Hill Conservatives to 50 Governors: Stunt ObamaCare, Opt Out of Exchanges
House Republicans will be taking another stab at ObamaCare repeal when Congress returns next week from the July Fourth recess — and House conservatives have added another prong to the GOP response to last week’s Supreme Court ruling.
Included in the controversial decision was more flexibility for states to opt out of Medicaid expansion — without being assessed the penalty of losing potentially all of their federal funding for Medicaid as detailed in the Affordable Care Act.
A group of lawmakers on the right have sent a letter to all 50 governors asking them to opt out of ObamaCare state exchanges.
“As members of the U.S. Congress, we are dedicated to the full repeal of this government takeover of healthcare and we ask you to join us to oppose its implementation. Most importantly, we encourage you to oppose any creation of a state health care exchange mandated under the President’s discredited health care law,” says the letter, which was circulated by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).
Twelve senators and 61 members of the House signed on to the letter, as well.
Jordan, chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee caucus, told PJM this afternoon that the Supreme Court ruling was “surprising, disappointing,” but has given lawmakers a new platform for the market-based healthcare solutions they’ve been pushing all along.
“Ultimately, the real decision is going to get made in November by the citizens of America,” Jordan said. “It’s just the great system we have. That’s appropriate. That’s who we are as a country, who we are as a system.”
The RSC had prepped for last week’s ruling with the release two days beforehand of a 27-page list of more than 200 pieces of healthcare-related legislation that its members have introduced over the past 18 months, promoting solutions including tort reform, the ability to purchase across state lines, and health savings accounts.
“I did not anticipate the Supreme Court saying that the government could tell you to purchase a product and if you didn’t — you had to buy it — there was a penalty,” Jordan said. “I think even the administration was expecting a different outcome.”
Democrats were expecting the tussle over the new flexibility in Medicaid expansion, though, and launched a similar offensive to encourage governors to opt-in to ObamaCare.
Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) sent a letter to Republican Gov. John Kasich urging him to implement the Medicaid expansion on the grounds that too many state residents would be left without a coverage option otherwise.
“Not only is this a matter of providing needed health services for the people of Ohio, it is also a matter of economic sustainability. Uncompensated care is a drain on our hospitals, health providers, and health care system as a whole,” Fudge said. “By expanding Medicaid, we will greatly reduce the costly problem of uninsured patients depending on emergency rooms instead of a primary care physician.”
With the recent announcements by GOP governors Bobby Jindal, Scott Walker, Nikki Haley, and Sam Brownback that thanks to the SC ruling they won’t immediately expand Medicaid we may have another opening to kill Obamacare.
What would happen to Obamacare if all 26 states that were party to the lawsuit against PPACA were to refuse to implement exchanges and expand their Medicaid programs? Could they cause a collapse of the program? Could they cause an exodus of the uninsured to blue states that do implement the expansion and thus overwhelm those states?
Obamacare remains an unconstitutional abomination in spite of John Roberts twisted logic to say otherwise.
I believe we have a better chance of ridding ourselves and our children of Obamacare if we focus on keeping the states from ever implementing it.
Roberts reminds me of one of those serial killers who puts lipstick and all manner of makeup on dead bodies.
“Could they cause a collapse of the program? Could they cause an exodus of the uninsured to blue states that do implement the expansion and thus overwhelm those states?”
Best bet yet! Let California, New York and Illinois have them.
My guess is that most people who are inclined to move to a blue state for welfare benefits have already done so. But we’ll see. The problem will come when those states demand federal bailouts — and they have a lot of electoral votes.
I’m not thoroughly convinced that the blue states will implement the exchanges. Sure, some of them will, but the exchanges will only come with big doles of federal funds for the first year. The funding drops off by design every year after that until the states are paying for the lion’s share of that expansion themselves. That was the reason so many objected to it. If the federal money had stayed in place at the intial levels, you wouldn’t have seen near the outcry over it. But, that was one of the ways they got it to score so low with the CBO. Now they can’t force the states to do it at all.
So, you only feel the court is legitimate when they hand down decisions that you like? lol
Your cynicism seems to have trumped your ability to reason and/or comprehend written communication.
