Wouldn’t pushing back the Individual Mandate only play into the Democrats hand for next years elections?
Voters need to know the pain of this thing before they will understand it.
“Voters need to know the pain of this thing before they will understand it.”
YES! Let the Dems sweat the next couple years. In the end they will be the ones who will kill this bill.
Yes, it would. Even as currently written, a lot of the low information voters aren't going to realize it until they file their 2014 taxes in 2015, and find they are being hit with a penalty.
However, the penalty is only $95 per person or 1% of taxable income (whichever is larger) in 2014. In 2015, it's $325 or 2%, and in 2016 it is $695 or 2.5%. There will be a "cost of living" increase every year after that. If you have dependents, you'll have to pay these penalties for up to 2 dependents, in addition to yourself.
So, the penalties won't be obvious in 2014. But, by 2016, people will have had to get insurance in 2015, or pay 2% of their income in penalties in April, 2016. Someone with an entry level job paying $30,000/year with no benefits will have to pay a fine of $600. A single mother earning $30,000 with two kids will have to pay $1800. There may be some subsidies that reduce the Obamacare premiums and make a "bronze" healthcare plan more affordable to than the penalty. But, there are still income levels where the penalty is less expensive.
This is when the rubber hits the road. The GOP's endgame should be to force the Democrats to defend Obamacare, and own it. When people start to really see what it has done to their existing health insurance, how much the "exchange" policies cost, and how much they will be fined for non-compliance, the GOP will have the opportunity to promise to end Obamacare, and sweep the House, Senate, and Oval Office. But, they had better be ready with a viable alternative, and then enact it.
Voters need to know the pain of this thing before they will understand it.
Cruz's argument is that, once an entitlement goes into effect, it's impossible to repeal. And Zero has decided illegally to go ahead and cough up the law's means-tested benefits without the means to test the means of the recipients (the computers supposedly aren't ready — so Zero's law will be on the honor system).
If the House blinks and shortly passes a clean CR, then implementation proceeds as planned, and we get to see a year from November whether you or Cruz was right.
If instead, there is an impasse, and the government shuts down, then ObamaCare is partially defunded. Absence of a CR only stops discretionary spending, and then only non-essential discretionary spending. E.g., air traffic control still happens. To defund ObamaCare completely would would require passing the current CR through the Senate and getting Zero to sign it (or passing it in both houses with two thirds).
If there is a shutdown, there is the danger Zero will try to go forward with ObamaCare anyway by juggling accounts, deeming it essential, and other shenanigans. Then you would have the program limping along, with Zero and the MSM blaming the shutdown for the train wreck symptoms. What does the GOP do then? Go to court? Impeach him? (Paradox, there — you need two thirds of the Senate for that.)