The problem isn’t ObamaCare, it’s the GOP

So I saw this cartoon by Steve Kelley on Townhall.com, an Internet forum popular among conservatives.

Kelley is using the sequester, the latest failure of government to actually govern, to criticize ObamaCare. His argument is that since government couldn’t get its house in order and avoid the massive across-the-board cuts of the sequester, it’s foolish to think that a government-run or -overseen healthcare system can be anything but disastrous.

Let’s break this down for a moment, though, shall we?

The sequester is the result of a budget crisis manufactured by our political class, in response to a budget crisis that the political class not only created in the 1980s, but also greatly exacerbated in the early 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century. The idea was that if a budget could not be reached, it would inflict massive across-the-board cuts so painful that everyone would have a powerful incentive to avoid them.

And now, because of a Republican refusal to work with Democrats, a Republican intransigence when it comes to raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans to help the disadvantaged class and a Republican policy of obstructionism when it comes to any initiative undertaken by President Obama, even when it’s a policy that they historically have favored, those draconian cuts of the sequester have taken effect.

This isn’t a failure of government, Mr. Kelley. It’s a failure to govern. The problem with a national healthcare system wouldn’t be that it’s a national healthcare system. Other Western nations have these systems and they work beautifully. People get the healthcare they need, and no ones goes bankrupt from it or dies because they can’t afford basic care.

the problem would be a government program overseen by a group like contemporary conservatives, who have placed their own narrow philosophy over the lives and well-being of the people and the country they’re sworn to serve.