I been working on my golf game every day over the holiday.
Posted on 12/24/2013 7:17:20 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Last July, after President Obama unilaterally delayed the Obamacare employer mandate for a year, House Republicans asked why the break should apply only to businesses. Why shouldn't individuals be relieved of the burden, too?
So the House voted, 251 to 174, to delay the individual mandate. Twenty-two Democrats joined Republicans in voting for delay. A total of 174 Democrats voted to keep the mandate as is.
Of course the move went nowhere in the Democratic-controlled Senate. But that was before Obamacare implementation began Oct. 1. It was before the canceled policies, the higher premiums, the higher deductibles, and narrower doctor networks that have come to define Obamacare for millions of Americans.
In light of that, it seems possible that in recent months some House Democrats might have changed their minds on the individual mandate. After all, in the Senate, six Democrats last week asked the Department of Health and Human Services to delay the mandate for people whose policies had been canceled. It was a focused "hardship exemption," but when the administration agreed, it became the first hole in the individual mandate. It seems likely there will be more.
That should be a message to House Republicans: It's time to take another vote on the individual mandate. Would those 174 Democrats who stood firmly behind the mandate in July still be there now? Or will the 22 who voted to delay the mandate be joined by more who are worried by what they've seen since October?
If House Republicans want to highlight Democratic nervousness about Obamacare, focusing on the individual mandate is a good way to do it.
The coercive, unwanted mandate is by far the most unpopular feature of the law. When the New York Times recently asked, "Do you approve or disapprove of the part in the 2010 health care law requiring nearly all Americans to have health insurance coverage by 2014 or pay a penalty?" a full 68 percent said they disapproved, while just 31 percent approved.
When the Times polled only those Americans without health insurance — the group supposed to benefit most from Obamacare — 77 percent disapproved of the individual mandate, while just 21 percent approved.
So almost nobody likes it. But here's the thing: The individual mandate is the heart of Obamacare. From the president on down, administration officials believe that without the mandate, the system won't work. So the one thing the public hates most is the one thing Obamacare can't do without. For many Democrats, voting against the mandate, even delaying the mandate, is tantamount to repealing Obamacare altogether. They can't do it, no matter what the voters think.
That's a political problem for Democrats and an opportunity for Republicans. In a private exchange not long after the implementation fiasco began, a senior House aide said GOP strategy is to "separate Obama from Congressional Democrats" on the issue of Obamacare. One way to do that is for the GOP to use its control of the House to force Democrats, all of whom face re-election next November, to re-affirm their support of the mandate.
More than 50 Democrats have arrived in the House since March 2010, when Obamacare became law. Fifteen Democrats have come to the Senate since that time. Will their devotion to a law they didn't pass be as strong as that of more senior Democrats, who fought the original Obamacare battles?
There has been some discussion among Republicans about tying an individual mandate delay to a proposal to raise the nation's debt limit. That would be a perfect way to distract attention away from the mandate and to Republicans themselves. Democrats would angrily vow that they would not stand for bringing the nation to the edge of default. The mandate issue would get lost in the fighting.
A clean vote on the individual mandate would be infinitely more effective for Republicans. That's not to say it would succeed. Of course, many House Democrats will still vote against delay, and Senate Democrats will kill it.
But Republicans held dozens and dozens of votes on Obamacare in years past when the public had little idea what was at stake. Republicans warned that Obamacare would be a disaster, but voters didn't know what was coming. Now, they do. Maybe it's time for the House to start voting again.
Too late. They’ve figured out how to cash in also.
Byron York sets out a good case.
Not a chance of stopping the communists move on America. Even the Stock Market approves.
I want all those obots who love Barry to feel the pain. The GOP needs to let the fining er taxing begin. Anybody with a brain won’t pay it anyway. The whole plan is going to die this next few mos. Let the AMerican people understand just how bad this stuff is.
There is no GOP any more.
It’s not pinin’! It’s passed on! The GOP is no more! It has ceased to be! It’s expired and gone to meet its maker! It’s a stiff! Bereft of life, It rests in the depths of RINO hell! Its metabolic processes are now ‘istory! It’s off the twig! It’s kicked the bucket, it’s shuffled off ‘is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-PARTY!!
Apologies to the writers of Monty Python.
There is "We the People!"
We write and call and demand. A lot of these politicians are up for reelection and many others didn't vote for this.
No? Ask around a little bit. You'll find someone.
The PTB are uh, "All In".
Either repeal it, or enforce it as it was passed. Right now.
"...let it begin here."
no way- let the dems own it now
They shut down the government over our attempts to do exactly this ~!
Why would we let them now that it is apparent it is going to be as big a failure as we said.
“WE TOLD YOU SO” should be the theme every day from now until the next election. It’s an easy sell since everyone KNOWS the dems lied now. (unless the idiot party lets everyone forget and start blaming the GOP)
The Federalist No. 57
The Alleged Tendency of the New Plan to Elevate the Few at the Expense of the Many Considered in Connection with Representation
New York Packet
Tuesday, February 19, 1788
[James Madison]To the People of the State of New York:
THE third charge against the House of Representatives is, that it will be taken from that class of citizens which will have least sympathy with the mass of the people, and be most likely to aim at an ambitious sacrifice of the many to the aggrandizement of the few.
