Reconciliation and Obamacare: what goes around comes around?
I certainly hope we get to find out:
In a private meeting with Americans for Limited Government (ALG) staff, senior aides to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) promised that should Republicans reclaim a majority in the Senate on Tuesday, they would use the budget reconciliation process to go after Obamacare.
It was unclear whether that meant full or partial repeal of the law under reconciliation, but according to ALG vice president of public policy Rick Manning who was at the meeting on October 29, “Aides acknowledged the only way to get any type of repeal or even major changes to the law would be reconciliation.”
The matter was further clarified in an October 30 statement by McConnell spokesman Brian McGuire: “if Republicans are fortunate enough to take back the majority we’ll owe it to the American people to try through votes on full repeal, the bill’s most onerous provisions, and reconciliation.”
The rest of the article is about the finer points of outright repeal vs. change through reconciliation, as well as the question of tax vs. penalty, the probability of an Obama veto, and tactics. But the strategy is to use the Senate majority to shake up Obamacare in a big way.
As I’ve said before: hope we get a chance to see.
Back when Obamacare was being passed, I wrote a ton of posts about the use of reconciliation as a process to drag that thing through. Without reconciliation—which, if I recall correctly, had never before been used to force a major and controversial piece of legislation—Obamacare would have remained in the dustbin of history. Reconciliation could be the first step towards putting it back there again, at least in its present form.
Obama would veto either repeal or a bill passed by reconciliation, of course, if the latter made anything other than tiny changes. But it would be quite the confrontation—and, as the article says, “would set up the 2016 presidential election as a clear referendum on whether or not to keep the law.” While Obama is president, there’s no way for Congress to actually get rid of Obamacare. Even mere defunding would be a disaster, because Obamacare has by now dismantled much of the system it replaced, and that system no longer exists. And even impeachment and conviction of Obama wouldn’t do it, because Biden would then become president, and he would probably veto a repeal or reconciliation bill as well.
But let’s say Republicans take the Senate in 2014. Let’s say they are determined to use reconciliation to change Obamacare into something better, which would at least challenge Obama and let the American people know what they’d do if they had the presidency and Congress in 2016. How much better would those changes be? Can they make it into something a conservative could be pleased with (inasmuch as conservatives can ever be pleased by a government program)? How market-based would it be, and how much of an entitlement program? How would it be funded? Would it reinstate or restrict choice, and how much?
This is all in the nature of counting unhatched chickens, of course. But let’s hope the reconciliation chicken begins coming home to roost.
impeach obama, then recall
🙂
You just can’t polish Communism.
Gorby tried Communism with a human face — and look what happened.
The GOP is going to have to use the committee system to expose all of the negatives of 0-care.
It’s going to take a MAJOR exposé, such that 0-care is fulsomely revealed to be unworkable.
1) At the top of the list — that 0-care was NOT a health bill. It was a compulsory (health) insurance bill.
2) Its impact on the housing market — and its DIRECT impact on whether young adults can ever afford their own home…
3) Its repression of the national economy. Every sector is being gutted to feed the Medica-Pharma-Insurance-Attorney complex — which is, by now, a one-party (Democrat) engine.
4) It’s fulsome rejection by doctors… just too much DC politics in medical decisions. Digital tyranny over your life decisions.
5) Centralisation of medical records = a strategic threat to the nation. Alien hackers are CERTAIN to get in. Then they’re in a position to blackmail countless citizens/ politicians.
If you think that doesn’t work — chat up the ghosts of Edgar Hoover and every tyrant’s enforcer.
6) That the end game must mean the collapse of senior care: Medicare is being sacrificed on the alter of illegal aliens in all there multitudes. Illegal aliens / legal immigrants have imploded European economic growth going back a full generation.
All of their economic gains are being transmuted into provision for more imported aliens — Muslims who totally reject European culture. It must end very badly. The only questions: how bloody, when, who gets cut down?