Eric never said the SCOTUS was illegitimate. That’s simply projection or obfuscation on your part. Eric said, to paraphrase, “just because a supreme said something doesn’t make it so.”
So go ahead and laugh, showing the rest of us the fool you’ve proven to be.
“just because a supreme said something doesn’t make it so.”
Pretty much the same thing. I would suggest all of you take a look at Marbury v. Madison. Just because a Supreme says something does make it so. You should have learned that, in what, 8th grade?
And slaves should be returned to their masters, is that so as well?
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.” S. Adams
The mandate/tax/penalty or whatever the Hell you want to call it is just one of the problems with this abomination of a bill. There are multitudes hidden in its 2700 pages. Taxes, more mandates such as the one mandating a minimum allowable benefits/coverage package, more taxes, hundreds of “the Secretary shall…” statements abdicating control to a bureaucracy, IPAB, subsidies, et al. It’s an unworkable monstrosity but I suppose it’s ok with you because it redistributes wealth and centralizes control under the Feds.
You Leftists looove to shout about “freedom f choice” when it comes to abortion and then turn around and deny it everywhere else, i.e. retirement, schools, and now health care.
Some of your ideological kin want to eliminate private insurance, and thus choice, completely and impose a totally government run single payer system on us. Why? What is the justification for denying me the right to make my own, private coverage arrangements with an insurance provider and pay fr that coverage from my own pocket? Same with retirement. Why must I be FORCED to participate in Social Security? I’d rather keep MY money and invest myself.
Your side s all about force, coercion, denial of choice, and redistribution of wealth. That’s not freedom, that’s socialism.
Would you support splitting the country in half so we can go our own separate philosophical ways?
No need. Leftists love ultra-high-density housing, so let’s stick them all in a couple of small enclaves in SoCal and New York. Then the rest of the country is ours.
“Could they cause a collapse of the program? Could they cause an exodus of the uninsured to blue states that do implement the expansion and thus overwhelm those states?”
Bailout.
The only way the the law would cause a collapse of the program is if politicians suddenly grow spines and refuse to bail out states with huge electoral college votes. Considering the average politician thinks only far enough ahead as their next election, and not about our country’s future, it is not gonna happen. Instead you will see bailouts offered to the states until our economy itself collapses.
Obama’s campaign strategy is inadequate to maintain him in a serious action such as Mitt Romney and the Tea Party will put to him. He has corruption in the coop, hate on the hoof, taqiyya on the tongue and bats in the belfry — that’s his campaign strategy. He can probably maintain himself in the type of fighting Mitt Romney and the Tea Party will give him in Mexifornia and a few states on the North East front. After that it will make no difference how many thousands of dead he has voting for him early and often, and if Americans want America and the Presidency back in 2012, Mitt Romney and the Tea Party will give it to them.
But will Romney fight. My bet is that he won’t especially if today’s exhibition of ignorance by his surrogates evidenced.
Romney = PENALTY
Fehrnstrom = PENALTY
Boehner = TAX
McConnell = TAX
I wish the GOP would make up their mind.
Mittens is an unmitigated disaster for the GOP!. It was MittensCare before it was ObamaCare. You couldn’t have picked a worse candidate to run against the Affordable Care Act. It will be implemented. President Obama will be re-elected. And my guess is 10 or 15 years from now as we are discussing single payer we’ll have people at tea party gatherings holding up signs that say, “git yur guvment hands off my Obamacare.” You guys are so effed …
It’s NOT a tax. It’s a penalty, a fine, a punishment, for not obeying orders from Herr Obama ans his demofascist party.
You can call it an ice cream cone for all I care but in terms of Mittenscare in Mass. and Obamacare the mandate function exactly the same way in that it is an enforcement mechanism plain and simple. But I’m not going to argue with you about the function of the (tax, penalty, mandate, ice cream cone, etc.) or how it works. I’ll let Mitt explain that for himself. He actually recommends that President Obama copy what he did in Mass. with Obamacare:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/mitt-romneys-suggested-three-times-in-2009-that-o
There are even more clip of Mittens on youtube touting his Mittenscare in Mass. and suggesting it as a model but I’m sure we’ll see it all soon enough.
