable Care Act to an end. But, to any Constitution-loving person, the idea of a President “eliminating” law by executive order should be considered extremely dangerous.

Here’s the big problem. If we accept the idea of one person deciding whether or not a law will stay or go, what’s to stop the next President from reversing those decisions. This would be a temporary band-aid at best.

We need far fewer executive orders. Not more.

3. Go back to the Supreme Court.

Some people — primarily legal scholars and so-called experts — believe that a proper next step is to go back to court. Yeah, right. They’ll get to write more articles about it, get more attention on the legal discussion and advance the importance of their profession.

But that’s about it. The fact remains. In more than 200 years, the Constitution-violating men and women in black dresses have overruled fewer than 200 Congressional acts. I don’t know probability stats, but I’m thinking I have a better chance of getting hit by lightning twice in one day than of seeing the Supremes strike down this Federal act.

2. Vote the bums out.

Blowhards like Bill O’Reilly tell us that if “Obama goes down, so does the liberal movement in America.”

This one could easily have made No. 1 because it’s so idiotic and ignorant. Not only would the current alternative give you much of Obamacare under a different name, but there’s virtually no reason to trust Republicans in general when it comes to eliminating the so-called “liberal movement” in this country. They have been part of it for a long time.

Republicans gave us the biggest expansion of government-run healthcare in three decades when they passed Medicare Part D under President George W. Bush. They played a significant role in the new record number of people on food stamps. And twice this year, they voted to keep the program that gave us Solyndra.

But it’s not just Republicans who play this game. Democrats are equally guilty. The election of the “peace President” brought us new wars, an expansion of the USA Patriot Act, “indefinite detention” and much more.

The bottom line? Hoping that new bums will kindly reject all the power given to them is not just a bad idea. It almost never happens.

John Adams agreed on this when he said, simply: “Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.”

1. Repeal and replace.

I think the phrase says it all. It should say — repeal and repeal. Even though I know that Federal politicians never follow the rules given to them unless it’s politically advantageous, I happen to like the Constitutional limitations they have.

Even if Obamacare were repealed and replaced with nothing, there would still be a lot more that needs to be repealed to get even close to the Constitution.

The Federal government should not be managing the healthcare industry. Period. It doesn’t matter if that management is done by someone named Obama, Romney, Bush or Clinton.

I don’t want a new name for Obamacare. I don’t even want a lesser-Obamacare. I want the Feds to butt the hell out and follow the Constitution.

Moving Forward

You may not want to take the Tenth Amendment Center’s recommended approach to eliminate the Affordable Care Act, but that’s OK. If you stay away from these five options, you’ll have a far better chance of avoiding a complete and utter failure.

If you really want to see Obamacare gone for good — and not just a few pieces of it — smash the etch-a-sketch approach. Stop wasting your time, energy and financial resources on steps that will either continue the act under a new name, be sure to fail, or continue the expansion of Federal power.

Michael Boldin, Tenth Amendment Center


Personal Liberty

Michael Boldin

is the founder and executive director of the Tenth Amendment Center. Michael has a full schedule working as senior editor of the Center's website, writes a regular column, fields media interviews, and travels the country (when invited, of course) to speak to crowds about sticking to the Constitution — every issue, every time, no exceptions, no excuses.
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