As Citizens’ Council for Healthcare Freedom kicks off its “Refuse to Enroll” campaign this week to combat Obamacare, it’s helpful to think about it in the context of the loud (and about to get much louder) and frankly–maybe due to funding issues, more organized pro-exchange enrollment grassroots efforts.
Some say it’s easy to be the complainer–one person fixing a leak while another watches the water continue to accumulate and yell something about the sky falling. Anti-Obamacare pundits often (and sometimes rightly so) get pegged with this complainer, Chicken Little stereotype.
Expecting the same complaints with no suggestions to fix the problems, when I asked CCHF President Twila Brase if the organization had a plan, I readied my ear for a hackneyed soundbite.
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But I got a plan.
The “5 C’s”–a cash-for-care, catastrophe coverage, charity-based model that champions confidentiality at its best, and, of course, rips Medicare at its worst.
“See, we have no idea how inexpensive healthcare could be,” Brase said, and warns potential exchange enrollees to look at the fiscal cliffs.
Cash for care, coverage in case of catastrophe, keeping records confidential–yes, yes and yes. Except, the problem seems to be, moving healthcare back to this point seems nigh on impossible.
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Meanwhile, many other groups around the country, many more organized efforts, such as Moms Rising, continue to promote education about the health insurance exchanges, and enrollment in them. The biggest Obamacare misconception they’re fighting: that the health care exchanges “will be more costly than what we have now,” said MR President Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner.
Rowe-Finkbeiner said more than 3,000 volunteers have begun their work nationwide in the “Wellness Wonder Team,” a grassroots effort to encourage moms to enroll their families in the programs. She calls the elimination of private healthcare CCHF talks about “a myth.”
While CCHF takes issue with every page of Obamacare, Rowe-Finkbeiner said MR does not have a problem with any part, even miniscule, at this time.
“We’re committed to helping push the ACA to full implementation and are excited about the opportunity it affords to children and families. The fact of the matter is too many families are living on the edge,” she said. “For many people, choices will act be opened up. Because healthcare will be more affordable. Talk about limited choices–adults with preexisting conditions are denied healthcare. That is the ultimate limit in choices–not having a choice.”
As for CCHF’s IRS privacy concerns, Rowe-Finkbeiner didn’t have a direct response, only stressing the exchanges as an option, not a mandate.
The voices of exchange-supporters will be joined by lots of marketing dollars from states as the exchange programs roll out.
CCHF, naturally, has the support of some of the Tea Party (though no direct financial support). But Brase said it doesn’t matter what political groups do or don’t rally around this effort. CCHF is spreading its message to anyone who will listen.
“We know labor unions are getting concerned about Obamacare now,” she said. “They’re concerned for one reason, but if they can’t get the administration to listen, they may look for other outlets.”
This alliance, or other similar aisle-crossing support, doesn’t spell R-E-A-L-I-S-T-I-C to me.
Yet Brase pushes forward, or backward, depending on where your political loyalties lie.
I’m not going to tell you that the CCHF or MR is right or wrong. They are both, well, both. They both choose to deny some basics in favor of their own agendas (it is, after all, politics), although neither have accepted or are funded by insurance companies, government agencies, politicians or political parties.
In an ideal world, a cash-for-care system, with a lot of compassion and charity, might work. But the problem of healthcare, insurance and government has never been generating ideas or growing–it’s cutting back. Which is why voices on the fringe, like Brase’s, are important to consider as the nation moves toward revolutionizing an already large system, and why, as groups like MR, the Young Invincibles and others flex bigger muscles in their march forward, ultimately, she and CCHF are likely to fail.
