The Obama administration and the mainstream media would like nothing more than to distract from the continuous failings of the Affordable Care Act. Its launch and subsequent crash, literally and figuratively, have Democratic supporters of the President’s signature legislation scrambling for cover in the lead up to the 2014 midterm elections, and rightfully so.
Never has a president deliberately and repeatedly misled the public in such covert and overt ways, resulting in millions of citizens being forced off their existing private health insurance, businesses laying off or firing workers further hurting an already struggling economy, and placing the largest tax increase in American history on the backs of our people.
At every turn there’s another problem, another reason to question the logic and leadership of the Obama administration and its bumbling. The jokes write themselves, which late night hosts appreciate; but the joke is on the American people and we’re not laughing.
Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant and other Republican governors who opposed this train wreck legislation have seen some vindication.
Bryant, like others, faced shrill, even harsh criticism and scrutiny from the left and the editorial boards in his opposition to Obamacare.
One such piece ran in January 2013 as a Clarion Ledger editorial. The Capitol newspaper called Bryant’s fight “fruitless, wasteful and ridiculous exercise.” They sought to paint Bryant as evolving in his opposition for political reasons while missing the fiscal and constitutional implications of such horrible legislation. “The Affordable Care Act is the law of the land,” they wrote, “and states must follow federal law,” as if the federal government always knows best.
Fiscally speaking, Mississippi should be thanking Bryant for standing against Obamacare’s overreach. Our state’s budget cannot support Medicaid expansion or other strings attached in the law for short term federal funding. The long term effects would likely place Mississippi in a dire fiscal situation.
Yet, Democrats and the mainstream media will pull heart strings and call Bryant and Republicans uncaring, cruel, selfish capitalists who simply have no care for the poor. Theirs is always a story of want, of needing more, of what ifs; Bryant and Republican legislators have sought to operate in fiscal realities, not emotion.
Politically, Bryant made the right move as an elected official, supporting the majority of his constituency’s beliefs while also demonstrating why the conservative argument against Obamacare was sound. Had Bryant openly supported a state run exchange the federal failures would have been passed off as a state problem, but instead the blame lies solely where it should – with the Obama administration and their botched rollout.
You won’t read a “we were wrong, Bryant was right” op-ed anytime soon from the Clarion Ledger or the Bill Minor types. No, just more of the same on the next issue that Bryant and other conservatives choose to take a stand for the sake of principle and good governance.
