It's November 7th of 2012 and Mitt Romney has just defeated Barack Obama to become the President of the United States. Much has been made of this being a referendum on Obamacare but Mr. Romney has come out and said it is the law of the land.
Even before taking his oath of office Romney takes to numerous talk shows, dances with Ellen, and spends a morning with the ladies at The View. He shares his vision for health insurance and promises everyone that they can keep their current insurance and doctors. Period.
Not even a month into office, and Mitt is already on the offensive in hurting Obamacare. Immediately he hires his "health care advisor" Avik Roy to replace Kathleen Sebelius as Secretary of HHS. Then the decimation of Obamacare begins.
First he delays the Basic Health Program for low to moderate income individuals who don't qualify for Medicaid expansion. Two weeks later he announces that he will give leeway to allow plans that have higher out of pocket maximums than set forth in former President Obama's law. In April he delays the SHOP exchange for a year, too.
As the Romney administration continues to bury headlines by making announcements late on Friday afternoons or around holidays, the biggest shoe to drop from Obamacare hits. On July 2nd, 2013 HHS and the President announce that the employer mandate will be delayed until 2015. This requirement will cost the government $12 billion in revenue and will also mean a higher uninsured population.
As the fall approaches Romney is at it again. This time he is delaying signing final agreements with insurance companies on their plans that will be sold on exchanges. The delay could cause the government to miss its deadlines and gives tight time-frames for people to see what benefits and rates will look like when they go to purchase health insurance at healthcare.gov.
On October 1st healthcare.gov goes live - sort of. Romney and his family go skiing while putting Secretary Avik Roy in front of the cameras to explain the "glitches" in the website. For the next several weeks we see Secretary Roy promise that the site is being fixed and compares it to the roll-out issues Apple had with their iOS7 release. In a blog post at the Washington Post, columnist Ezra Klein calls for Romney to fire Secretary Roy for botching the website roll-out. Democrats unite and hold a rally charging that Romney should be impeached and that HHS Secretary Roy immediately step down from his role. The MSM leads with this coverage for two straight weeks and highlights the problems that Republicans are causing and the abuse of power Mitt Romney is using to unilaterally change Obamacare.
As the website continues to fail, we find out that Mitt Romney's promise that people will be able to keep their current plan was nothing more than a lie of the year. To smooth things over as much as possible, the President issues an executive order that people will be allowed to keep their current plans for another year. Still angered, former Obama deputy director, and now president of Enroll America, Anne Filipic announces that they will no longer associate with HHS Secretary Avik Roy and that they don't want him to help with fundraising efforts any longer as this new administration is Anti-Obamacare.
Heading into 2014 Harry Reid continues to push the Senate to take action against President Romney. He pushes a bill through that is called "The Enforce the Law Act". Before the bill even gets off the ground Romney issues a veto threat. Besides that, Speaker Boehner has already said he won't take up this or any other bill that changes the law. He quotes his predecessor, Nancy Pelosi, by saying: "we had to pass it to find out what is in it." The tweaks that President Romney is making will make it better.
Democrats everywhere are furious. They are making one promise. 2014 elections will have consequences. All of these changes to the health care law that Mitt Romney has made will be the focal point for Dems to take back the House of Representatives.
Now open your eyes. It's March of 2014. Everything above has happened. You simply have to change the names.
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