The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka “ObamaCare,” was intended to dramatically increase the number of Americans with health coverage while “bending the cost curve” (that is, reducing the expected increases in price over time).

The plan managed the first goal, at least in the short term. Unsurprising, isn’t it, that more people get coverage when the law requires them to buy it, penalizes those who won’t, and subsidizes those who can’t afford to?

But the progress on that metric is beginning to disintegrate and we’re moving in the other direction. Bloomberg reports that 1.4 million Americans in 32 states will lose their health plans next year as major providers pull out of the ObamaCare “exchanges” because they’re losing money. Apaprently a business has to take in more than it spends if it wants to remain a going concern. I’m sure I’ve read that somewhere.

As far as “bending the cost curve” is concerned … well … according to the US Department of Health and Human Services, cited by US News & World Report,  average premiums rose by 7.5% last year and will rise by 25% in 2017.  Price inflation for most consumer goods over the 2015-2016 period averaged a little more than 1%. Forgive me for thinking that when costs increase at 7-25 times the rate of inflation, that’s not really a lot of “bend” to the “curve.”

In 2009, I described (the then notional, yet to be passed into law) ObamaCare as “[g]overnment feeds you to the insurance companies, while simultaneously feeding the insurance companies to you. The state takes home a doggie bag.” Which is about the size of it, and I was far from the only person who noticed and warned that the plan not only wouldn’t work, but COULDN’T work, if the goal was reducing costs and increasing access to health care. Artificially increasing demand relative to supply can only have the opposite effects.

Since 2010, Republicans (who, by the way, first proposed the “individual mandate” scheme) have slowly but surely retreated from the idea of repealing ObamaCare and replacing it with nothing, instead proposing various schemes for keeping government as involved as possible in health care while pretending to “return” it to “the free market” (there hasn’t been a free market in health care for more than a century, since the American Medical Association got licensing schemes imposed by the states so that it could limit the number of doctors and thereby keep their salaries high).

Most Americans are now worse off vis a vis health care than they were six years ago. The only winners have been government health bureaucrats. And unfortunately, the politicians don’t seem to be interested in getting out of the way and letting the market fix things. Next stop: “Single payer.”

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “ObamaCare: Things Fall Apart,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 10/26/16
• “Obamacare proof that things fall apart,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Fayette, West Virginia Tribune, 10/27/16
• “ObamaCare: Things Fall Apart,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 10/27/16
• “Six years after Obamacare, Americans worse off,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Bucks County, Pennsylvania Courier Times, 10/28/16
• “ObamaCare: Things Fall Apart,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Key West: The Newspaper [Florida], 10/28/16
• “ObamaCare: Things Fall Apart,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Sonoran News [Arizona], 10/31/16
• “Obamacare falling apart,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Orangeburg, South Carolina Times & Democrat, 11/01/16
• “ObamaCare: Things fall apart,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Florence, South Carolina News Journal, 11/01/16
• “Obamacare, things fall apart,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Pahrump Valley, Nevada Times, 11/05/16

That’s what this election is about, isn’t it? Daily, I’m warned by Democrats that I mustn’t vote for Donald Trump, by Republicans that I mustn’t vote for Hillary Clinton, and by supporters of both that I mustn’t vote for a third party, independent or write-in candidate.

If I take all that advice to heart, I won’t be able to vote for any of Florida’s 12 balloted or write-in candidates for president , will I?  And I admit that it’s tempting to sit this one out.

I know I won’t waste my vote on Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. Call me picky, but in my view pathological liars who hate freedom and love war shouldn’t get to live in the White House, sign and veto bills, have access to nuclear launch codes,  and all that other president stuff. I’ve narrowed it down THAT much, anyway.

The easy out for me — and I may take it — would be to vote for Gary Johnson. I’m a partisan Libertarian and he’s my party’s candidate. He’s seriously flawed, but on the plus side he’s probably not irredeemably evil like the two major party picks. He’s kinda, sorta, a little bit in favor of my own top political values, freedom and peace. America could do worse. In fact it mostly has.

The other third party candidates — the Green Party’s Jill Stein, the Reform Party’s Rocky de la Fuente, and the Constitution Party’s Darrell Castle — also seem like decent folks but they’re just a little too far afield on issues I care about. If we MUST have a president, I could live with one of them. But not vote for any of them.

I only recognize the names of two of the six write-in candidates — independent Laurence Kotlikoff and the Transhumanist Party’s Zoltan Istvan Gyurko. Of those two, only Istvan appeals to me. He’s all about immortality, which sounds good. Also, wouldn’t it be cool to have a president named “Zoltan?”

Of course, there’s something to be said for the write-ins I DON’T recognize. Maybe we should start picking presidents at random from a pile of all the phone books in America. Speaking of which, do they still even print phone books?