Of all the objections which have been framed against the federal Constitution, this is perhaps the most extraordinary. Whilst the objection itself is levelled against a pretended oligarchy, the principle of it strikes at the very root of republican government.
The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust. The elective mode of obtaining rulers is the characteristic policy of republican government. The means relied on in this form of government for preventing their degeneracy are numerous and various. The most effectual one, is such a limitation of the term of appointments as will maintain a proper responsibility to the people.
Let me now ask what circumstance there is in the constitution of the House of Representatives that violates the principles of republican government, or favors the elevation of the few on the ruins of the many? Let me ask whether every circumstance is not, on the contrary, strictly conformable to these principles, and scrupulously impartial to the rights and pretensions of every class and description of citizens?
Who are to be the electors of the federal representatives? Not the rich, more than the poor; not the learned, more than the ignorant; not the haughty heirs of distinguished names, more than the humble sons of obscurity and unpropitious fortune. The electors are to be the great body of the people of the United States. They are to be the same who exercise the right in every State of electing the corresponding branch of the legislature of the State.
Who are to be the objects of popular choice? Every citizen whose merit may recommend him to the esteem and confidence of his country. No qualification of wealth, of birth, of religious faith, or of civil profession is permitted to fetter the judgement or disappoint the inclination of the people.
If we consider the situation of the men on whom the free suffrages of their fellow-citizens may confer the representative trust, we shall find it involving every security which can be devised or desired for their fidelity to their constituents.
In the first place, as they will have been distinguished by the preference of their fellow-citizens, we are to presume that in general they will be somewhat distinguished also by those qualities which entitle them to it, and which promise a sincere and scrupulous regard to the nature of their engagements.
In the second place, they will enter into the public service under circumstances which cannot fail to produce a temporary affection at least to their constituents. There is in every breast a sensibility to marks of honor, of favor, of esteem, and of confidence, which, apart from all considerations of interest, is some pledge for grateful and benevolent returns. Ingratitude is a common topic of declamation against human nature; and it must be confessed that instances of it are but too frequent and flagrant, both in public and in private life. But the universal and extreme indignation which it inspires is itself a proof of the energy and prevalence of the contrary sentiment.
In the third place, those ties which bind the representative to his constituents are strengthened by motives of a more selfish nature. His pride and vanity attach him to a form of government which favors his pretensions and gives him a share in its honors and distinctions. Whatever hopes or projects might be entertained by a few aspiring characters, it must generally happen that a great proportion of the men deriving their advancement from their influence with the people, would have more to hope from a preservation of the favor, than from innovations in the government subversive of the authority of the people.
All these securities, however, would be found very insufficient without the restraint of frequent elections. Hence, in the fourth place, the House of Representatives is so constituted as to support in the members an habitual recollection of their dependence on the people. Before the sentiments impressed on their minds by the mode of their elevation can be effaced by the exercise of power, they will be compelled to anticipate the moment when their power is to cease, when their exercise of it is to be reviewed, and when they must descend to the level from which they were raised; there forever to remain unless a faithful discharge of their trust shall have established their title to a renewal of it.
I will add, as a fifth circumstance in the situation of the House of Representatives, restraining them from oppressive measures, that they can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as on the great mass of the society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interests and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny. If it be asked, what is to restrain the House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society? I answer: the genius of the whole system; the nature of just and constitutional laws; and above all, the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of America -- a spirit which nourishes freedom, and in return is nourished by it.
If this spirit shall ever be so far debased as to tolerate a law not obligatory on the legislature, as well as on the people, the people will be prepared to tolerate any thing but liberty.
Such will be the relation between the House of Representatives and their constituents. Duty, gratitude, interest, ambition itself, are the chords by which they will be bound to fidelity and sympathy with the great mass of the people. It is possible that these may all be insufficient to control the caprice and wickedness of man. But are they not all that government will admit, and that human prudence can devise? Are they not the genuine and the characteristic means by which republican government provides for the liberty and happiness of the people? Are they not the identical means on which every State government in the Union relies for the attainment of these important ends? What then are we to understand by the objection which this paper has combated? What are we to say to the men who profess the most flaming zeal for republican government, yet boldly impeach the fundamental principle of it; who pretend to be champions for the right and the capacity of the people to choose their own rulers, yet maintain that they will prefer those only who will immediately and infallibly betray the trust committed to them?
(End of excerpt from #57)
The Whig party will continue to do as it’s told.
Unfortunately, stating another vote on this allows the amoral scalawag Democrats who voted for this thing without reading in the first place an opportunity to vote against it now and provide them with cover.
Unacceptable. The Democrats who voted this thing into being should have to face the voters on this earth. Judgment Day is not soon enough for them to face the results of their actions and votes.
Obama & Co. refused reason before, they will reject it again.
Obamacare will be a continuing disaster, just what Americans need to resoundingly call for repeal. Until the horror stories of bankrupt families & dead relatives are firmly implanted in the head of even the dumbest Obama supporter, it will never be repealed.
Bad experiences make good lessons.
I been working on my golf game every day over the holiday.
Let them keep piling up on Hairy Weeds desk
You meddle with it, you own it.
I think the mandate should be left in place. America needs to bleed before this monstrosity is repealed. Fixing just the parts that hurt prolong the agony.
In any event, York is naive. The money lost from no-mandate will end up being paid by the taxpayers or Janet Yellen, with her magic money printing button.
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