If the beast of obamacare is not a “tax,” then it is not constitutional-according to the Supreme Court. If obama and the dems keep stating that it is not a tax, then the Supreme Court decision stating that it is constitutional only as a tax could be argued to be null and void.
“Mittens is an unmitigated disaster for the GOP!”
Maybe – but how’s Obummer working out for the dems? Seems many of them don’t even wish to be seen at high profile events with him – having ‘plans’ well ahead of the dem convention not to be there. I’d call Obummer an unmitigated disaster for the country.
President Obama certainly leaves much to be desired. Mitt Romney, however, in now running around trashing the Affordable Care Act when he is actually the father of it in every possible way. And it wasn’t just a state thing for him because we have him on tape recommending that President Obama copy it at the federal level. If we were dealing with humans we might call this child abuse
“President Obama certainly leaves much to be desired.”
An under statement no matter who says it. I’m just surprised at who said it. Lets see – why would he leave anything to be desired? Could it be because he’s crass? Maybe its the 7th grade school-boy churlish antic of flipping off those he dislikes and/or disagrees with? Maybe because he is a divider? A race bater? Maybe because he’s a liar (proven time and time again)?
Or maybe its all of the above – and more because I could go on and on. And you know it.
Who could be better qualified than Romney to know the failings of socialized medicine? There is no greater qualified authority, just like Ford knew the weakness of the Pinto before it went to market.
Doctor Victor Robertstein: “It’s alive! It’s alive!”
I’d surely like to believe that Republicans can sustain a focused and long-term attack strategy to defeat Hussein and the Marxocrats and repeal Obama-Roberts-Care. But the historical record shows otherwise. This effort will be the fight of our lives and will need to be fought from the bottom up if it is to succeed at all. We’re already getting rumblings from the usual weak and cowardly RINO cast of characters, like McConnell, Boehner, and Romney, that we should “Repeal and Replace” the ACA abomination and that its full repeal is “hard to do”. With “leaders” such as these, we all have our work cut out for us.
Problem is, NOBODY has the guts to abide by their oaths to uphold the US Constitution.
Why should we expect any better of the SCOTUS?
Jan 31, 2012 George Soros support Mitt Romney, investor/communist and Obamas supporter want Mitt Romney. It’s not a good day for a republican to get support from communists. On Fed 2 Donald Trump announced his support for Mitt Romney. It can’t be a good day for a republican when Obama supporters see Romney as a good option.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6aLQU_nYSM
Did the left/libtards actually define what the heck an “exchange” is or will is just be a FEMA camp for sick (and poor, un-”connected”) people awaiting a possible death panel or somehow pulling through in spite of that?
I’m in a conservative state (Arkansas) which has a Democrat Governor who clearly wants to allow more access to Medicaid commensurate with Obamacare. He was on public radio yesterday floating the usual language (“Fed is going to spend it, might as well accept it..don’t want to send it out of state”, etc etc) and I simply do not see how we can win that argument. Can someone help me? Will it not look like, to the emotionally sensitive and short term liberals, that we are turning down hundreds of thousands for coverage on money that will be spent anyway? Please help me understand. Why do Liberals always have the emotional rhetoric on their side!?
Get someone to ask him what happens when the fed money starts to dry up after the first year. Where will the new funds come from? Will he raise taxes to compensate, or will he just cut education funding or something else like that?
To Cynical wonder: Can you please tell what is so wonderful about Obama Care? It sounds like to me you that you support it only because its Obamas idea. And after all every little college kid like you knows from his professors that Obama is the smartest man in the world. Since Obama is smartest man in the world, how could Obama Care be anything but terrific thing!?
I’m all for taking a principled stand, but Obamacare is riddled with poison pills, the Medicaid expansion among them. Unless the governor is in a safe seat, rejecting the Medicaid money will be used against them politically.
Conservatives have got to develop counter proposals to Obamacare. Boehner’s performance on Sunday was pathetic. Saying “repeal and replace” without having any cogent proposal for “replace” is disastrous. Boehner, McConnell et al would be better off being honest and saying that having 30-40mm uninsured people is acceptable and stop pretending they have an alternative solution to get to universal coverage. And sorry all you libertarians, eliminating malpractice and selling across state lines isn’t a solution for universal coverage.