Free Republic

Top Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Washington, is walking back comments attributed to her that Obamacare can't be repealed. But she's not the only one suggesting that the goal should be making changes within the framework of the health law. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, says the goal is to get the law "fixed." Apparently, a lot of Republican lawmakers still haven't read the law. If they had, they'd know the framework is corrupt. Even presidential hopeful Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, speculated on Friday that repeal is unlikely, because it will be "difficult to turn the clock back." Nonsense....

 I am very disappointed to learn that some Tea Party Activists are now promoting Representative Jim Bridenstine’s H.J.RES. 104 as a way to “repeal the 16th Amendment and abolish the income tax”.  Additionally, donations are being asked to support this movement.  The problem is, if H.J.RES. 104 was adopted and its proposed wording added to our Constitution, the 16th Amendment would indeed be repealed, but Congress would continue to have power to lay and collect taxes calculated from profits, gains, and other “incomes”. The important wording in Representative Jim Bridenstine’s proposed amendment declares:`Effective 2 years after the ratification of this article...

Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Paul Ryan are collaborating on an Obamacare alternative and could announce the proposal as early as this month, according to Republican sources. Both Republicans have been regularly engaged in pushing legislation on major issues — and both have made it a habit to form cross-chamber partnerships to further those endeavors. But this particular partnership is notable given the high-profile nature of health care reform and that Rubio, Florida's junior senator, and Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman from Wisconsin, are both considered possible contenders for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. Aides to Rubio and...

For Senate Democrats running this year in Republican-leaning states, their struggle with how to deal with Obamacare's unpopularity left them biting their nails a bit harder after President Obama announced Tuesday that the health care law hit its 7 million enrollment goal. While the White House continues touting the benefits of the law, polls consistently show more Americans disapprove of Obamacare -- a disconnect that's not helping as Democrats try to fire up voters in their effort to fend off a potential Republican takeover of the Senate. But at a time when the economy is overwhelmingly viewed as the most...

It has become a truism that House Republicans have voted dozens and dozens of times -- at least 50 in all -- to repeal Obamacare. They have been obsessed with repealing the Affordable Care Act, President Obama told a Democratic National Committee meeting in Washington last month. You know what they say: 50th time is the charm. Maybe when you hit your 50th repeal vote, you will win a prize. Maybe if you buy 50 repeal votes, you get one free. We get it. For more than a year, Democrats and their advocates in the press have been ridiculing the...

President Obama repeatedly promised Obamacare would reduce insurance premiums by $2,500 per year. He made this promise at least 22 times. Today Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius admitted health insurance rates will increase under Obamacare. The Daily Mail reported: Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told House Ways and Means Committee members on Wednesday that she expects health insurance rates to increase as the Affordable Care Act takes full effect.

The American people realize that Obamacare is a very bad policy. But more and more conservatives agree that we need to offer a solid alternative before voters reject Obamacare root and branch. Recently, three prominent Republican senators — Richard Burr (N.C.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), and Orrin Hatch (Utah) — unveiled an alternative proposal. In this article, I would like to outline my own. The proposal I suggest would achieve four remarkable things: It would be more progressive than Obamacare, because it would involve more distribution from higher- to lower-income households. It would provide genuine protection for people who have a...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Sunday that Republicans will repeal the controversial healthcare law after President Obama leaves office in 2017. Cruz became of the face of an unsuccessful effort to eliminate the healthcare law last year that resulted in a government shutdown. Most Republicans backed off the repeal-or-shutdown position after sustaining political damage during the two-week standoff in October, but Cruz promised on Sunday during an appearance on ABC News’s “This Week” to continue trying to get rid of Obamacare during the remainder of the president’s term. “I’ll give you one scenario where it could [be repealed before Obama...

**SNIP** “The House Republican agenda feels like déjà vu all over again. As if the first 49 votes were not enough to satisfy the Republican fixation on undoing health reform, the Republican leadership is prepared to make yet another attempt – their 50th try – to repeal or undermine the Affordable Care Act. Americans deserve better. “On the same day that Republicans gathered to discuss an alternative to the health care law, five years later, the proponents of repeal still can’t help themselves. This latest Republican proposal would drive up premiums for millions of Americans. All the while, Republicans ignore...

