Eleventh Letter to Uncle Sam

11/20/13

Dear Uncle Sam,

Someone’s gotta say it: Afghanistan is Vietnam, Benghazi is Watergate, and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is Katrina (KAT). Metaphors multiply like bunny rabbits on a sunny spring day.

Yes, bringing affordable healthcare to million of uninsured Americans is exactly like an utterly unmitigated natural disaster. Incredibly Elementary.

The similarities between ACA and KAT are incredible indeed.

When KAT slammed into New Orleans in 2005, no one was prepared for a disaster of that scale. Death and destruction followed. Similarly, when the ACA hit these United States on October 1st, no one was prepared for a disaster of that scale. Death and destruction followed. Sweeping ferociously through the countryside, the furious hurricane called ACA, (a.k.a. Obamacare) has killed over 1800 people and left millions stranded, most of them poor African-Americans. Meantime, President Obama is flying around overhead on Air Force One looking down on the disaster below without landing and getting his feet wet.

(Never mind that for the first time in history, more Americans, even those with “preexisting conditions,” including preexisting conditions such as being poor or black, will be able to afford healthcare with the ACA).

Before Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans in 2005, experts had predicted what path the storm would take and how much damage it would cause. But no one paid any attention to the experts. The result was death and destruction. Similarly, before healthcare.gov hit these United States, experts had predicated how error messages would pop up and explode upon unsuspecting healthcare seekers. But no one paid any attention to these experts either. The result is death and destruction.

(Never mind that kids will get more preventive services and young people will be able to stay on their parents’ insurance until the age of twenty-six under the ACA).

Then the levees broke.

The poor were left to fend for themselves while law enforcement ran amuck. Just as the New Orleans police shot and killed innocent people in the aftermath of KAT, Obamacare navigators are cheating and “killing” innocent people looking for healthcare. Indeed, by some accounts, the death toll from Hurricane Obamacare has already surpassed that of Katrina. As Philip Bump astutely argues, “it all depends on what you consider a ‘death.’ After all, if corporations are people too, then the cancellation of insurance policies that don’t meet the standards of Obamacare, constitute a kind of ‘death.’” Bumping up this logic, it’s obvious that if poor people are people too, the presumption that they should also be healthy people constitutes a kind of ‘fascism.’

Well, wise Uncle… Too bad you didn’t turn to your Silicon Valley niece right at the start! We could’ve recruited an army of awesome teen techies to code, decode, hack, hawk, crowdsource, outsource, and opensouce healthcare into a stealthy virus that silently invades people through their computers and immunizes them against deadly diseases and misleading metaphors. We would’ve like nailed it. And you would’ve like made a killing!
Like Incredibly Elementary (LIE).

Sincerely,

--CK