A leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 is (correctly) challenging recent delays in the implementation of U.S. President Barack Obama’s socialized medicine law.
U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) is no supporter of the legislation – he’s one of its most ardent opponents, actually – but Paul is making the same point we made recently in assessing the cavalier, extralegal manner in which Obamacare is being enacted.
“The president doesn’t get to write legislation, and it’s illegal and unconstitutional for him to try and change legislation by himself,” Paul told Fox News.
We agree … and have said as much.
“Obviously we can’t stand Obamacare and welcome any and all delays to its job-killing, deficit-busting, premium-increasing mandates – but the last time we checked it was the job of the executive branch to enforce laws passed by Congress, not arbitrarily rewrite them based on political expedience,” we wrote last month.
Yet that’s exactly what the Obama administration is doing – admittedly. Valerie Jarrett – one of Obama’s top advisors – said last month that the administration would “continue to make changes as needed” to the law.
That’s a very problematic statement.
We’ve covered the selective enforcement of Obamacare as it relates to the implementation of the law’s employer mandate – but earlier this week The New York Times exposed another Obamcare delay.
“The limit on out-of-pocket costs, including deductibles and co-payments, was not supposed to exceed $6,350 for an individual and $12,700 for a family,” the Times reported this week. “But under a little-noticed ruling, federal officials have granted a one-year grace period to some insurers, allowing them to set higher limits, or no limit at all on some costs, in 2014.”
Obama had sold these caps as a critical cost-saving component of his plan – which thus far has done nothing but raise health care prices and balloon the federal debt.
Hitting the nail on the head in response to all of this? U.S. Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming.
“The reason this law keeps getting delayed is because it doesn’t work like the President promised it would work,” Barasso said.
Exactly …
Lawmakers need to de-fund this monstrosity immediately, before it sends our already fragile economy over the edge of another recessionary cliff.
“The law must be dismantled before it is too late,” Bill Wilson of Americans for Limited government wrote recently. “Oh, there will be screams of ‘You are shutting down the government’ to be sure. But just keep passing budgets that fund all essential items except Obamacare.”
Former U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint – now head of the Heritage Foundation think tank – agrees.
“If Republicans in the House of Representatives pass a bill that funds the government in its entirety except for funding Obamacare, then the President is going to have to decide whether to accept that funding or shut the government down,” DeMint said.
22 comments
Rand welcomes a delay! How about that! But hey, Obama can’t just institute a delay, he says, Obama needs to get Congress to approve it!
Let’s see, Obama wants to delay, Congress should approve a delay, Rand Paul supports the delay, ergo Rand Paul should introduce legislation for said delay. Right? I mean, clearly all parties want the delay, right? So what’s stopping Rand from doing the obvious?
Oh no, is Rand playing… *GASP* …politics?!
Barasso is claiming the law doesn’t work like it is supposed to. I’m sure Barasso will be the first one in line to introduce, sponsor, co-sponsor, or vote yay on a bill that seeks to tweak the parts that aren’t working like they are supposed to, right? He’s totally going to support legislation to fix or replace the broken parts, right? Or, maybe he’s pushing for an entirely separate reform that is just as good or better?
Please. This is just as shallow as the shit they pulled with the USPS. The GOP doesn’t want anything fixed, they want things as broken as possible, even if they have to sabotage it, because it wins them political points. Is it any wonder that all they can do is put forth 40 vain attempts to repeal or defund reform and nothing else? Is it any wonder that Wilson wants to attach a rider to any and every piece of legislation and shut down the legislative process until you get what you want?
I’m simply amazed. “Let’s shut down the legislative branch and then bitch when someone tries to make due without it.” Yeah, that’s just wonderful.
He is just trying to hold Obama’s feet to the constitutional fire. Obama does NOT have the constitutional power to change parts of the law he chooses to…for political reasons. ‘O’ knows the implementation of the parts of the law that are to take effect in 2014 will be an economical disaster and he wants to delay it until after the 2014 elections. It is also a bad precedent for ANY president to just change laws as he sees fit. Again, it in unconstitutional!
