House repeals HCR
It’s merely symbolic, but nevertheless it’s still nice to hear that the House has resoundingly repealed Obamacare, 245-189 on a party line vote plus three Democrats.
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
It’s merely symbolic, but nevertheless it’s still nice to hear that the House has resoundingly repealed Obamacare, 245-189 on a party line vote plus three Democrats.
It may be symbolic, but more importantly it is now a matter of record for all including three Democrats who crossed over. This is the beginning of the 2012 Congressional campaign. If the Senate refuses to bring it up for a vote, that will be duly noted.
Au contraire!
There is no such thing as “merely’ symbolic” with liberals. It will cause them to stamp their feet, gnash their teeth, and troll every blog remotely related.
Now let the investigations commence starting with the DOJ and the FCC.
I love the smell of a congressional majority in the morning.
Although the house vote is largely symbolic, it does have significant value IF the repubs will now put forth how they want to change the health care system.
What I would like to see:
1.) Regulation requiring all health insurance companies to offer the same range of coverage to the general public that is now offered by the companies that deal with the feds.
2.) Allow companies to do business across state lines (commerce clause).
3.) Based upon where you live, define a “poverty line” and all those below that line get a coupon that they can use to purchase the most basic coverage option. (For example, I have no problem with a tightly controlled food stamp program.)
4.) Provided incentives to increase the number of doctors, nurses, etc. We have too few health professionals. This impedes competition.
5.) Stop putting up roadblocks that stifle a competitive pharmaceutical market across international boundaries.
6.) Major malpractice reform. (We don’t need more John Edwards ambulance chasing lawyers.)
It is not merely symbolic.
Two years ago today, one might have doubted that the Democrats would pass a federal health-care takeover in the 111th Congress, but nobody would have doubted they’d try. And nobody would have dreamed that the “Tea Party”, which did not even exist at the time, would — because of said passage — return the House to Republican control by the biggest swing since before WWII, and that said House would thus have a mandate to repeal the federal health-care takeover, and would do so as its first order of substantive business.
Every Democratic politician in the country who still doesn’t have his head up his butt is already figuring the probabilities that the Senate will flip Republican in two years, and that the repeal bill will pass the House again, and then the Senate too.
Not at all merely symbolic: it’s actually a stunning achievement.
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They kept a promise. That’s more than a symbol and not a minor thing at all. It is major.
Let’s hope they keep going on a host of other issues, and also continue to chip away at health care. I would really like to see two years of Rs playing offense and being a step ahead of the opponent and having them on the defensive at every possible turn.
I pray to God the Rs don’t do anything truly moronic like sit together with Ds at the State of the Union. Opposition should be very clear. No one elected anyone to be friends or even civil. I will take two years of uncivil raging animosity and confrontation thank you.
Anyone catch those “civil” and “tempered” remarks rebutting the Republican repeal (unintentional alliteration) from the eloquent Congressman Scott Cohen (D-TN)? Not a peep from the White House reproaching this jack a$$.
“They don’t like the truth so they summarily dismiss it. They say it’s a government takeover of health care, a big lie just like [Nazi propagandist Joseph] Goebbels. You say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, and eventually, people believe it. Like blood libel. That’s the same kind of thing.”
… “The Germans said enough about the Jews and the people believed it and you had the Holocaust. You tell a lie over and over again. And we’ve heard it on this floor: Government takeover of health care.”
Saw a comment, via pajamas media, noting that the House vote to repeal Obamacare passed by a much wider margin than last year’s House passage of O-care:
Fifty-six vs. seven votes.
I hope the Reps use their air time on this to broaden the attack to include the way Dems do business and to their basic competence. I hope they keep repeating that the final bill wasn’t read before the vote, that votes were bought by state exemptions, that Pelosi said we would learn what was in the bill after it was passed, that trial lawyers can still get rich with costly lawsuits that promote CYA medicine and hinder innovation, that true costs were lied about, and that within one year over 200 exemptions had to be granted because of circumstances that were forseeen by Reps. They should point out that Americans have learned from the adjustable rate mortgage mess and are no longer willing to sign a contract without reading the fine print, crunching the numbers, and considering possible downsides. The American peoople have learned from their mistakes. Why aren’t the Dems capable of doing the same. They say we are the party of no. We say they are the party of dumb.
The Dems have always been allowed to cast themselves as caring. They need to be recast on issues of commonsense and competence. Let’s see how BO defends incompetence. He is going to try to wiggle in some compromises now. He should be asked why he didn’t think of these things sooner.
The longer the repeal debate goes on, the more time the Reps have to change widespread and MSM-created party images.
What Mr. Frank said.
It’s much more than symbolic.
It’s the first step, post-election, of unleashing the big “Mo”.
(I.e., momentum.)
Parker. Wrt your “1”. Fat contracts cost a hell of a lot of money. It’s not been a problem that anybody could see because either it came from taxes, or the employer passed it on in prices as a cost of doing business.
When you “offer”something to somebody who will have to pony up the cash and it costs too much, they won’t buy it. There is a cost to an insurance company for keeping the door open, which is to say, offer a product for sale. If there are too few buyers, they quit offering it. I should say that by “offering” you don’t mean restricted to that kind of contract.
Somebody explain what interstate competition does for prices? Or is it a mantra?
As others have said, this will get the attention of congressworms with elections coming up, and those planning on entering politics.
JaneLK:
A small vignette re Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN): I went to his website yesterday in an attempt to complain about his remarks. I wrote that it was particularly grotesque for him, presumably Jewish, to liken the Repubs to the Nazis, hit “submit”…. Site responded that (1) I was not in his district, and (2) auto-edited my text from “Nazi-style” to “Nzi-styl(e),” with a chastizing remark about my use of improper language.
These people are neo-Stalinists.
RE:symbolism. One commenter noted that the Doolittle Raid was symbolic too.
It has to do with getting around state mandates. Here in Massachusetts there are a large number of things that are required to be in any medical insurance policy. Here there is no such thing as a cheap no-frills policy. And as such all policies are quite expensive, especially if you have to personally bear the full cost. By being able to buy a policy from an insurer in a state that doesn’t have all these mandates, one presumably could save a ton of money if all one wanted was a no-frills policy. Or to make it short, a way of avoiding state mandates.
Jim.
Insurance regs are state-by-state. Mass would probably allow you to buy from another state if the contracts fit Mass’ mandates. No problem with the interstate things. It’s the morons your neighbors voted in.
One more thing the Republicans can do on the symbolic front to discomfit Obama and the Dems: pass another bill forbidding exemptions from Obamacare mandates.
Let’s put all of the Dem constituencies back on the hook for this montrosity, or force the Dems to reiterate their bribes, publicly this time.
Now that I think about it, the exemptions issue would be a great opportunity to really stick it to the Dems and make a laughingstock out of them.
Boehner could say (in mock seriousness) that the Republican Party is outraged that some Americans are being denied Obamacare coverage for no other reason than belonging to a union, and that the Republican Party proposes to redress this great wrong to the labor movement by re-extending the mandate to them.
How could Dems argue against this without looking ridiculous tying themselves in knots?
@Occam
“One more thing the Republicans can do on the symbolic front to discomfit Obama and the Dems: pass another bill forbidding exemptions from Obamacare mandates.”
That is a great idea.