I don’t know what’s up with Fox commentator Juan Williams these days; maybe he’s gotten a bad rap for non-objectivity, or maybe getting beaten up by Newt Gingrich in a televised debate turned him around.
But on a day when most everybody in America was polarized in advance by the Supreme Court oral arguments about ObamaCare, Williams devoted his column in The Hill to a calm, upbeat assessment of the law’s beneficent effects and the weak case for repealing it. His bottom line:
In my world of people and politics there are two relevant issues. First, does the law provide better medical care for Americans? And is it reducing the cost of healthcare?
While the new law will not be fully implemented until 2014, the parts that have been enacted show that the indisputable, factual answer to both questions is “yes.”
Wow, “indisputable” and “factual.” That’s prettty emphatic. There’s more:
[A]ccording to the [Wall Street] Journal’s in-depth reporting, the act’s biggest failure so far concerns a temporary plan to offer coverage to uninsured people before the full law takes effect in 2014. Costly premiums and tight rules for enrollment have led to fewer people than expected signing up. And some states have run out of money for the plan where people have signed up.
Another problem cited by critics is that thousands of companies have found it difficult to get insurance, especially for part-time workers, under new rules limiting the ability of insurers to set ceilings for annual claims and payments.
That’s it. Those two small areas are identified as the law’s big problems. That is the heart of the criticism.
There are other valid criticisms out there, but all of it amounts to nothing compared to the law’s success.
Williams even takes on the argument that “the American people” have rejected ObamaCare, noting that the numbers “opposing” it continue to include a sizable number who think it doesn’t go far enough in guaranteeing coverage or providing a strong federal government hand in pursuing its objectives.
This one column alone probably provides more support for Obama than the collected works of the “Fox Democrats” who supposedly represent the president’s party. So I’m guessing he will have soon exhausted his utility to his television employer.
