Originally published by Digital Communities @ Washington Times
SAN DIEGO, August 2, 2013 — Congressional Republicans plan to hit the Affordable Care Act ( ACA or Obamacare ) head-on by refusing to vote for any new appropriations unless such a bill strikes all funding for ACA. Many of its key features are scheduled to go into effect in 2014.
Leading the charge in the Senate are Utah Senator Mike Lee, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. About a dozen Republican Senators and over 60 members of the House plan to hold the financial operation of government hostage to the abolition of ACA in September. The plan is to fully fund all other important federal programs only under the condition that ACA be completely defunded.
It’s no secret that most Republicans feel total disdain for Obamacare, but a new legal stratagem is being employed this time around. By temporarily delaying implementation of the employer mandate, and the going forward with the individual mandate, Obama has supposedly exceeded his legal authority.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell described the action as part of a pattern of “indifference to the rule of law on the part of this administration. … He did it with immigration. He did it with welfare work requirements. And he did it with the NLRB when he took it upon himself to tell another branch of government when it was in recess.
“And now he’s doing it again with his own signature health care law.”
This plan to challenge Obamacare both legally and financially has caused a rift in the GOP, especially from those towing the establishment line.
Speaking with Sean Hannity on July 30, 2013, Republican strategist Karl Rove said, “If the government shuts down, who’s going to get blamed for this?”
According to Rove, Republicans got blamed when the government shut down in 1995 when a Democrat was president, and in 1991 when a Republican was president.
“We always get blamed for it,” Rove said.
Rove is correct that Obama will blame the Republicans for a government shut down, even though he stubbornly holds on to Obamacare at the risk of other programs folding.
But so what? As Rove said, Republicans will be blamed for it, no matter what “it” is.
Republicans should give up any hope that Obama will ever speak of them truthfully, or that the media will ever side with them. Understanding that, they should subordinate reelection and media praise to the reason they were sworn into office: protecting the public welfare.
Public welfare is endangered by the ACA. It’s poison for the job market. Businesses are hiring fewer full time employees to get around ACA provisions that hit firms with more than 50 full-time workers.
Beyond that, this nightmarish law is rigged with all kinds of traps, many of which Republicans warned us about while Obama and the media called them liars.
In a speech to Congress in September 2009, Obama said, “Still, given all the misinformation that’s been spread over the past few months, I realize … I realize that many Americans have grown nervous about reform. So tonight I want to address some of the key controversies that are out there. First, if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, or Medicare, or Medicaid, or the VA, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have. Let me – let me repeat this: Nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have.”
Assuming that ACA does not drive rates up to unaffordable levels or cost people their jobs, or that government regulations do not force private insurance companies out of business, everyone can keep their same doctor and insurance. Those assumptions have already been proven wrong.
In that same speech, Obama said this about ACA and abortion:
“And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up: Under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place.”
It seems that the requirement that Christian institutions provide contraceptives, including the controversial “Morning After Pill,” doesn’t count as abortion provided by the ACA.
Obama lied to get this albatross through Congress by insisting that the mandate for every citizen to purchase health care was not a tax. When the constitutionality of the law was challenged, he sent his attorneys to the Supreme Court to explain that it actually was a tax after all.
Republicans should work to get rid of this bill at all costs. Most of them were elected to do that very thing. But even if their own constituents fail to remember and vote to bring them back home, a place in history is more important than a seat in the 2015 Congress.
Republicans, since you will be blamed for every problem in America even if you cure the common cold, you may as well just do what is right. You should worry less about public opinion and more about being able to sleep at nights. Keeping your job will be a small consolation if we are no longer able to keep our republic.
This is Bob Siegel making the obvious, obvious.
