9/05/2013

Obamacare Is Going to Murder Republicans

Obamacare Is Going to Murder Republicans:
At some point after October 1, Obamacare is going to saunter into a Republican congressional caucus meeting and stone cold murder the fuck out of everyone there. Obamacare is gonna strangle John Boehner until he turns a deep persimmon color. It's gonna shove Eric Cantor's glasses down his throat. And, fuck it, why not, it's gonna break Louis Gohmert's head open to reveal the hollow space inside. Then, bloodsoaked and sweaty, it'll head over to the Senate to do it all over again.

As far as the GOP is concerned, the full implementation of the Affordable Care Act is their appointment with the executioner. That's why they have desperately attempted to defund, discredit, and disappear the thing. Forty votes to overturn it in the House. Threats in the Senate and House to hold the debt ceiling or the budget hostage if it's not defunded. A campaign of disinformation that has succeeded in making 44% of Americans unsure if it's still a law.

And let's be honest here: The Obama administration and the AFA's supporters in Congress have totally fucked up in making people understand exactly what the hell the thing does, beyond easy shit like "No caps" or "Kids can stay on your insurance until 26." Transforming health care for tens of millions of Americans is a huge undertaking, made more complicated by the demands of asshole Republicans and assholier conservative Democrats, so of course it's gonna be hard to explain until it's in effect, no matter how many Katy Perry tweets or Bill Clinton speeches try to help. On October 1, the health insurance exchange opens and people can start shopping and discover for themselves that Obamacare won't rape their dogs, kill their parents, and eat their childrens' hearts while Kenyan drums beat savagely in the background.

Unless, of course, you're a Republican member of Congress. Then Obamacare is coming for you.

See, despite the inevitable bumps along the way that will be exploited to the extreme by the panicked right, there's going to be time after time of some fundamentalist yahoo in Alabama or some gun-fellating nut in Michigan or some racist jackal in Arizona grudgingly getting insurance and realizing that, holy shit, they can get that weird mole looked at or get a check-up that turns up the clogged artery that leads to the operation that saves a life. And then, a few years down the road, everyone will just expect Obamacare to be there, like Medicare.

If you belong to a party that has based its very existence on keeping government out of people's lives (except when it comes to abortion rights, GLBT rights, building permits for mosques, and so very much more), if you've spent the better part of the last few years attempting to say how terrible it will be, then the rate of success of Obamacare is inversely proportional to your worth as a politician. Because if the fundy yahoos, gun fellaters, and racist jackals decide they like having their infections treated by doctors without paying thousands of dollars for it, then your ideology is dead, murdered by Obamacare.

The philosophical contortions that Republicans do can sometimes make circus performers say, "How the fuck did you get your leg back there?" But considering that the GOP spent the 2010 midterm elections attacking Democrats with the lie that Medicare would be cut, it's apparent that if a government-run program is popular, Republicans will stumble over themselves to support it (except when it's an off-year, when they'll try to cut it).

Obamacare's success is a cocked gun, a noose around the neck, a knife near the heart of Republicanism. Unless they somehow pull a Houdini-like escape, Republicans will be drowned by Obamacare like so many rats in a weighted sack chucked into the river of their own bullshit.