My faith that Big Brass Ones have miraculously appeared in the upper pelvic region of members of the GOP is just about at the same level as my belief that pigs can fly, or LIV’s will pay attention during elections.
On a related note, I have lately reconsidered that perhaps I was too hasty in the belief of my younger self that a requirement for civics testing for the privilege of voting was evil, inherently discriminatory, and “obviously” undemocratic.
The GOP is going to have to use the committee system
you do know that “Soviet” when translated is “Commitee”
I may have an unpopular opinion but there are some aspects of obamacare that need to be retained. TWO friends of mine (TWO!) were essentially uninsurable after losing their jobs in the economic downturn. Both men over age 55, both bought obamacare policies and paid their premiums. One had since developed lymphoma and the other a serious heart ailment. Both have received life-saving therapies.
Many people of a certain age lose their jobs during downturns in favor of younger, cheaper employees. They can’t find new jobs with benefits because, face it, most employers don’t want to invest money into a 50 or 60 year old who won’t be on the job that long. The best they can do is hang out a shingle as a consultant. These people need a bridge with medicare and without obamacare, they are not insurable.
The GOP needs to do more than just say they’ll kill obamacare. They need to tell us what they will replace it with. IMO, this is not too much to ask but I doubt they will be specific. After all, it is GOP negligence that gave us obamacare in the first place.
“Aides acknowledged the only way to get any type of repeal or even major changes to the law would be reconciliation.”
Any attempt by a republican majority to use reconciliation to try to make changes to ObamaCare will backfire on the republicans. They’d be better off allowing ObamaCare’s onerous provisions to go through and use the predictable backlash against Obama and the dems as fuel to push for repeal of ObamaCare under a republican President.
IMO, it’s a mistake to try to ameliorate ObamaCare’s negative impact. Republicans should be repeatedly calling for ObamaCare’s repeal, while allowing American’s to get a real taste of socialized medicine’s downside. Put it all on the democrats, run constant political ads.
Lurch,
Here you go, besides these, there’s lots of alternatives to ObamaCare.
“The Better Solution for ‘Pre-Existing Conditions'”
“There’s no need to turn the entire system upside down to help the people who can’t buy private insurance.”
Surgery Center of Oklahoma | Free market-loving, price-displaying, state-of-the-art, AAAHC accredited, doctor owned, multispecialty surgical facility in central OK.
Communism with a human face was the effort of Alexander DubÄek in 1968. I was quite enthused by both it and him. I was young and believed Communism could work without a dictator. I was disabused of my naiveté when Warsaw Pact tanks rumbled into Bratislava thus bringing winter to the Prague Spring.
Lurch:
As a person who has a pre-existing condition and was self-employed, I had to buy insurance on the open market. People with pre-existing conditions were not usually literally “uninsurable.” Usually, though, they would fall under the “underwriting” category, and the insurance company would quote a premium price that was out of reach for all save millionaires. So they were effectively uninsurable, unless they were rich.
However, in most states there was a high-risk pool that would cover them for a lot less, although still it was not cheap. And in most states, if someone had a low income, they would get subsidies for it. One of the myths that was used to pass Obamacare was saying that people with pre-existing conditions could not get coverage. In almost every state they could (I did a whole lot of research about this, and have a draft for a post I never wrote, but right now don’t have time to take a look and tell you exact figures).
Were your friends in one of the few states that didn’t have a high-risk pool? Or did they not have enough money to pay premiums, even with help? Or did their state not offer help? I have found that many people who said they are uninsurable were not actually aware of all the options open to them, such as high-risk pools.
They’re going to reconcile with the mad king Hussein… I see.
“The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.”
Herbert Spencer, English philosopher (1820 – 1903)
What they mean by reconciliation is:
They are going to tag on a little bit of sting with EACH bill that goes through — after it’s reached a threshold of inevitability.
This salami technique is EASILY performed while ‘in reconciliation.’
