Posted on 02/10/2011 9:35:55 AM PST by Kaslin
The egg that is the president’s health care reform legislation is starting to crack.
A court has ruled the bill unconstitutional. The Senate has moved to repeal by a huge margin the onerous paperwork nightmare the bill imposes on small businesses. More significantly, a select group of Democrat senators are looking for ways to legislatively roll back the individual mandate provisions of the law -- undermining key partisan unity that is keeping the law in place.
Sens. Jon Tester (Mont.), Joe Manchin (W.V.), Claire McCaskill (Mo.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.) (aka the “vulnerable caucus”) -- all of whom are up for tough re-election battles in 2012 and who represent states Obama lost in 2008 -- are poised to give Republicans the votes necessary to decimate a major provision of the legislation.
Republicans are at a critical strategic juncture. Repeal of the individual mandate is like breaking a leg of a three-legged stool -- the chair will topple.
Facing the reality that outright repeal is not possible in the Senate this year, Republicans should begin breaking the bill up, forcing critical votes on its most unpopular provisions. The Senate vote on repealing the onerous 1099 provision on small businesses found 17 Democrats willing to defend the provision. Other provisions are harder to support.
It’s a strategy that has succeeded before. In 2000, Republicans tried to pass a major tax-cut bill to send to the president but had trouble getting it out of the House, due to unified Democrat opposition. Democrats railed against “tax cuts for the rich” and held together on the big package. Instead, the Republican leadership broke up the provisions of the bill and brought them to the floor individually.
Each provision passed with large number of Democrat votes -- the same provisions Democrats had voted against in the larger context. The time has come to do the same with health care.
Start with the individual mandate. Then move on to rationing.
The effort to “reduce the cost of health care” means that seniors and the sick will face rationing of key drugs and treatments. It’s already happening with a breast-cancer drug named Avastin -- and all because of cost. Thousands of women rely on Avastin, but if the FDA “de-labels” it, as it is proposing, insurance and Medicare will no longer cover it -- which means patients who take it will be denied treatment (unless they’re wealthy and can buy it themselves out of pocket). Congress should act quickly to ensure that breast-cancer patients don’t see this drug rationed.
Republicans will soon seek to defund the legislation, another bold stroke. Defunding the legislation may keep some of the provisions intact -- such as the ban on using pre-existing conditions to bar coverage -- but it will save the taxpayers nearly half a trillion dollars. In an era of massive deficits and debt, this moves us one step closer to balancing our budget.
The tax increases in the health care bill would be next. The specious claim that ObamaCare reduces the deficit rests upon the $770 billion in tax increases contained in the legislation. The opponents of the “vulnerable caucus” would love to have an up-or-down vote on $770 billion in tax hikes.
The list is endless. Forcing critical and timely votes on these provisions will help create a snowball effect, adding further pressure to the repeal movement. It may come in one fell swoop, or it may come in pieces. Either way, though, the cracks are showing.
Bookmark
Excellent. I needed some good news this morning.
The waivers alone are a huge “crack” in the egg.
It is about time they did something about this ATTACK upon American freedom and rights. January of 2013 cannot come fast enough.
Repeal would be a blackeye for Obama, damage his re-election bid, save our healthcare system and help the economy. It’s a win/win; there is no downside.
Well of course it is. It's just one more liberal wet dream and as such will follow the path of all of them. Liberals have absolutely no concern for the details of making something work whatsoever. They love to meet and plan. They love to come up with legislation based on their Utopian beliefs and designed to reward their supporters.
The entire Obamacare bill had absolutely no chance of working as planned or discussed. Hell, half of what's in the bill as passed is different from what they said it would be and the other half is stuff that was kept hush-hush as the legislation was rushed through by any political trick, dirty or otherwise, they could come up with through Christmas Eve. Remember “You'll have to pass the plan to learn what's in it?”
Obamacare is a perfect example of what has become of our legislative process in America. The political has come under the control of those whose self-interest far out paces their concern for their constituents or their oaths of office. It's taken almost 50 years, but union influence in the process, topped off by the advent of public employee unions who use their money and control to assure the election of legislators who will support the union's goals.
I'm going to file this one under "Things I Wish I'd Said..."
This is great news.
End it, don’t mend it! (as Jackson would say)
End it, don’t mend it!
>>>>
That’s good!
I posted that on November 3, 2010 along with..."Nix it, don't fix it!"
Didn’t their Mommies ever teach them that when something is wrong its wrong, you can spin it, bake, take it for walk and its still wrong...Just admit it, and kill it..
I don’t think it’s good news if they decide to repeal the mandate. Here’s what I posted on another thread about this
Here’s what I am worried is going to happen:
The Republicans have been harping on the individual mandate, and rightly so, as being unconstitutional. Of course we all know that most of the bill is unconstitutional, but that seems to be the one piece that judges agree is problematic. Rather than sit back and allow the courts to have their say, the Republicans have instead begun these symbolic votes to attempt to repeal the law, which of course failed due to the Senate and would have failed anyway because Obama would have vetoed any bill that passed.
Now, what’s next for the Republicans? Well, they keep talking about striking down the provisions that are so heinous. They’ve already given the Democrats cover by allowing them to vote on removing the 1099 provision. Suppose some Democrat introduces a bill that proposes to strike down the individual mandate portion of the law? What happens then? I think there are a large number of Republicans who would sign on, even though it would be very poor strategy to do so. It would probably pass, and Obama would sign it. Then, it would put the courts in a bit of a quandary, because they’d be trying to decide if the mandate is constitutional when a new law striking down the mandate has already been passed. I think that would give the courts an easy out - they could then say that the rest of the law stands on its own now that the mandate is gone. Game, set, match, Obama.
Of course, I think there are constitutional issues with the very concept. Anything that the Congress and President do now that changes any part of Obamacare should be inconsequential. If the bill as it was originally passed doesn’t pass constitutional muster, then any new bill that passes that seeks to change the invalid law should also be invalid, and they should be required to go back and pass a clean bill to start with that doesn’t contain the mandate. I’m not sure if the courts would see it that way, though.
I refer to this provision as the "ban on health insurance."
Never ever underestimate the damage RINO’s can do. If this can be screwed up by the republicans, count on it.
clintonish
The last thing they and we need, is the House Republicans handing the Democrats a stick to beat them with in the next election.
We tend to overlook the fact that the abomination called Obamacare, was created to address what is widely seen to be an actual problem -- the high cost of medical care.
Whatever one's personal opinion on it might be, there's a rather broad political consensus that access to decent and affordable medical care is a "right."
The GOP needs to approach that consensus with respect, and it needs to find plausible ways of dealing with the issues of health care costs without giving away the farm. To be seen as ignoring or dismissing the consensus, will result in punishment at the polls.
Really, though, health care can only be rationally approached in a broader context that accounts for the extremely serious economic difficulties we're currently in. "There's just no money" is a valid argument.
I wonder what the thinking was behind the requirement that EVERY business in the US submit a 1099 for every purchase over $600. Was it just a kneejerk reaction by socialists to try to control everything?
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