Free Republic

For leading Republicans today, the answer is almost certainly yes.  As evidence, allow me to take you back to the fall of 2013. The House GOP, the chamber majority since 2010, had a choice in deciding the fate of the Continuing Appropriations Resolution for the fiscal year of 2014.  They could have simply increased the spending limit and continued funding the government, including Obamacare.  However, this strategy presented a problem in terms of political optics.  Republicans saw their huge victory in the House in 2010 due to popular opposition to Obamacare -- there can be no legitimate argument about that,...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has locked in this week's attempt to repeal Obamacare, by scheduling a vote on Tuesday to start debate on the legislation. "The only way we'll have an opportunity to consider ideas is if senators have an opportunity to offer and debate them and that means kicking off debate, it means voting to proceed," McConnell, R-Ky., said Monday on the Senate floor. "And that will occur tomorrow." The announcement comes as Republicans struggle to garner the 50 GOP votes needed to let them move onto the bill, and as the party debates how to replace Obamacare...

Judicial Watch requested the Trump administration stop members of Congress and their staff from unlawfully purchasing, with taxpayer subsidies, health insurance through the District of Columbia’s small business exchange. ... Because the ACA limits the purchase of insurance on a small business exchange to employees of small businesses – and Congress is not a small business – the ACA unequivocally requires that certain members of Congress and congressional employees purchase insurance on an individual exchange created either by their state of residence (or by the District, if they are a D.C. resident) or by the federal government for that state....

RUSH: Here’s Barbara, Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Glad you waited. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello. CALLER: Hi, Rush. It’s an honor. I’ve been a longtime listener, and we credit you for getting us through the Clinton years here in Arkansas. My husband is a doctor, and I’ve worked in his office in health insurance for years. And insurance companies — I don’t think people are aware of this — but they dictate the fees a doctor or a hospital can charge — RUSH: Oh, they know. They know. They have to go through the insurance company. They know it. CALLER:...

For seven years the Republican Party has promised to repeal Obamacare. For seven years it campaigned for our votes and our support with that promise. And yet, even though it controls Congress and the White House, Obamacare is still the law of the land. As it now stands, the Senate does not have the votes to rid the nation of the scourge to our health care system known as Obamacare. The question is, why? Are the liberal Republicans who control the Senate liars, backstabbers or just incompetent? “Many conservatives are justifiably frustrated with the obstinance of their more liberal colleagues,...

When President Ronald Reagan was asked why he settled for a 5 percent tax cut in 1981 when he had proposed cutting taxes by twice as much, he answered: “Half a loaf is better than none.” That’s advice the Republican Party should heed right now. The Senate’s failure this week to repeal ObamaCare is a bitter disappointment to the 18 million people in the individual market struggling with unaffordable premiums and deductibles. It’s also bad news for another 8 million who are opting to pay hefty penalties rather than buy those unaffordable plans. And things are only getting worse. Health...

President Donald Trump laid into former President Barack Obama on Wednesday in a meeting with Senate Republicans after RINO Leader Mitch McConnell’s failure to repeal the Obamacare debacle. Not pulling any punches, the president reminded Americans of the many lies Obama told to sell Obamacare: “Obamacare was a big lie. ‘You can keep your doctor.’ Lie! ‘You can keep your plan.’ Lie! It was a direct lie from the president. Twenty-eight times he said it — 28 times. It was a lie and he knew it was. And now it is hurting this country irreparably.” {..snip..}

As President Trump reminded both Democrats and their friends in the Democrat Media Complex today, Obamacare was built on a stack of lies. President Trump mentioned two of Obama’s lies, the infamous “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan,” and if “You like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.” Both were lies as millions lost insurance coverage and/or their doctors because of the 2,700-page behemoth that has grown to over 20,000 pages in tyrannical regulations. But another one of Obama’s outright lies he told perhaps more than any other, was the Shamwow promise to lower every...

I think I've found the core problem with health care in America. And guess what? It involves Delta Airlines! A few weeks ago, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow was going on and on about a "single insurance provider" that pays for 49 percent of all births, as well as full health care costs of almost 40 percent of all children in the United States. This single "insurer," Maddow said, was the biggest "health insurance provider in the country by a mile." Maddow was talking about Medicaid, which, of course, is not "insurance" but "welfare." When we're allowed to call things whatever we...

Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) said on Tuesday she cannot support a bill to repeal Obamacare without a replacement, even though she voted to repeal Obamacare in 2015. Repealing Obamacare would fulfill a seven-year long promise Republicans made to the American people. Sen. Capito said in a statement, “My position on this issue is driven by its impact on West Virginians. With that in mind, I cannot vote to repeal Obamacare without a replacement plan that addresses my concerns and the needs of West Virginians.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) says she will not support moving forward with a plan to repeal ObamaCare with a delayed replacement, effectively killing the latest legislative gambit from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). With Murkowski's defection, GOP leaders do not have the votes to move forward to an ObamaCare repeal bill that passed the Senate in 2015, but was vetoed by then-President Obama. Earlier Tuesday, Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) also said they will not support moving to the repeal-only bill. Republicans can only afford two defections if Vice President Pence breaks a tie.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), a leading conservative in the U.S. Senate and driving force on the healthcare debate that has played out this year, told Breitbart News exclusively on Tuesday he is pleased that the U.S. Senate is going to move forward on efforts to pass a clean partial repeal of Obamacare. Paul, one of the four GOP U.S. Senators who publicly opposed the Senate health bill that aimed to simultaneously repeal and replace Obamacare leading to its eventual demise, has been driving debate on healthcare in the U.S. Congress. In the wake of the Senate bill’s ultimate failure on...

After a repeated series of false starts, Senate Republicans are meeting again Wednesday night in an attempt to bring their healthcare bill back from the dead. The renewed attempt comes amid a flurry of mixed signals form leadership and whiplash-inducing shifts from President Donald Trump.

Hoping to avoid a humiliating political defeat, President Trump on Wednesday demanded that Republican senators resume their efforts to approve a plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, insisting that lawmakers are “very close.” A day after the GOP strategy to roll back the ACA appeared dead, Trump invited Republican senators to lunch at the White House and challenged them to work out an agreement even if it means remaining in Washington through their summer recess next month. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had previously announced that the recess would be delayed by two weeks.

President Trump on Wednesday told Republican senators he doesn’t want Congress to leave Washington for the August recess until lawmakers pass a health care bill. “Frankly, I don’t think we should leave town unless we have a health insurance plan, unless we can give our people great health care,” Trump said during a lunch with senators at the White House. “Because we’re close. We’re very close.”  All Republican senators were invited to lunch with the president on Wednesday in the State Dining Room to discuss the stalled efforts to push through health care legislation in Congress.  The Senate Republicans' latest...

A history of why the US is the only rich country without universal health care For now, at least, the health-care fight in the US is over. The Senate bill replacing president Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act has collapsed after two more Republican senators withdrew their support, leaving the ruling party without a majority. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell is proposing to repeal Obamacare entirely, with a two-year delay so his party can negotiate a new bill, but several Republicans oppose that too.That leaves the US with Obamacare, whose signal achievement was to cut by 20 million (pdf) the number...

RUSH: Let’s go to the audio sound bites, ’cause Steny Hoyer is now out. Oh, wait ’til you hear this. This is shaping up so sweet. This is gonna be… Folks, trust me. Right now, this is gonna sound like it’s an absolute disaster, and I’m telling you this is a golden opportunity contained in this. Let’s go in order. This is Trump at the White House working lunching with military members. It looked like it was in the Cabinet Room, but it was during a working lunch with military members. Trump speaking about the effort to repeal and replace...

Health Reform: There were lots of celebrations on the left side of the aisle after the Senate GOP bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare died. The good times will be short lived, because one way or another ObamaCare is going away, and it's not at all clear that Democrats will gain additional leverage over what comes next by waiting for its collapse. It was amusing to hear Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer say, after the Senate bill failed, that Republicans should "work with Democrats on a bill that lowers premiums, provides long-term stability to the markets and improves our health...

WASHINGTON — The seven-year Republican quest to undo the Affordable Care Act appeared to reach a dead end on Tuesday in the Senate, leaving President Trump vowing to let President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement collapse.Mr. Trump declared that his plan was now to “let Obamacare fail,” and suggested that Democrats would then seek out Republicans to work together on a bill to bury the Affordable Care Act. If he is determined to make good on that pledge, he has plenty of levers to pull, from declining to reimburse insurance companies for reducing low-income customers’ out-of-pocket costs to failing to...

The Senate will defer consideration of the GOP healthcare plan that would partially repeal and replace Obamacare until Sen. John McCain returns to work following a procedure to remove a blood clot from above his left eye, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement late Saturday. After wishing him a "speedy recovery," McConnell, R-Ky., added: "While John is recovering, the Senate will continue our work on legislative items and nominations, and will defer consideration of the Better Care Act." About two hours earlier McCain's office revealed that he would be spending a week in his home state of...