For the second time this month, Congress has passed a short-term continuing resolution and avoid a government shutdown. And for the second time, this was accomplished at the cost of dropping a provision that would have prevented the use of government funds to implement Obamacare. It raises the question, then, of just how committed the Republican leadership really is to killing Obamacare.
It is worth remembering that House Republicans did not include the cutoff in health-care funding as part of their original CR proposal. It was added as an amendment after a mini-rebellion by House conservatives. And the leadership was quick to jettison it at the first sign of Democratic objection. Now it appears that House Republican leaders have blinked yet again.
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Apparently it is more important to keep the government open than to stand up against the most massive threat to limited government and individual liberty in recent history.
In fact, one wonders what the Republican leadership is doing to stop Obamacare. Sure, they took a vote to repeal it. But since there was no chance that a repeal bill could get through the Senate and past a presidential veto, the vote was mostly symbolic. Since then, what have Republicans done? There was another vote calling for various committees to propose an alternative health-care reform. Where is it? Where are the votes on proposals to kill some of the more unpopular aspects of the health-care law? What about the individual mandate? The employer mandate? The new taxes? What about CLASS Act, the long-term care program? Even Secretary Sebelius says that it won’t work as currently structured. Why has there been no vote to repeal that?
Cutting off funding for Obamacare now is all the more important because the administration is pushing full speed ahead on implementation. And the sad fact is that Obama is all too often being aided by Republicans.
Every Republican governor except Alaska’s Sean Parnell and Florida’s Rick Scott have accepted federal grant money to begin implementing the program. This includes rumored presidential candidates Haley Barbour and Mitch Daniels, and even conservative icon Chris Christie. Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty also accepted Obamacare funding before he left office. Given a choice between “free” federal money and standing up against big government, the money wins every time.
Republican governors and Republican state legislators are also moving ahead to set up state insurance exchanges, as required under the new law. Admittedly, the states face a Hobson’s choice on the issue: If they fail to act, the federal government will set up an exchange for them, anyway, one that will likely be more costly and bureaucratic than the one they would design for themselves.
But what the Obama administration realizes is that the faster implementation goes forward, and the more the program snakes its tentacles throughout the health-care system, the harder it will be to repeal. And, for all those hoping that the Supreme Court might strike down the law, or at least its individual mandate, the justices (especially Justice Kennedy, who will likely be the pivotal vote) will also take note of whether structures and reliance have been built up around it.
In fact, in granting the government a stay of his ruling holding Obamacare unconstitutional, Judge Vinson pointed out that the plaintiff’s motion to deny the stay “is undercut by the fact that at least eight of the plaintiff states . . . have represented that they will continue to implement and fully comply with the Act’s requirements . . . irrespective of my ruling.”
This is why the Obama administration has opposed expedited review of the court rulings on the bill’s constitutionality. Time is on Obamacare’s side.
The Republican leadership will undoubtedly claim that the CR is a good deal, because it cuts another $6 billion in spending in exchange for keeping the government open for another three weeks. This keeps Republicans on track toward their goal of trimming this year’s $3.46 trillion federal budget by $61 billion. It boldly defunds the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and the Labor Department’s Career Pathways Innovation Fund.
But Obamacare is not just another bill. It fundamentally alters not just the U.S. health-care system but the entire relationship between the government and the American people. Should we really celebrate a Congress that kills the Lincoln Bicentennial but preserves Obamacare?
If Republicans don’t stand up this time, when will they?
Maybe neither the Republicans nor the Supreme Court will kill Obamacare, but economics will kill it because it will be massively expensive and the money just isn't there. I look for bankruptcy and a Soviet-style collapse shortly after the implementation of Obamacare.
Republican leadership has expressed more allegiance to house rules than to the people who gave them the majority in November. If their rules remain more important to them than trying to undo the work of the most lawless congress in recent history then we will look for more new faces in 2012.
It's now clear that the Republicans in Congress are still acting under the same mindset that cost them the senate, house, and probably the Whitehouse in 2008. There just aren't enough conservatives in Congress with understanding of how close the country is to collapse. Or ones with enough courage to face the realities. So far, the Republicans in Wisconsin are holding out. It will be interesting to see if the recall efforts of the Democrats against the 8 GOP senators are successful. If so, expect the Republicans in Congress to fold like a cheap card table.
First of all we are a great country, and part of that greatness lies in what our government has done for our people. That's right, I said "our government". This is not some strange corporation that has bought the right to govern. They were elected by us, and therefore represent us: all of us. If we do not have a healthcare plan, we are doomed. That is what is going to kill us economically. If we do not get control over healthcare costs, IT WILL KILL US. Without government plans like Medicare and Medicaid, those less fortunate would have to get their care from the ER. Talk about a waste of resources. Wake up people. The Healthcare Reform Act is not perfect, but it is a start. I know, because I work in the healthcare industry.
I can't even begin to express my disdain for John Boehner and the rest of house "leadership". I honestly believe they have no desire to defund Obamacare and simply want to keep this around as an issue for 2012.
What Boehner & Co. don't seem to understand is many of us are paying attention and will remember that much of the blame for Obamacare being alive & well lays squarely at THEIR feet.
I find it amazing that no one knew this thing was already funded. I READ the bill. Did they not read it? Apparently, that crazy Pelosi was right when she said they'd have to pass it to find out what was IN it. They should have READ it! Then, they'd have had previous fuel for their fire. Now, it seems they just have empty extinguishers. Socialism is coming people. All you have to do is read Animal Farm like most high schoolers to see the similarities.
