What A Fine Mess The GOP Is Creating For Itself

When the GOP seized both houses of Congress in the last election, they were jubilant. They thought they would now be able to do whatever they wanted, and governing would not be a snap. The mess they've made by playing politics with the funding of Homeland Security shows they really weren't ready to govern. They were embarrassed before the entire nation, as it became apparent that their teabagger caucus isn't interested in doing the compromising that is necessary to govern -- but only in pursuing their own ideological purity to keep their base back home happy.

But the Homeland Security mess will look like chicken-feed up beside another mess that is brewing -- a mess that springs straight from their hatred of President Obama and his health reform plan. For years they were able to score points with their teabagger base by opposing Obamacare. That opposition didn't really hurt them much, because it was obvious that no matter how many times they voted to repeal Obamacare there was no way they could accomplish it.

But then a few Republicans got a not-so-bright idea. They would take Obamacare to court and get the Supreme Court to declare that the federal healthcare exchange could not give government subsidies to help people buy insurance (because of some poor wording in the Affordable Care Act). They reasoned that if the 34 states without a health care exchange could not receive subsidies, then Obamacare would fall -- and they are right, because those subsidies are the heart of the program.

Now it looks like they have a 50-50 chance of winning that court case (King vs. Burwell), and that is starting to scare the hell out of a lot of Republicans -- the ones smart enough to know that could seriously damage their party. It turns out that there are at least 8 million people who have gotten health insurance through the federal exchange with a government subsidy. Those people will most likely lose their health insurance if the GOP wins that court case, because they can only afford that insurance with a government subsidy.

That's a lot of angry people -- and angry people vote against the people who made them angry. And a lot of those people live in swing states -- states the GOP must win to have a chance at the White House in 2016. It would affect more than 1,000,000 people in Florida, nearly 200,000 in Ohio, over 400,000 in North Carolina, about 400,000 in Pennsylvania, nearly 300,000 in Michigan, about 400,000 in Georgia, etc.

And those numbers were just the people who had signed up through January 30th. A lot more people signed up in February, March, and April.

This gives the Republicans a tough choice. They protect the insurance those millions of people currently have by either creating state exchanges in the 34 states (or by fixing the federal law to allow the subsidies -- which would anger their teabagger base (and possibly cost them dearly in the 2016 primaries). Or they can stand firm and watch those angry people who lost their insurance vote against them in the 2016 general election.

In short, they have created a situation for themselves where they only have bad options. And it was caused by their unreasonable hatred for the president -- a hatred that had blinded them to the realities happening in the health care reform. What are they to do?

I doubt they can fix the law at the federal level. The bumbling mess they have made of Homeland Security funding shows they are incapable of governing on that level. That means it will be left up to the separate states, and that's not much better. A few states are considering creating their own exchange to allow their citizens to get the federal subsidies, but most (like Texas, which has over 900,000 who will lose their insurance) are doing nothing -- at least so far.

This reminds me of the old saying -- Be careful what you wish for, because you might get it. The Republicans wished for the downfall of Obamacare, and now they might have to deal with the consequences -- consequences that could be devastating for their party.