You are wrong, and reinforce my observation that most Conservatives are either constitutionally illiterate or partisan hipocrites.
Rather than trying to shoot the messenger, why don’t you inform us whether you think what he is doing is constitutional. If not, then your post is nothing more than ad hominem. If so, then please explain the Constitutional basis for Obama’s actions? Since when did gridlock or political posturing justify usurping legislative power?
My philosophy has always been, if the messenger is unbiased answer the question. If the messenger is biased, shoot the messenger first and then answer the question. Republicans seem to end everything at shoot the messenger no matter what and move on.
Smirks did a good job of pointing out that the messenger is biased, so I will address the absurd constitutional allegations.
Conservatives like to make everything a constitutional crisis, when most things are not. Of course that is only the case when it is politically convenient for them to do so. You heard no complaints from them when Bush repeatedly refused to enforce laws and even went so far as to execute Presidential signing statements saying he would not enforce certain laws.
Obama is not changing a law enacted by Congress. He is simply choosing to not enforcement certain aspects of that law, until a future date. Presidents have always done this for a variety of reasons, mostly relating to funding, sometimes because the country needs more time to prepare for enforcement, but occasionally, as in the case of Bush, because he did not like the law.
Only Republicans would be hypocritical enough or dumb enough not to notice the hypocrisy of claiming it is unconstitutional for Obama to delaying enforcement of certain aspects of the ACA, but it is not unconstitutional for a minority in Congress to intentionally block enforcement of the that same law by not providing the funds to enforce the law Congress, itself enacted. I.E. It is a disgrace for Obama not to enforce a law, but it is great that some minority group of house members are trying to tie his hands and prevent him from enforcing that same law. Politics as usual for the right.
The decision of the the Executive Branch’s as to how to best enforce a law enacted by Congress are Constitutional unless a court concludes otherwise, based on evidence presented in a action filed by a persons with standing to sue. I.E. those allegedly impacted by the action or inaction of the Executive Branch..
The Government is composed of three co-equal branches. The Legislative Branch makes the laws and the Executive Branch is charged with enforcing those laws as best it can with the resources provided by the Legislative Branch.
When adequate resources are not provided to fully implement all of the laws Congress enacts, it is the job of the Executive Branch to set priorities, allocate resources, and come up with a plan to implement the laws as rapidly as possible. This may entail delaying the enforcement of certain all or certain parts of a law and allocating resources to enforcement of other parts of the law.
For example if Congress says “the maximum speed limit on all federal highways is 45 mph and the federal government shall enforce traffic laws on all federal highways”; but fails to provide adequate money to hire a police force to enforce those laws; the Executive branch must do the best it can to implement the law at the earliest possible time. That means it must determine what resources it can allocate from other sources to accomplish the directive, and if there are none, it cannot fulfill Congress’ directive and there is a delay in the implementation of the law. In that case, the Executive Branch may decide to implement the law in phases. For example, it may say “I can pull enough money from project x to enforce the new speed limit on Interstate Highways but enforcement on other federal highways will require an allocation of money from Congress.” This happens all the time.
The Republicans have been fighting to block the Affordable Care Act since its inception. They have done that at the Federal level and the state level. That effort has denied the Executive Branch the resources to implement the law as rapidly as it would prefer. Consequently, the Executive Branch must decide how to implement the law with the limited resources it has; and is doing so in stages as the resources allow. If Congress had given the Executive Branch its full support the law would have been implemented on time.
Now comes the third co-equal branch of government, the judiciary. If anyone who is negatively impacted by a delay in the enforcement of a law, believes that the Executive Branch cannot justify a delay in enforcement, they can bring an action in federal court to mandamus the Executive Branch to enforce the law. Based on the evidence submitted, if the Court determines the Executive Branch is not enforcing the law to the best of its ability, with the resources provided, it will order the Executive Branch to take a particular action. That is how the system is supposed to work. So if Republicans think Obama is not implementing the ACA fast enough. Sue him and say so.
