Barack Bush: The lesson of Iraq and Obamacare

Posted by hpayne on October 30, 2013

Henry Payne cartoon

Barack Obama’s second term is getting off to a disastrous start not unlike George Bush’s did: Both are promising surges to fix flawed polices. Bush’s troop surge was an attempt to salvage the bad decision to invade Iraq. Obama’s tech surge is an effort to save a wrong-headed Washington takeover of the insurance health market.

Both Iraq and Obamacare should be lessons to future presidents: Enough with the grand, ideological Big Government crusades.

Rather than eradicating the problem — Al Qaida in Afghanistan — Bush tried to remake the Middle East with a nation-building, democracy-spreading invasion of Iraq. Rather than fixing the problem — an uninsured population caused by employer-based health insurance — Obama tried to remake the entire health system. Washington can’t build democracies, and neither can it remake insurance markets.

Tellingly, both ideological adventures were sold with bad intel: Bush promised Iraq had WMD, Obama promised no one would lose their existing insurance plans. Both disasters hit Americans where they live.

As the casualties rolled in, middle-class support for Iraq ebbed away. And as middle-class insurance policies are cancelled and premiums skyrocket, so too will Obamacare support dry up. (The difference? Unlike Obamacare, Dubya at least secured bipartisan support for Iraq before committing the country.)

Note to future chiefs: Stick to government budget reform, tax reform, entitlement reform. Stay out of foreign countries and private markets.

 

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