The classic situation would be any bill that the President simply must have… which then comes with a stinger that’s too small to veto the entire bill over.
With both houses under their control, the GOP would be in total control of the reconciliation process.
This was the exact mechanism used by the Democrats to get 0-care through the system.
In their case, they were dancing around their ability to avoid Brown’s vote.
A reconciliation bill is not subject to filibuster, the 60th vote was not needed.
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It’s going to be very hard for Barry to hold the line against the salami cutter — as long as the GOP slices it properly.
Classic salami slicing would aim to repeal all of the ex post facto adjustments/tweaks made by the maladministration… really too many to list.
One may find that taking the statute back to its roots even gathers enough votes to make a given bill veto-proof. (rare)
At the top of the list: restricting 0-care benefits that Barry wants to shower onto illegal aliens.
They would be very hard to defend once they were standing alone.
Other clauses could be merely confirmed: such as no tax rebates for states that didn’t have their own exchanges. (most of the nation)
Since that’s the way the law was written, Barry would have media work to do.
Of course, as written, the law blows up the economics.
The GOP can also make sure to take away any second dipping on the part of the Insurance Cartel. As it stands, those boys look upon 0-care as a no-lose proposition — for them.
Blert for Speaker of the House AND Senate Majority Leader 🙂 !
The big strategy of the last 4 years has been to prevent any Democrat from having to vote on: Obamacare, Keystone, Amnesty.
Reid effectively shut down the senate to limit the number of votes that Democrats had to make.
Repubs in charge will bring forth bills that Dems have to vote on one way or another. Even if they can’t kill Obamacare, it will be a breath of fresh air in Washington. How many dems will vote to kill Obamacare after their partners in crime lost their elections? It will be interesting to see – if we get that far.
Next week I will find out how much my individual policy is going up. The premium is already twice what it was before Obamacare–for a plan with double the deductible and out-of-pocket max. I am bracing for the possibility of not being able to afford insurance and going without. I will not buy a similarly overpriced but horrible Obamacare plan. Hope I stay healthy.
I wish they had simply taxed my existing plan 100%. I would be screwed monetarily but still have a plan I liked. Now, I get neither. If I was a praying man, I would be asking for fires in the proverbial warm corner of hell to get stoked up in anticipation of the likes of Obama, Reid and Pelosi. If human life is the standard of value, they are evil. If there is a hell, they are bound for it.
@ Matthew M You don t have to just hope you stay healthy, there are some books out there geared to
medical self help, *Take care of Yourself * by Donald Vickery is available on Amazon (used versions are
available for cheap, like one cent ! Just pay postage I guess) Not much to lose !
The medical system is rigged, and it has been ever since DC stuck its corrupt finger in the pie. Get government out of medicine and apply anti-racketering laws to the medical providers and insurance companies and med care prices will nosedive. Its a rigged system. As usual goverment corrupts, and the solution is put DC in a tiny box with very few responsibilities.
Mitch McConnell is a coward, and will never stand up to Obama.
The problem with Republicans attempting to repeal Obamacare is that being against something is not the same thing as being for something. I know Neo has written about Republican health care reform proposals before, but the bottom line is that this is not what the majority of Republicans talk about prominently and repeatedly. Instead they talk about being against Obamacare. It’s much harder to get people to follow you when your message is negative (I’m against X) then positive (I am for Y). The Republicans barely mention the idea of putting the consumer in charge, disconnecting heatlh care from employers, introducing free market reforms into the system, etc. The reason they don’t talk about these things is that they are more interested in posing against Obamacare than they are interested in actually fixing anything. They had the House, the Senate and the Presidency when health care was a mess before and they didn’t do shit. I have no confidence that they are going to do anything to fix it now any more than they fixed it then. It’s going to be more “Go Team Red”, “Go Team Blue” partisan bullshit and little effective action.
Richard the republicans *claim* they offered alternatives but they were dumped by Harry Reid who would not let them come to the floor !