Secretary of State John Kerry demanded Monday that Uganda “repeal” its new anti-gay law and warned that the State Department has begun a “review” of U.S. assistance to the impoverished East African nation. “This is a tragic day for Uganda and for all who care about the cause of human rights,” Kerry said in a statement. “Ultimately, the only answer is repeal of this law.” President Yoweri Museveni signed into law on Monday legislation enacting tough prison sentences for homosexual acts, which were already illegal in Uganda. Kerry threatened to cut the more than $400 million the country receives in...

A first Democratic senator has indicated he thinks it might be time to scrap Obamacare. While legislators should work to fix the law in the meantime, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia told Beckley’s Register Herald that he would support getting rid of the law entirely. “I will vote tomorrow to repeal [the Affordable Care Act], but I want to fix the problems in it,” Manchin told an audience. He described the law as a product that the government has failed to “sell.” Manchin made similar comments in November when he said Obamacare was “more than a rollout problem —...

What is the GOP’s health care plan? For years, this has been the rejoinder from supporters of Obamacare whenever asked to confront the flaws in their own legislation. It was an attack line, but also a question worth asking: For the last five years, Republicans have spent plenty of time bashing the president’s health law, but far less time describing what they would do instead. A new proposal from Republican Sens. Coburn (Okla.), Burr (N.C.), and Hatch (Utah) represents a tentative attempt to respond substantively to the question. It’s called The Patient Choice, Affordability, Responsibility, and Empowerment (CARE) Act, and...

The OPTION Act is a bold health care plan. Authored Congressman Paul Broun, M.D. (R-GA), the "Offering Patients True Individualized Options Now Act of 2013" - H.R. 2900 - is an exciting 77-page proposal to repeal Obamacare and change the entire landscape of American health care. It would reintroduce freedom. The OPTION Act eliminates Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program --- and the entire Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Yes. All gone. In its place is private coverage and provisions to encourage and expand private charity. As Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians...

**SNIP** During an appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Dean argued that the key premise of needing younger Americans signing up to make the program viable “doesn’t really matter that much.” “This is about the individual mandate,” he said. “The individual mandate was not necessary and it’s probably a big political thing, and that is going to hurt the Democrats because people don’t like to be told what to do by the government no matter what party they’re in.” The remarks by Dean are significant because of his position as former DNC chairman, as well as his being a doctor. Dean...

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...

Obamacare as written is already gone, dismantled by its namesake. Obamacare itself has not, strictly speaking, collapsed of its own weight. Rather, it has been changed from its original, unworkable form first by Chief Justice John Roberts and then by the president into some new, unworkable mishmash. Obamacare per se is already gone. The question remains whether the law in some form will remain or whether the 2016 contest will be about what sort of plan replaces Obamacare. The latter is the odds-on favorite. David Brooks on “Meet the Press” yesterday predicted (correctly, in my view) further undoing of the...

WASHINGTON -- Repealing the Affordable Care Act would raise costs and strip protections for families across the United States, a White House report released Thursday said. The report, aimed at congressional Republicans wanting to repeal the law, colloquially known as Obamacare, said millions of Americans are benefiting from the reforms by seeing lower healthcare costs, new protections and expanded access to quality care at an affordable cost. "The president and supporters of reform are committed to helping ordinary Americans and businesses take advantage of the benefits of the health care law," the White House said when releasing the report.

Americans remain unhappy with the health care law: Majorities say they wish it had never passed, would vote to repeal it if they could, and think implementation should be delayed until the kinks are worked out. At the same time, a shrinking majority believes the law will survive. That’s according to a year-end Fox News poll released Wednesday. **SNIP** Those favoring a delay also now include a majority of Democrats: 54 percent support delaying implementation. That’s up 10 points from 44 percent last month.

A majority of people in the United States say they want ObamaCare to be scaled back or repealed altogether. According to a Gallup poll released Friday, 20 percent support a scale-back of the law, while 32 percent back efforts to repeal it. That's just a little more than in mid-October, when 50 percent told Gallup the law should be scaled-back or repealed. The relatively small change could be viewed as good news at the White House given the difficult last six weeks for the law. A faulty website rolled out on Oct. 1 made enrolling in the exchanges problematic, but...

**SNIP** Yet now it’s the president and his Democratic allies who want to delay, indefinitely, key parts of this law. If the Democrats get their way, we have to wonder: What’s the difference between repealing the law and not implementing it? In July, the administration put off the employer mandate for a year. A few weeks ago, the president said insurance companies could hold off canceling their old policies. And now he’s pushed back next year’s enrollment period so that it will run from November 15, 2014, to January 15, 2015. Not only does this extend the time on the...