Posted on 11/07/2010 1:33:15 PM PST by upchuck
There have been several articles here on FR and elsewhere espousing the legislative repeal of ObamaCare. Now that the Republicans will have a majority in the House come January, this idea has some appeal. However we all know that nobama will veto any attempt to repeal, or even modify, his "signature legislation." And that we won't have the votes to override.
There is another way however. Dr. Henry Aaron explains this method in the New England Journal of Medicine. I have excerpted the essence here. The bolding is mine:
Customarily, substantive legislation authorizes spending, but the funds to be spent must be separately appropriated. The ACA (ObamaCare) contains 64 specific authorizations to spend up to $105.6 billion and 51 general authorizations to spend such sums as are necessary over the period between 2010 and 2019. None of these funds will flow, however, unless Congress enacts specific appropriation bills.
In addition, section 1005 of the ACA appropriated $1 billion to support the cost of implementation in the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). This sum is a small fraction of the $5 billion to $10 billion that the Congressional Budget Office estimates the federal government will require between 2010 and 2019 to implement the ACA.
The ACA appropriated nothing for the Internal Revenue Service, which must collect the information needed to compute subsidies and pay them. The ACA also provides unlimited funding for grants to states to support the creation of health insurance exchanges (section 1311). But states will also incur substantially increased administrative costs to enroll millions of newly eligible Medicaid beneficiaries. Without large additional appropriations, implementation will be crippled.
Thus Congress (specifically, the House) can just sit on its hands and watch ObamaCare wither on the vine. What could be easier?
Here's the link to Dr. Arron's article (.pdf). This excerpt begins on page 1686.
The de-fund (not appropriating funding) approach can be done in conjunction with the symbolic repeal approach. In fact, it is the constitutional responsibility of each house member to not appropriate funds for an unconstitutional law.
The de-fund approach must be accompanied by vigorous oversight hearings of all important aspects of 0bamacare. We must examine privacy concerns with electronic medical records, rationing boards, physician penalties for non-compliance with rationing, IRS enforcement rules with detailed information on fines and penalties for non-compliance of mandates, cost analysis of subsidies for exchanges and ramifications of people taking the penalty (instead of buying insurance) as they do in MA right now.
Get Berwick and Sebelius up there ASAP and ask TOUGH really TOUGH questions! (if they don’t go, even more reason to de-fund) The Kagan SCOTUS hearings were way too soft, and I expect and demand that the House members will be sharp and incisive in their questioning. We will also need some good experts on our side to critique 0bamacare when the Marxists have their turn at questioning (someone like Dr. Janda?).
Once we have some good videos of these hearings, they will go viral (that will be our job). The MSM will no longer be able to write the narrative of government shutdown like they did in 1995 with Newt vs Clinton.
“That could be a complex business. But if any of the current departments or agencies use any of THEIR funding to implement it in any way, then they should be defunded, too, as much as necessary. The prospect of losing their funding should make any agency hesitate to act on implementation.”
Agreed. But our pitch can be: “Defunding just postpones the Obamacare decision, which was done precipitously and with strange procedural trickery. The American people should take a breath and just wait for two years. Maybe their congressmen will have read the bill by 2012. The American people should be able to decide in 2012 whether to repeal it or not. In the meantime, defunding just puts things on hold so the American people can decide in two years.”
That’s a softer line that’s harder to attack than defunding. And, it makes the rats run on Obamacare AGAIN in 2012. That’s the last thing they want to do.
So far during this administration the FBI has proven themselves to be virtually useless in matters that involve Obama.
I understand that, but where’s the check and balance on Congress when it comes to them paying themselves? When my business slowed down, I had to take a pay cut; the same should happen to them when the economy fares badly.
The down side to just "sitting on its hands" is that the bilthy fastards on the other side might get back into control. At the earliest opportunity this piece of trash needs to be eliminated.
Exactly! The RINOs in Congress will argue against killing it by giving excuses. Repeal it. Get the Senators who oppose the repeal on record. Let Obama veto it. Use it against the Dims in 2012.
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