“My philosophy has always been, if the messenger is unbiased answer the question. If the messenger is biased, shoot the messenger first …”
Thanks for clarifying. You can just post [insert ad hominem] in the future and save us the space, though. it is really sad that you consider fallacious logic to constitute a valid philosophy.
“Republicans seem to end everything at shoot the messenger no matter what and move on.”
Right. Because Republicans have not articulated a single argument against the merits of Obamacare. You are projecting, and you are doing it poorly.
“Obama is not changing a law enacted by Congress. He is simply choosing to not enforcement certain aspects of that law, until a future date.”
So your argument is he is not changing it, he is just ignoring it. Well that makes it much better. I never realized that the Constitution authorized the president to refuse to enforce laws that he decides he wants to tweak. So he did not just unilaterally impose the Dream Act, he is just ignoring all of our immigration laws. That argument is idiotic, but it simply falls apart when you consider another usurpation of power connected to Obamacare. The states are free to refuse to set up exchanges, but the bill fails to give the authority to the administration to set up exchanges in states that refuse. Yet Obama just unilaterally assumed that authority. So there is nothing he is “refusing to enforce,” except the Constitution and its pesky separation of powers.
There is a legitimate argument as to whether a president has to enforce a law he or she believes to be unconstitutional. But that has absolutely no relevance, for reasons that should be apparent, to Obamacare (the name kind of gives it away). And of course it would not be a refusal to enforce if there is a legitimate dispute as to what is required by an ambiguous provision. I suspect your references to Bush fall into one of those two categories, but there is not much ambiguity here as to whether the mandate takes effect this year or next.
If you are referring to something else with your reference to Bush, I would be interested to know the specifics. Although it is ultimately irrelevant, the argument from hypocrisy is still a logical fallacy.
No, I am not arguing he is ignoring the law, I am arguing he is implementing it as rapidly as he has determined feasible with the resources he was provided by Congress. If people believe otherwise there is a process for that. It is not a constitutional crisis. Presidents, governors, county administrators and mayors, practice selective enforcement of laws all the time when they lack the resources to fully enforce the law. Why do you think we don’t allocate a 10 million people to prevent people from bringing drugs into the country. Resources have to be allocated unless the resources are unlimited.
As for setting up the exchanges, it is the Executive Branches obligation to enforce the law as it believes Congress intended as rapidly as the resources allow. If the Obama Administration believes setting up the exchanges are necessary for the law to function as Congress intended, he can do so until a court tells him he cannot. Again this is not a constitutional crisis. If someone disagrees with the Administrations interpretation of the law, they can turn to the third co-equal branch of Government the Judiciary. Disagreements are why we have courts.
You of course totally ignore the discussion of why Congressional Republicans attempting to defund a law they cannot repeal is not equally unconstitutional under your theory. If Congress can constitutionally deny the Executive Branch the resources with which to enforce a law it enacted, It cannot be unconstitutional for the Executive Branch to not enforce the law it has no resources to enforce the law with.
Your arguments have no logic. They are simply partisan barbs. You are a victim of Obama derangement syndrome.
Republicans have offered no material alternatives, to the Affordable Care Act, and they have done everything in their power to prevent Obama from enforcing the law Congress enacted.
As for the Bush signing statements, you are wrong, look them up.
“Your arguments have no logic. They are simply partisan barbs. You are a victim of Obama derangement syndrome.”
More projection. it is amazing that you think just making up facts and restating talking points is effective as a form of argument. I have cited evidence for my assertions, and you do nothing but misdirect and attack.
The law stands as it was implemented (rammed through by the Democrats). The deadlines are in his bill. He owns them. Republicans do not need to “fund” the mandate. just the opposite. He is choosing not to implement the penalties on employers (and foregoing the precious resources to which you are referring) for failing to comply because it is a train wreck.
