Skinny Repeal was a Fat Lie – Ep. 271

Obamacare Repeal Charade Over
The whole charade surrounding the repeal of Obamacare is finally over. The most recent attempt, labeled "Skinny Repeal" was a big fat lie.  They weren't really repealing anything, leaving the essence of Obamacare and accelerating Obamacare's death spiral. If Congress had repealed the employer mandates and the individual penalties but left everything else the same, then the number of healthy people making the irrational decision not to buy insurance would skyrocket and the sick people who would still be buying, would be facing higher and higher premiums and costing insurance companies bigger and bigger losses to be subsidized by the taxpayer.
Let the Democrats Own the Disaster
Many Republicans are upset with John McCain, for being one of the 3 Republicans to join all the Democrats in opposing the bill.  I think McCain did the GOP a favor. This bill, if passed, would have let the Democrats off the hook. They would have not owned Obamacare, and they would be responsible for its failure. Now we all know Obamacare is still there, it is exactly the way it was passed, the bill President Obama championed and signed, the one that Nancy Pelosi said, "We have to pass it to see what is in it."  We passed it, we know what is in it (although most people do not understand what is in it) and it is a disaster.

Late last year most people thought the Republicans were going to repeal it - everybody but me. I didn't think that they had the guts to do it.  I had this interview on Russia Today in mid-January, it's up on my YouTube Channel; the title is, "Peter Schiff Very Skeptical of Obamacare Repeal". If you watch that video you will see that I say, "I don't think they're going to repeal it."
No Guts to Repeal
Of course, everybody thought, "of course they are going to repeal it. They've been campaigning on it for years!" The President promised it.  Everybody who has run for office as a Republican says, "Elect me and I am going to get rid of Obamacare!". They voted to repeal it many times when Obama was still President. And, of course, every time they voted to repeal it, Obama vetoed it, which of course, the Republicans knew was going to happen. As it turns out, that was the only reason they had the guts to repeal it because they knew it wouldn't actually happen. I knew that the Republicans would have a tough time taking away the free lunch. I knew that a lot of them were promising to repeal but keep the ban on pre-existing conditions and I knew that was impossible. Pre-existing conditions is the very essence of Obamacare.  You can't repeal it and preserve it at the same time.
The Stock Market Has Not Gotten the Message
The stock market, however, still doesn't understand the significance.  It hit another record high again today. The Dow was up, it closed at a new high today. The NASDAQ and the S&P were down. The transports managed a slight bounce from yesterday's drubbing.  Transports were down around 300 points yesterday. Again, more cracks in the armor for the stock market.  Look at what happened to Starbucks today.  The latest victim of declining retail sales; it was down around 9% today.  They reduced their guidance based on a drop in sales, now I don't know if you can blame this on people buying their coffee on Amazon.