The Republican elites like Boehner, Cantor, Rogers, McCain, McConnell and many others don't want to defund Obamacare. They like big government. They just think they could run it better. Obviously the period from 2000 - 2006 proved even that concept wrong.
We need to get ready for 2012 when we can purge a bunch more of the Republican elites, knock off a lot more Democrats including Obama and get on with true limited government.
In '08 election cycle I had completely lost faith in the GOP.
The TEA party lighting a fire under their butts and the many proclamations of "We learned our lesson" from GOP leaders gave me hope.
As I watch nothing of substance to save this contry happen month after month I see now that my hope was misplaced.
Clearly the GOP has NOT learned their lesson. The give every appearance of still being "socialist light". Perhaps more accurately the party of roll over and take it.
If we don't have more and more GOVERNMENT control over health care, let alone the insurance to pay for it, we're doomed, you say?
No - what dooms us is the mentality among so many in our society that, without the misplaced and all too often DETRIMENTAL benevolence and compassion of those who thirst for power over us all, we'd be doomed.
It shocks my conscience that any free citizen could deem himself doomed without the long-veritable inefficient and counterproductive intrusions by our government into such a complex and important industry - insurance - that the meddlers and their supporters don't even begin to understand.
We know they don't understand it because they are incapable, 60 years out, to discern that the costs of health care and the risk-hedging financial vehicle to pay for it have been sky-rocketing as a direct result of such intrusions. So, they consider us all doomed without more of the same counterproductive measures.
Without Medicaid and Medicare, the less fortunate could have been given access to a program that increases their choice of doctors and increases their control over whom they see for treatment of what ails them, and have some incentive to assist in lowering the costs of their own treatment. Like an HSA or some of the plethora of other financing vehicles that could have been implemented in the arena of health insurance.
Doctors who even accept Medicare and Medicaid are rapidly on the decline, especially now after Obamacare was passed. So giving people access to a steadily declining array of treatment professionals MAY KILL THESE PEOPLE!
Don - was that hyperbolic enough? It suffices to say your notions of compassion are totally "upside down" and "inside out", to quote some Grateful Dead lyrics for you. They're from a tune titled "Passenger", and well, BOY are you along for a heck of a snow-job ride perpetrated by the "regressive" leftists.
Moreover, people on Medicaid and Medicare have had these alternative vehicles for their insurance forestalled by misguided folks like Don for SO LONG that the problem has gotten so much bigger, and now these alternatives are harder to install.
Thanks, Don, for your: (i) hyperbole; (ii) misguided and harmful form of compassion; (iii) arrogance and juvenility to tell people to wake up by virtue of disagreeing with you.
MY advice to YOU? Quit hitting snooze! You may be awake, but obviously that's an irrelevant distinction. Do a little independent thinking before you peddle your sidewalk conventional wisdom HERE, of ALL places!
You get no benefit of doubt for your intentions, Don. The government has been making the markets of insurance and health care so much worse for so long, it MUST be your intention to continue that trend!
I hope I routinely make myself clear on the fact that people do their arguments no favors by leading so hard with their chin in condescension of their detractors.
Once engaged in that infantile manner and tone, however, I have no qualms whatsoever about shoving feet into oral orifices.
The Republicans do not control the Senate or the Presidency. How is the delay the fault of the Republicans? The real test of ObamaCare (aside from the legal challenge) is the next election.
Each of these CRs have FUNDED the IMPLEMENTATION of OBoehnerCare. That is not what we heard was the plan leading to the election of the 112th.
Dems and GOP leadership dangle a $4, $6, or $100 billion in cuts in front of the TParty Frosh, and the chase it around like it will wipe out the deficit this year.
If CRs are the needed knife for cuts, a good friend of mine suggested we send one to the senate that fully funds everything for the rest of 2011, but de-funds OBoehnerCare fully. Let's frame a government shutdown in THAT light!
Unfortunately, the only way to repeal Obamacare is for the Republicans to refuse to raise the federal debt ceiling, and/or to refuse to pass another continuing resolution, unless Obama and the Democrats agree to a repeal.
As someone who works in an I/T department that directly supports a health-coverage payment system, I can assert UNEQUIVOCABLY that Obummercare goes excruciatingly beyond being a mere bureaucratic intrusion.
Rather, at its core, it is a smothering, ruthless, and imperious governmental power-and-information grab.
If it is not overturned or repealed, what was once a vibrant US economy will be reduced to a dull vessel of rulers and slaves.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the Republican base's distrust of the current Republican leadership is justified. The same bums that were in office and misbehaved in 2006 are in office and misbehaving in 2011. They cannot learn and they cannot be trusted. They are all cowardly RINO's. They must be primaried and thrown out of office in 2012.
The Republicans are still laughably obsessed about the new health care law, yet the CBO releases a report saying that its repeal would actually cost MORE than keeping its provisions. So what are you all really arguing for? Is it: (1) lessening the national debt? If so, isn't it a giant waste of time playing this FY 2011 budget game to get a paltry $60 billion dollars out of non-defense discretionary funding that accounts for 12 percent of the federal budget!? Or, (2) do you still prefer to read the Republican party's talking points about how "Obamacare" is going to take control of our lives. Obamacare has NOTHING to do with funding the federal government for the current FY. Republicans lost that fight, get over it!