And you are arguing he can ignore the law if he believes he does not have the resources to carry it out. But setting that aside, resources have absolutely nothing to do with his authority to set up exchanges. The bill does not provide it. It is not there. Full stop. So he is usurping authority that was not provided by Congress.
I know liberals have this fairy tale that Republicans have not made a single health care proposal, but it is just so dishonest that it is hard to even respond. You may not like them, but disavowing their existence is just another sad example of the intellectual bankruptcy of the left. Our own Jim DeMint had a plan that would be far superior to Obamacare. Ryan had a superior plan.
Still a typical Republican. If you like it, its constitutional if you don’t like it its unconstitutional. Obama cannot fund the government. If Congress can constitutionally deny the Executive Branch the resources with which to enforce a law it enacted, It cannot be unconstitutional for the Executive Branch to not enforce the law it has no resources to enforce the law with. Its you who fails to understand the separation of powers, and the co-equal nature of the branches.
Further if Congress passes a law that can only function with the creation of exchanges, by implication the Executive Branch has the authority to create the exchanges necessary for the law to function.
I see you are falling back to your Republican shoot the messenger ways by calling me a liberal. I guess you feel that diminishes my arguments. Fortunately these days that moniker is less damning than your Tea Partier status. And liberals are not the only one who think the Republicans have no answers,
“The GOP has “zero” ideas for replacing Obamacare. I will bet you, for most of you, you go home in the next two weeks when your members of Congress are home, and you look them in the eye and you say, ‘What is your positive replacement for Obamacare?’ They will have zero answers,” Newt Gingrich
DeMint’s Plan and Ryan’s Plan, amount to nothing more than what we already have with less protection for the old, sick, disabled and poor. More let the free market decide who gets care and who doesn’t get care. The free market has never brought health care to the old, sick and disabled, and it never will. There is no money to be made insuring those groups.
Democrats went into the discussion of health care reform with a goal of making healthcare better for the average citizen, and Republicans went into the discussion of health care reform with a goal of making health care cheaper for their specific special interests; and that is what their respective plans reflect.
You have not provided a single example of a president refusing to enforce a law on policy grounds (as opposed to a Constitutional objection). And this has nothing to do with funding. Indeed, Obama is foregoing funding by waiving the penalties. But stick to your talking points. I know they are all you have.
We moved from you claiming there were zero Republican proposals to at least acknowledging their existence. We are slowly drawing you back to reality. But we have a long way to o when you seriously claim there is anything like a free market in health care. It is a tough contest, but that might be the most ridiculous thing you have said. DeMint and Ryan were trying to introduce modest elements of competition into this dysfunctional market (thoroughly screwed up by government intervention, by the way), which would be a welcome improvement. I can sense how much you loathe it, but free market economics have lifted more people from poverty than any other force in history.
As for calling you a liberal, isn’t it accurate? Are you embarrassed to identify as such? Odd. Personally I consider modern liberalism or progressivism to be a valid, if hopelessly misguided worldview.
Rand welcomes a delay! How about that! But hey, Obama can’t just institute a delay, he says, Obama needs to get Congress to approve it!
Let’s see, Obama wants to delay, Congress should approve a delay, Rand Paul supports the delay, ergo Rand Paul should introduce legislation for said delay. Right? I mean, clearly all parties want the delay, right? So what’s stopping Rand from doing the obvious?
Oh no, is Rand playing… *GASP* …politics?!
Barasso is claiming the law doesn’t work like it is supposed to. I’m sure Barasso will be the first one in line to introduce, sponsor, co-sponsor, or vote yay on a bill that seeks to tweak the parts that aren’t working like they are supposed to, right? He’s totally going to support legislation to fix or replace the broken parts, right? Or, maybe he’s pushing for an entirely separate reform that is just as good or better?
