The Fight Against ObamaCare

This NYT article about the money funding the fight against ObamaCare indicates to me that the fight is more than just against ObamaCare.  I think it is a coalition of white conservative groups who oppose Obama and the America he represents.  Part of it is whites against blacks.  Fox rounds up some black Tea Party hacks, but there are not many of them.  But the rebellion is not just whites against blacks, it is conservative, southern, rural men whose families have lived in America for many generations, and who used to lead America or have a large voice in running America, against the new darker hued, liberal, more recent immigrants to America who have become increasingly powerful, especially in the highly urbanized states on both coasts.  The less urbanized South, non-coastal West and Midwest are losing out.

It's ironic that the group representing the smaller population is making its stand in the House of Representatives, in which is representation is based on population.  It looks like they have just enough safe seats to be able to block legislation they oppose, although they don't have enough seats to pass legislation, which has brought the Congress to a deadlock. Part of the problem is gerrymandering, which has created too many safe seats, making Republican party primaries more important than the actual election.  However, many of these Congressmen and women come from states that are so Republican that redistricting would not make much difference, although more equitable redistricting would remove some of the obstreperous Republicans.

These are my guys.  I grew up in the South.  The first politician I ever supported enthusiastically was Barry Goldwater.  But the other side of the issue is, "What about the country."  These guys seem willing to destroy the country if they don't get their way.  I suppose Ted Cruz can go home to Canada or Cuba if he doesn't get his way, but a lot of the other leaders of the rebellion come from families who have lived in America for generations.  Do they think America is finished?  Are these the same guys who decided in Vietnam that they had to destroy the village to save it?  It didn't work in Vietnam, and I don't think it will work in America.

I think something needs to be done about government spending, and about ObamaCare.  The Republicans insisted on making ObamaCare into something like the plan proposed by the Heritage Foundation and enacted by Romney in Massachusetts.  It uses the existing insurance framework to expand the percentage of the population covered by healthcare.  By using that insurance framework, however, it gave up many opportunities to save money.  One of the main problems with American healthcare now is that it is not a marketplace.  The insurance industry massively overpays the medical industry because the insurance companies rake their profits off the top, and the bigger the pot is, the bigger their share is.  They have little incentive to hold down costs, and both the insurance executives and the medical executives paid Congress well to maintain the existing structure while expanding it to more people.  Most Democrats wanted a single payer system (the government) that would be something like Medicare for all.  In that case, the government could in theory reign in medical costs, and the HHS bureaucracy is probably more honest that either Congress or the health insurance industry.