In 1991, a research article from Project HOPE tried to come to an analysis of the collapse of the Soviet medical system. The conclusions noted that the Soviet system was “plagued by chronic underfunding, antiquated and deteriorating facilities, inadequate supplies and outmoded equipment, poor morale and few incentives for health care workers, and consumer dissatisfaction.”
It is these high benchmarks that the Democratic Party aspired to with the launch of the Affordable Care Act in 2013, despite every single Republican in Congress making the facts on socialized medicine perfectly clear. With the election of President Trump, we can drink a tall glass of bourgeoisie champagne with the knowledge that this crooked, calamitous, and above all costly experiment has reached the beginning of its end.
On his very first day in office, Trump signed his first executive order to put the ACA out of its misbegotten misery. Since we elected a president and not a king (a distinction most liberals seem ignorant of), the ACA did not die the instant that Trump’s pen completed its last stroke.
However, what it did was instruct the Department of Health and Human Services to begin lessening the fiscal burden and providing states with greater flexibility for their healthcare market. The same Democrats who enact farm subsidies that make a bag of Doritos cheaper than a bag of carrots have since spent all waking hours decrying the move as a policy no less lethal than the ten plagues of Egypt.
As we have gathered here to bury Obamacare and not praise it, we shall not waste your valuable time describing the multitude of red tape and failings that compromised the ACA — if you do not know its litany of flaws, there’s little point in learning each one by now.
Instead let us ask what Trump has in stock for the future of state-run healthcare. It was a question first poised, if you remember, during Marco Rubio’s disastrous primary campaign. Trump’s answer was equally disastrous — “remove the lines” he said, for about two minutes straight — but hasn’t changed in the year of campaigning since.
While competition between states can’t help but drive prices down (crack open an Economics 101 book for further understanding), we’ve found ourselves in the unpleasant likelihood that Trump will institute a substitute form of socialized medicine. After all, he promised not just to repeal Obamacare but to replace it as well, suggesting a new hydra’s head could arise.
What’s more, he’s made promises that everyone will be covered, potentially leaving the ever-growing welfare rolls with a fresh incentive to not seek work.
Furthermore, Trump has come down hard on the pharmaceutical industry, suggesting that they will have to negotiate directly with Medicare and Medicaid. There’s several layers of irony here: first, that the pharmaceutical lobby actually gives about three times as much money to Republicans as Democrats. Second, pharma stocks soared after Trumps’ election victory, but have slumped since he’s singled out the industry as no longer “politically protected.”
If you hold assets in the pharmaceutical industry, consider selling high. If you don’t, consider short-selling: the iShares Nasdaq Biotech ETF dropped by 4% the day that Trump declared pharma companies were “getting away with murder.”
This may sound unpleasant for a fiscal conservative, but do not let the prospects of Trump’s health plan, in the words of Doestoevsky, cause unhappiness for things unsaid. Rather, be glad that we have a commander-in-chief who understands that expenses require payment.
Trumps plan of “access for all” is far superior than “coverage for all” since it requires Americans to pay for their health care rather than rely on someone else to do so (a philosophy that would leave Bernie Sanders scratching his head in confusion). What’s more, if Trump builds a website for his healthcare plan, it’s not unreasonable to expect it to, you know, work.
What will American healthcare look like in the hands of a Republican majority in all three branches of government? The unsustainable expansion of government-run healthcare will hopefully fizzle out and be left on the ash heap of history.
The worst of Obamacare has been done and, for all its myriad flaws, it can no longer drain the average American’s paycheck like other nations’ socialized medicine programs (the UK’s National Health Service faces a deficit of some $25 billion by the end of the decade).
Broader problems remain unsolved — an American pay as much for their healthcare as a Japanese and a Norwegian combined — but, in the sagacious words of Ronald Reagan, government is the problem. May it be a problem no more under Trump.
Regards,
Ethan Warrick
Editor
Wealth Authority