Please. This is just as shallow as the shit they pulled with the USPS. The GOP doesn’t want anything fixed, they want things as broken as possible, even if they have to sabotage it, because it wins them political points. Is it any wonder that all they can do is put forth 40 vain attempts to repeal or defund reform and nothing else? Is it any wonder that Wilson wants to attach a rider to any and every piece of legislation and shut down the legislative process until you get what you want?
I’m simply amazed. “Let’s shut down the legislative branch and then bitch when someone tries to make due without it.” Yeah, that’s just wonderful.
He is just trying to hold Obama’s feet to the constitutional fire. Obama does NOT have the constitutional power to change parts of the law he chooses to…for political reasons. ‘O’ knows the implementation of the parts of the law that are to take effect in 2014 will be an economical disaster and he wants to delay it until after the 2014 elections. It is also a bad precedent for ANY president to just change laws as he sees fit. Again, it in unconstitutional!
You are wrong, and reinforce my observation that most Conservatives are either constitutionally illiterate or partisan hipocrites.
Rather than trying to shoot the messenger, why don’t you inform us whether you think what he is doing is constitutional. If not, then your post is nothing more than ad hominem. If so, then please explain the Constitutional basis for Obama’s actions? Since when did gridlock or political posturing justify usurping legislative power?
My philosophy has always been, if the messenger is unbiased answer the question. If the messenger is biased, shoot the messenger first and then answer the question. Republicans seem to end everything at shoot the messenger no matter what and move on.
Smirks did a good job of pointing out that the messenger is biased, so I will address the absurd constitutional allegations.
Conservatives like to make everything a constitutional crisis, when most things are not. Of course that is only the case when it is politically convenient for them to do so. You heard no complaints from them when Bush repeatedly refused to enforce laws and even went so far as to execute Presidential signing statements saying he would not enforce certain laws.
Obama is not changing a law enacted by Congress. He is simply choosing to not enforcement certain aspects of that law, until a future date. Presidents have always done this for a variety of reasons, mostly relating to funding, sometimes because the country needs more time to prepare for enforcement, but occasionally, as in the case of Bush, because he did not like the law.
Only Republicans would be hypocritical enough or dumb enough not to notice the hypocrisy of claiming it is unconstitutional for Obama to delaying enforcement of certain aspects of the ACA, but it is not unconstitutional for a minority in Congress to intentionally block enforcement of the that same law by not providing the funds to enforce the law Congress, itself enacted. I.E. It is a disgrace for Obama not to enforce a law, but it is great that some minority group of house members are trying to tie his hands and prevent him from enforcing that same law. Politics as usual for the right.
The decision of the the Executive Branch’s as to how to best enforce a law enacted by Congress are Constitutional unless a court concludes otherwise, based on evidence presented in a action filed by a persons with standing to sue. I.E. those allegedly impacted by the action or inaction of the Executive Branch..
The Government is composed of three co-equal branches. The Legislative Branch makes the laws and the Executive Branch is charged with enforcing those laws as best it can with the resources provided by the Legislative Branch.
When adequate resources are not provided to fully implement all of the laws Congress enacts, it is the job of the Executive Branch to set priorities, allocate resources, and come up with a plan to implement the laws as rapidly as possible. This may entail delaying the enforcement of certain all or certain parts of a law and allocating resources to enforcement of other parts of the law.
For example if Congress says “the maximum speed limit on all federal highways is 45 mph and the federal government shall enforce traffic laws on all federal highways”; but fails to provide adequate money to hire a police force to enforce those laws; the Executive branch must do the best it can to implement the law at the earliest possible time. That means it must determine what resources it can allocate from other sources to accomplish the directive, and if there are none, it cannot fulfill Congress’ directive and there is a delay in the implementation of the law. In that case, the Executive Branch may decide to implement the law in phases. For example, it may say “I can pull enough money from project x to enforce the new speed limit on Interstate Highways but enforcement on other federal highways will require an allocation of money from Congress.” This happens all the time.
