GOD MUST REALLY CARE ABOUT OBAMACARE

By Akin Ojumu

Yet again, the Republican Party failed. This morning, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruled 7 to 2 in favor of upholding Obamacare.

There is no way to explain it. God must really care about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, that was passed in its finality on March 21, 2010, and signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010. For more than 11 years, the God Own Party's (GOP) attacks after attacks have failed again and again to achieve the evil purpose of overturning the law.

In the years leading up the passage of the Act and before it actually became the law of the land, the Republican Party – with all its weight, prestige, and resources – embarked on an all-out war against the legislation that would provide health insurance coverage and health care access to more than 25 million Americans. The scheme hatched by the members of the GOP was to abort the health insurance legislation prematurely before it saw the light of day. The GOP held multiple protests, bombarded the airwaves with lies that Obamacare was voodoo medicine, and falsely labelled Obamacare a socialist takeover of healthcare. They scared elderly Americans into believing Obamacare would lead to the creation of death panels of government bureaucrats who would decide when care should be given to or withheld from sick elderly Americans, and they created panic waves among Christian communities by misleading them that anyone who signed up for Obamacare would be required to receive the mark of the beast.

Despite the scary tactics, the health care legislation passed, and Obamacare became law. But that didn’t stop the attacks of the GOP. After the Act had become law, many aspects of Obamacare prompted dozens of litigation by Republican controlled states. And they won quite a few of the court cases.

For example, they succeeded in repealing the law's individual and employer mandate provisions. The mandate is the critical aspect of the law – the pillar that holds everything together – that would have made health insurance premium a lot cheaper for everyone. The Republicans succeeded in knocking it down, but Obamacare still survived.

Republican governors and Republican controlled State legislatures also refused to implement the Medicaid expansion provision of the law. This is a provision of Obamacare where the Federal Government requires each state to apply for free money that they can use to expand insurance coverage to the very poor in their respective states. Rather than apply, these Republican states went ahead and passed laws that block their states from applying for such funds. The result was that the poorest of the poor in these states go without health insurance and lack health care coverage. Still, Obamacare lives.

Since the passage of the law in 2010, more than 30 such lawsuits have been brought against Affordable Care Act. As the Republican Party works to destroy this lifesaving act of US government and having succeeded to an extent in weakening the law court case by case over the years, public support for Obamacare has only gotten stronger among Americans on both sides of the political spectrum. Americans in red states and blue states have grown to love Obamacare. Even the Supreme Court of the United States, with majority Justices appointed by Republican Presidents, has stood as the last wall of defense protecting the law by their various favorable rulings over the years since the enactment of the law.

Despite today’s embarrassing landslide defeat at the Supreme Court, however, you can be rest assured that the God Own Party will not rest in their effort to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. 

The surprising thing, though, is that if the Affordable Care Act were to be struck down today, “it would have expanded the ranks of the uninsured in the United States by about 21 million people – a nearly 70 percent increase – according to recent estimates from the Urban Institute,” according to the Urban Institute.

Adam Liptak wrote in the New York Times:

"The biggest loss of coverage would have been among low-income adults who became eligible for Medicaid under the law after most states expanded the program to include them. But millions of Americans would also have lost private insurance, including young adults whom the law allowed to stay on their parents’ plans until they turned 26 and families whose income was modest enough to qualify for subsidies that help pay their monthly premiums."

"A ruling against the law would also have doomed its protections for Americans with past or current health problems — or pre-existing conditions. The protections bar insurers from denying them coverage or charging them more for it."

The question any fair-minded and reasonable person would want to ask is, “Why are these supposedly Pro-life members of God Own Party so adamantly invested in killing a program that gives life to millions of fellow Americans? What is it that the GOP hates so much about seeing the poor get the healthcare they need and deserve?” Perhaps, we’ll get the answer when we get to heaven. But while we are still here on earth, suffice to say it is not unlikely that the disdain of the Republican Party – a mostly white people’s party – for Obamacare has something to do with the fact that the law is associated with Barack Obama, a black man.

Whatever the reason behind their hatred, it is a miracle the law is still alive today. For Obamacare to have survived the 14-year assault by the GOP, God must really care about Obamacare. Without Divine intervention, the Affordable Care act would have long ceased to exist. And for that, every American who enjoys the benefits of Obamacare, and are alive today because of it, ought to go on their knees and thank God for turning the counsel of the Ahithopels of the GOP into foolishness.