Yes, I know that you people are going to pick Clinton or Trump. But that’s on you, not me. And it proves that we really need a better way of going about this politics thing. Just sayin’.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “Who I’m Not Voting For, And Why,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 10/22/16
• “Election 2016: Who I’m Not Voting For, And Why,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 10/24/16
• “Who I’m not voting for,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Orangeburg, South Carolina Times & Democrat, 10/26/16
• “Election 2016: Who I’m not voting for, and why,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Fayette, West Virginia Tribune, 10/31/16

Google News returns (as of October 18) 285,000 search results on the phrase “rigged election.” It’s a trending topic, run up the flagpole of public consciousness by media coverage of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s mouth. Sample, from an October 17 rally in Wisconsin:

“Remember, we are competing in a rigged election …. They even want to try and rig the election at the polling booths, where so many cities are corrupt and voter fraud is all too common.”

Three observations:

First, this kind of rhetoric is dangerous, and not just in a notional manner. More than one country has descended into riot, revolution, coup or civil war territory over disputes about the integrity of its elections. Think it can’t happen here? Think again.

Secondly, this kind of rhetoric isn’t new by any stretch of the imagination. In the United States, the claim has enjoyed growing persuasive power ever since 2000 when a Florida vote recount was halted by the US Supreme Court, thereby awarding the office of president to George W. Bush, who probably didn’t actually win the election. Many Democrats ascribed John Kerry’s 2004 defeat to voting machine manipulation in Ohio. In 2012, Republicans threw in with complaints over apparent voter intimidation at urban polling places in support of Barack Obama’s re-election.

Finally, Trump is not the only presidential candidate claiming that this presidential election is rigged. As far back as August, we have Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton saying things like this:

“I think laying out the facts raises serious issues about Russian interference in our elections, in our democracy …. For Trump to both encourage that and to praise Putin despite what appears to be a deliberate effort to try to affect the election I think raises national security issues.”

The Clinton version is a bit more subtle (and even less well-supported by anything resembling actual evidence) than Trump’s. It’s also at least as dangerous and possibly more so to the extent that it might serve as a casus belli for World War III.

Trump is preemptively positioning himself to claim that a victorious Clinton and her party rigged the election. That could lead to fireworks.

Clinton is preemptively positioning herself to accuse a foreign power of rigging — or at least unduly influencing — the outcome to her loss. That could lead to fireworks of a nuclear variety.

Third party and independent candidates have the strongest complaints of election-rigging — the Republicans and Democrats have colluded in suppressing all other parties for lo on 130 years now with restrictive ballot access laws and other dirty tricks. But those complaints aren’t quite the gasoline-soaked pile of tinder that happens when the two wings of the ruling oligarchy have this type of falling out.

We certainly live in interesting times.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “‘Rigged Election’ Rhetoric: A Dangerous Two-Way Street,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 10/18/16
• “‘Rigged Election’ Rhetoric: A Dangerous Two-Way Street,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 10/18/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, USA Today, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Palm Springs/Coachella Valley, California Desert Sun, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Wilmington, Delaware News Journal, 10/20/16
• “Dangerous ‘rigged’ rhetoric,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Orangeburg, South Carolina Times & Democrat, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Oshkosh, Wisconsin Northwestern, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Indianapolis, Indiana Star, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Jackson, Mississippi Clarion-Ledger, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Florida Today, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Sioux Falls, South Dakota Argus Leader, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Livonia, Michigan Observer and Eccentric, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Arizona Republic, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Clarksville, Tennessee Leaf-Chronicle, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Rochester, New York Democrat & Chronicle, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Fort Collins, Colorado Coloradoan, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Lafayette, Louisiana Advertiser, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Naples, Florida Daily News, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Henderson, Kentucky Gleaner, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Orlando, Florida Central Florida Future, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Pensacola, Florida News Journal, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Star, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Somerville, New Jersey Courier News, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Jackson, Tennessee Sun, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, El Paso, Texas Times, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Cincinnati, Ohio Enquirer, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Wisconsin State Farmer, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Waukesha Now [Wisconsin], 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Florida State University FSView & Florida Flambeau, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Detroit, Michigan Free Press, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ithaca, New York Journal, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Pacific Daily News [Guam], 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Chambersburg, Pennsyvania Public Opinion, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Staunton, Virginia News Leader , 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, St. Cloud, Minnesota Times, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Great Falls, Montana Tribune, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Carlsbad, New Mexico Current-Argus, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, York Daily Record [Pennsylvania], 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Delaware Beaches, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Las Cruces, New Mexico Sun-News, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Hammonton, New Jersey News, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ft. Myers, Florida News-Press, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Black Mountain, North Carolina News, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Muncie, Indiana Star Press, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric dangerous,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Greenville, South Carolina Upstate Parent, 10/20/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric is a dangerous two-way street,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Newberry, South Carolina Times, 10/31/16
• “‘Rigged election’ rhetoric: A dangerous two-way street,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Fayette, West Virginia Tribune, 10/24/16