The Republicans have been fighting to block the Affordable Care Act since its inception. They have done that at the Federal level and the state level. That effort has denied the Executive Branch the resources to implement the law as rapidly as it would prefer. Consequently, the Executive Branch must decide how to implement the law with the limited resources it has; and is doing so in stages as the resources allow. If Congress had given the Executive Branch its full support the law would have been implemented on time.
Now comes the third co-equal branch of government, the judiciary. If anyone who is negatively impacted by a delay in the enforcement of a law, believes that the Executive Branch cannot justify a delay in enforcement, they can bring an action in federal court to mandamus the Executive Branch to enforce the law. Based on the evidence submitted, if the Court determines the Executive Branch is not enforcing the law to the best of its ability, with the resources provided, it will order the Executive Branch to take a particular action. That is how the system is supposed to work. So if Republicans think Obama is not implementing the ACA fast enough. Sue him and say so.
“My philosophy has always been, if the messenger is unbiased answer the question. If the messenger is biased, shoot the messenger first …”
Thanks for clarifying. You can just post [insert ad hominem] in the future and save us the space, though. It is really sad that you consider fallacious logic to constitute a valid philosophy.
“Republicans seem to end everything at shoot the messenger no matter what and move on.”
Right. Because Republicans have not articulated a single argument against the merits of Obamacare. You are projecting, and you are doing it poorly.
“Obama is not changing a law enacted by Congress. He is simply choosing to not enforcement certain aspects of that law, until a future date.”
So your argument is he is not changing it, he is just ignoring it. Well that makes it much better. I never realized that the Constitution authorized the president to just ignore laws he does not like. Or as here, to tweak laws that he does like (his signature accomplishment no less) as politics require. So he did not unilaterally impose the Dream Act, he was just ignoring all of our immigration laws. I feel must better.
Actually, that argument is idiotic. But it simply falls apart when you consider another usurpation of power connected to Obamacare. The states are free to refuse to set up exchanges, but the bill fails to give the authority to the administration to set up exchanges in states that refuse. Yet Obama just unilaterally assumed that authority. So there is nothing he is “refusing to enforce,” except the Constitution and its pesky separation of powers.
There is a legitimate argument as to whether a president has to enforce a law he or she believes to be unconstitutional. But that has absolutely no relevance, for reasons that should be apparent, to Obamacare (the name kind of gives it away). And of course it would not be a refusal to enforce if there is a legitimate dispute as to what is required by an ambiguous provision. I suspect your references to Bush fall into one of those two categories, but there is not much ambiguity here as to whether the mandate takes effect this year or next.
If you are referring to something else with your reference to Bush, I would be interested to know the specifics. Although it is ultimately irrelevant, the argument from hypocrisy is still a logical fallacy.
No, I am not arguing he is ignoring the law, I am arguing he is implementing it as rapidly as he has determined feasible with the resources he was provided by Congress. If people believe otherwise there is a process for that. It is not a constitutional crisis. Presidents, governors, county administrators and mayors, practice selective enforcement of laws all the time when they lack the resources to fully enforce the law. Why do you think we don’t allocate a 10 million people to prevent people from bringing drugs into the country. Resources have to be allocated unless the resources are unlimited.
As for setting up the exchanges, it is the Executive Branches obligation to enforce the law as it believes Congress intended as rapidly as the resources allow. If the Obama Administration believes setting up the exchanges are necessary for the law to function as Congress intended, he can do so until a court tells him he cannot. Again this is not a constitutional crisis. If someone disagrees with the Administrations interpretation of the law, they can turn to the third co-equal branch of Government the Judiciary. Disagreements are why we have courts.
You of course totally ignore the discussion of why Congressional Republicans attempting to defund a law they cannot repeal is not equally unconstitutional under your theory. If Congress can constitutionally deny the Executive Branch the resources with which to enforce a law it enacted, It cannot be unconstitutional for the Executive Branch to not enforce the law it has no resources to enforce the law with.
Your arguments have no logic. They are simply partisan barbs. You are a victim of Obama derangement syndrome.
