Reasonable Gentleman Syndrome: the disease that killed the Republican party

The "Affordable" Care Act is an obvious, abject failure by any measure. It has been consistently underwater, public opinion-wise, since before it even became law. Exchanges and co-ops have been going kabust left and right. Networks keep narrowing. Premiums keep going up. Everyone can see that it is nothing but rank redistribution and tyranny.

So Pubs are still as hot for full repeal as ever, right?

Stop laughing.

Two pieces at Hot Air today show how pathetic the GOP is with regard to this debacle, how utterly given over to moral cowardice they have become.

In Washington, federal legislators are looking at a package of smallish bills designed to nibble at the edges, fooling with such features as grace periods for enrollees, premiums for older people and the requiring of documentation. These are nothing more than a sop to the big, unwieldy bureaucracies that health-insurance companies have become, enticing them to stay in the game even though they're losing money.

I would like to think that at least a few - one, two, whatever - of those signing on to this know in their hearts of hearts that this crap runs counter to a free-market basis on which to construct an alternative to the "A"CA. Health insurance companies are like farmers. They dread a day of reckoning when they would have to operate according to free-market principles, even though it would actually lead to a situation in which they could make a real profit, not a funny-money one.

But maybe Reasonable Gentleman Syndrome has consumed the entire beings of each and every one of them.

And in the Alaska state legislature, this is going down:

he death spiral has finally hit Obamacare, at least in one state. GOP politicians in Alaska who say they are opposed to the law are creating a new fund to prevent it from collapsing.

Alaska has already lost several of the insurers on its Obamacare exchange. Next year it will be down to just one remaining company selling policies. That company, Blue Cross Blue Shield, will need to raise premiums substantially in order to cover costs. Faced with the possible collapse of the state’s exchange, which currently insures 23,000 people, the state’s Republican governor recommended passing a law to use state funds to keep prices down. Politico reports on the surprising turn of events:

The legislation, originally proposed by [Gov. Bill] Walker, sets up a $55 million fund — financed through an existing tax on all insurance companies — to subsidize enrollees’ costs as the state struggles with Obamacare price spikes and an exodus by all except one insurance company…

Republican state lawmakers, who sued Walker for expanding Medicaid under the health law, swear they remain opposed to Obamacare. But they say they’re doing what’s necessary to prevent health insurance premiums from spiraling out of control and letting thousands of people lose their coverage.

“What I’m getting — and I guarantee what the Alaska Legislature’s getting — is constituents pleading with them for help,” Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) told POLITICO. “There’s been no state in the union more negatively impacted by Obamacare than Alaska.”

Alaskans already faced high costs but their Obamacare prices are the highest in the nation:

An analysis of average 2016 Obamacare premiums from Avalere Health, a consulting firm, showed that the lowest-cost “silver” level plan in Alaska cost $956 per month before any subsidies were factored in — the highest rate in the nation. That amount is 40 percent higher than the year before.

Alaskan Republicans face an unenviable choice. They can either put the program they didn’t want in the first place on state life support or they can let the market take its course, which will create more disruption for tens of thousands of Alaskans. Republican state Rep. Lance Pruitt tells Politico, “Are we trying to maintain ACA? I think what we’re trying to do is live within the new reality that’s out there.” In other words, they don’t really have much of a choice since the federal law mandates this.

This is the kind of dog vomit that gave us Squirrel-Hair. If the supposed champions of liberty and common sense aren't making even a feeble attempt to make the case, voters, who are routinely opening panic-inducing mail from their insurance providers or the damn government "marketplace" are going to flock to a snake-oil-hawking charlatan, just because he appears to stand in opposition to the totalitarians currently gripping post-America's throat.

Not my party anymore.