House conservatives planning reboot of Obamacare repeal and replace — and it just might work

One of the main reasons why voters gave Republicans control of the House, Senate and White House was their promise to repeal and replace the disastrous Affordable Care Act, also known derisively as “Obamacare.”

But six months into President Donald J. Trump’s first term, the GOP has failed miserably to deliver on its promise.

Some believe that too many Republican establishment types just don’t want to see Trump — who made repeal-and-replace a cornerstone of his campaign — succeed, so they’re withholding support for repealing a law they all voted in unison to replace just a few years ago.

Other political commentators have observed that deep down, a number of Republicans share the same view held by their Democratic colleagues who gave us Obamacare in the first place: That the federal government ought to control all our healthcare, and hence our personal behavior, because they’re really closet authoritarians deep down.

Still, others think that a number of Republicans are just political cowards who, when given the opportunity to do the bold thing and actually follow through on a campaign promise don’t have the guts to do so.

Either way, there is a growing group of House conservatives who not only believe repeal and replace is still possible, but that it should be done and can be done.

One of them is Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who told The Daily Signal it was time to “put the screws” to GOP lawmakers who have been promising to get rid of the most destruct public health policy in the history of our country.

“We certainly can’t give up,” he said.

The website noted further:

Gaetz was explaining why he decided to back a small caucus of House conservatives in its strategy to force a floor vote on a bill mirroring the Obamacare repeal passed in December 2015.

The House Freedom Caucus announced Friday its plan to collect the 218 signatures required on a “discharge petition” to pull that legislation out of committee.

Gaetz told The Daily Signal how he stands on that strategy.

“I signed the discharge petition because the things we have done so far to appease moderates in our party haven’t worked,” Gaetz, who is not a Freedom Caucus member, said. “So, maybe we should take a conservative approach going forward. We certainly can’t give up.”

In 2015 bill passed the GOP-controlled House and Senate in 2015 but, naturally, was vetoed by President Obama. The bill contained language repealing several key aspects of the ACA, including the expansion of Medicaid to Americans who really make enough money they don’t need a subsidy, and nearly all of the law’s tax increases.

In addition, the legislation called for abolishing Obamacare’s insurance mandates for both employers and individuals — requiring them to offer and carry health insurance, respectively — and for the defunding of Planned Parenthood, an abortion-providing organization that rakes in $500 million in taxpayer funding annually, forcing tens of millions of taxpayers to support an organization they don’t agree with.

But because all House and Senate Republicans voted in 2015 to repeal Obamacare, Gaetz says there’s no reason for them not to do so today, when they know that Trump would sign the bill into law.

“There is this theory both in the House and in the Senate that the legislation that everyone has previously voted for to repeal Obamacare would not get the votes on the floor of either body,” he told The Daily Signal. “It’s my view that the ‘I was for it before I was against it’ political narrative has proven to be unsuccessful. And so I want to put the screws to the members of my party who seem to only want to support repealing Obamacare when they don’t think it will actually happen.”

Still, he acknowledged the difficulty in getting a bill to the president, but not because of his chamber. (Related: Memo from WE THE PEOPLE to Congress: Get rid of Obamacare and pass tax reform or lose your seats in 2018.)

“These days it’s reasonable to be skeptical that a Mother’s Day resolution could pass the Senate,” he said.

The good news is that there are members of Congress still dedicated to getting rid of a health care law Democrats and President Obama lied repeatedly to pass in the first place.

J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.

Sources include:

DailySignal.com

TheNationalSentinel.com

Former Obama Medicare chief blames GOP for “sneaky” Obamacare repeal, after Democrats lied to pass it – is he kidding?

If you needed more proof that Democrats lack the hypocrisy gene, here goes: A former Obama administration health care official is actually accusing Republicans of being less than honest about Obamacare.

You can’t make this stuff up.

As reported by The Hill, Obama’s acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Andy Slavitt, accused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., of using “sabotage, speed and secrecy” in working to pass a Republican health care reform bill.

Writing in the Washington Post (of course), Slavitt ‘advised’ McConnell to redo the House-passed Obamacare repeal-and-replace measure after the never-accurate Congressional Budget Office ‘scored’ it and said 23 million Americans would lose coverage if it passed.

[Reality check: MORE than that (27 million Americans) are still uninsured — more on that in a moment.]

“Faced with that reality, McConnell could have started over and had the Senate develop its own legislation, perhaps even working with Democrats on a bipartisan alternative that could withstand the test of time,” he wrote. “Instead, McConnell put a plan in place to pass something close to the House bill using three simple tools: sabotage, speed and secrecy.”

Let’s translate this BS and then break it down with heavy doses of reality.

First of all, what this partisan functionary is saying is that Republicans — who stand in the congressional majority and who have the White House — really don’t have a mandate to govern and pass their version of healthcare reform, even though Obama and Democrats claimed a mandate in 2009 and 2010 to pass Obamacare when their party held congressional majorities and the Oval Office. Secondly, the vast majority of Americans who put Republicans in charge of both chambers of Congress and the White House don’t want them to cooperate with Democrats on anything, much less “health care.” Democrats have proven already they can make quite a mess of it.

Slavitt also demonstrated that either he’s clinically insane or he’s so hopelessly partisan that he’s not capable of thinking clearly (which brings me back to the first observation). He actually wrote that the GOP’s argument that “Obamacare has failed” is disputed by…facts.

“Taking advantage of those now well-documented efforts to sabotage the ACA [Affordable Care Act], McConnell is reportedly telling his members they have no choice but to pass a replacement,” he wrote, noting McConnell is using a “fast-track procedure” to get it done.

“So last week McConnell deployed Rule XIV, a fast-track procedure that bypasses the committee process and moves the bill directly to the floor. Just as in the House, we’re on track to have a vote with no hearings (there were more than 100 for the ACA). Knowing the coverage loss will be significant, McConnell plans to vote within only days, or possibly even hours, of the release of the CBO score,” Slavitt wrote, accusing McConnell of “secrecy” as well. (RELATED: The top 5 biggest Obamacare fails and why Republicans and Trump should try again to repeal and replace)

There were ACA hearings, for sure — but so many facts about the law were purposefully omitted from them, such as:

— The ‘individual mandate,’ Obama argued in the media, was “not a tax.” Lie: The Supreme Court ruled that it was a tax in 2012, deciding that the first-ever government mandate requiring Americans to purchase a product or service was constitutional.

— Democrats and Obama repeatedly promised that the ACA would cover every American. Not only was that a lie, but more people remain uncovered now than would be uncovered under the GOP plan. And what’s more, if the GOP plan reduces premiums and other out-of-pocket expenses, more people will be able to afford coverage.

— And about those lower premiums and deductibles promises, I’m not sure what planet Slavitt is living on, but Obamacare’s excessive insurance industry requirements and regulations have led to dramatically higher premiums and deductibles, leaving tens of millions of Americans with ‘coverage’ in name only. Many families are literally spending more than $10,000 a year for “coverage” with deductibles that are as high as $1,000 per family member or higher.

If Obamacare wasn’t ravaging the insurance industry and driving millions of families to the financial breaking point, criticism of the GOP replacement effort by partisan hacks like Slavitt would be comical.

J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.

Sources:

TheHill.com

CNBC.com

Bloomberg.com

NaturalNews.com