Republicans have offered no material alternatives, to the Affordable Care Act, and they have done everything in their power to prevent Obama from enforcing the law Congress enacted.
As for the Bush signing statements, you are wrong, look them up.
“Your arguments have no logic. They are simply partisan barbs. You are a victim of Obama derangement syndrome.”
More projection. it is amazing that you think just making up facts and restating talking points is effective as a form of argument. I have cited evidence for my assertions, and you do nothing but misdirect and attack.
The law stands as it was implemented (rammed through by the Democrats). The deadlines are in his bill. He owns them. Republicans do not need to “fund” the mandate. just the opposite. He is choosing not to implement the penalties on employers (and foregoing the precious resources to which you are referring) for failing to comply because it is a train wreck.
And you are arguing he can ignore the law if he believes he does not have the resources to carry it out. But setting that aside, resources have absolutely nothing to do with his authority to set up exchanges. The bill does not provide it. It is not there. Full stop. So he is usurping authority that was not provided by Congress.
I know liberals have this fairy tale that Republicans have not made a single health care proposal, but it is just so dishonest that it is hard to even respond. You may not like them, but disavowing their existence is just another sad example of the intellectual bankruptcy of the left. Our own Jim DeMint had a plan that would be far superior to Obamacare. Ryan had a superior plan.
Still a typical Republican. If you like it, its constitutional if you don’t like it its unconstitutional. Obama cannot fund the government. If Congress can constitutionally deny the Executive Branch the resources with which to enforce a law it enacted, It cannot be unconstitutional for the Executive Branch to not enforce the law it has no resources to enforce the law with. Its you who fails to understand the separation of powers, and the co-equal nature of the branches.
Further if Congress passes a law that can only function with the creation of exchanges, by implication the Executive Branch has the authority to create the exchanges necessary for the law to function.
I see you are falling back to your Republican shoot the messenger ways by calling me a liberal. I guess you feel that diminishes my arguments. Fortunately these days that moniker is less damning than your Tea Partier status. And liberals are not the only one who think the Republicans have no answers,
“The GOP has “zero” ideas for replacing Obamacare. I will bet you, for most of you, you go home in the next two weeks when your members of Congress are home, and you look them in the eye and you say, ‘What is your positive replacement for Obamacare?’ They will have zero answers,” Newt Gingrich
DeMint’s Plan and Ryan’s Plan, amount to nothing more than what we already have with less protection for the old, sick, disabled and poor. More let the free market decide who gets care and who doesn’t get care. The free market has never brought health care to the old, sick and disabled, and it never will. There is no money to be made insuring those groups.
Democrats went into the discussion of health care reform with a goal of making healthcare better for the average citizen, and Republicans went into the discussion of health care reform with a goal of making health care cheaper for their specific special interests; and that is what their respective plans reflect.
You have not provided a single example of a president refusing to enforce a law on policy grounds (as opposed to a Constitutional objection). And this has nothing to do with funding. Indeed, Obama is foregoing funding by waiving the penalties that would be paid by employers. But stick to your talking points. I know they are all you have.
We moved from you claiming there were zero Republican proposals to at least acknowledging their existence. We are slowly drawing you back to reality. But we have a long way to go when you seriously claim there is anything like a free market in health care. It is a tough contest, but that might be the most ridiculous thing you have said. DeMint and Ryan were trying to introduce modest elements of competition into this dysfunctional market (thoroughly screwed up by government intervention, by the way), which would be a welcome improvement. I can sense how much you loathe it, but free market economics have lifted more people from poverty than any other force in history.
As for calling you a liberal, isn’t it accurate? Are you embarrassed to identify as such? Odd. Personally I consider modern liberalism or progressivism to be a valid, if hopelessly misguided worldview.
Obamacare is going to be a trainwreck.
Rand would like for it to happen before the engineer who caused it clocks out and goes home.
Seems fair to TBG.
Obamacare is going to be a trainwreck.
Rand would like for it to happen before the engineer who caused it clocks out and goes home.
Seems fair to TBG.