Selling ObamaCare

It's time to take over the health care reform message from those who have turned "Obamacare" into something vile in the minds of many Americans. I'm going to use their term (with a slight change -- capitalizing the C: ObamaCare), because I would like to turn the same term into something positive -- which it is.

When polled about the individual benefits of the plan, the majority of Americans want those benefits. OK, so most kids, asked if they would like to have ice cream, would say yes.

What about paying for it? Again, there are many examples of premiums going up way too fast and too high. That, my friends, is the result of:

(1) the constantly rising costs of medical care if we don't get it under some systematic plan that includes controlling costs, as ObamaCare does; but those aspects of it have not yet gone into effect -- and won't if the Repubs can help it; it's part of their strategy to kill it.

(2) Another reason is that insurance companies are jacking up premiums ahead of the controls, because they won't be able to get away with it later.

(3) And another reason is that some of the premiums are going up because new benefits are included in the required plan. You pay more, but you get more things that are important, like preventive care.

Let's look at the nearest thing that exists to ObamaCare: the Massachusetts health care plan that covers almost everyone in that state. It was signed into law by Gov. Mitt Romney. He's now trying to back away from it, because Repubs don't want to admit it might be a good idea -- it's too close to ObamaCare. What he now says is that what's right for one state may not be right for others, and the federal government shouldn't take this away from state governments.

That is the only argument he could possibly make; he can't simply disown a bill he helped create when it's working well and popular, too. So he invokes federal control as the devil.

Now a poll has been released: 85% of the residents of Massachusetts like their new health care plan. That's going to be pretty hard to shoot down as insignificant.

Ralph