The Fight to Repeal Obamacare
By US Senator Sen. John Thune
Before it became law, Republicans in Congress warned of the damage the so-called Affordable Care Act would cause and the burdens the American people would face as a result. Five and a half years later, Obamacare – as it became known – has chipped away at family budgets, squeezed small business growth, and led to fewer choices for patients and their doctors. Obamacare has broken nearly every promise its Democrat authors made to the American people, including the oft-repeated promise that if you liked your doctor and health care plan you could keep them, ‘period.’
Obamacare is broken – it always has been – which is why Republicans who campaigned for the Senate majority in 2014 promised voters that if they gave us the chance, we would send an Obamacare repeal bill to President Obama. Despite fierce opposition from Democrats and the president, Senate Republicans have now made good on that promise.
Now that the Senate has passed a repeal bill, the ball will soon be in the president’s court. He can either support this measure and help lift the burdens Obamacare has placed on the American people, or he can double down on his failed policies. If the president chooses the latter, it will be clear to the American people that the only thing standing in the way of an Obamacare repeal bill being signed into law is the current occupant of the White House.
The evidence to suggest repealing this fundamentally flawed law is necessary couldn’t be any clearer. Obamacare was supposed to lower health care premiums. It didn’t. It was supposed to reduce health care costs. It didn’t do that either. And it was supposed to protect the health care plans Americans wanted to keep, which couldn’t be further from the reality. Obamacare was sold to the American people as a health care solution, but it’s turned out to be yet another health care problem.
Since Obamacare was signed into law in 2010, I’ve heard from countless South Dakotans who have shared with me their personal stories about how this burdensome law is affecting their families. One person recently wrote to tell me that her and her husband’s health care plan is going up by more than $8,000 next year. That’s a staggering amount of money. What family can afford such a significant increase in expenses from one year to the next? Sadly, that’s only one of many stories I’ve heard, and these stories aren’t unique to South Dakota.
It’s time to move away from the president’s broken health care law and toward the kind of health care reform Americans are actually looking for: an affordable, accountable, patient-focused system that gives individuals control of their health care decisions. It’s what the American people want, and it’s what they deserve.
The Republican party in South Dakota shall from now on be known as the “Quantum Physics Party.” One cannot tell if they are a wave or a particle. Are they truly for or against ObamaCare, in actuality?
While Thune and Rounds want to repeal ObamaCare, their fellow Republican governor wants to bring it to South Dakota through an expansion of Medicaid for the working poor in this state…. What gives here?
But why are we surprised? This is the same Grand Old Party which nominated Romney (Whom Senator Thune endorsed early in that race) as their presidential nominee, while they publicly assailed ObamaCare in 2010 and 2012 and now once again for 2016. They hate ObamaCare, but embrace Romneycare. What is the difference, I ask?
But, once again, we should not be surprised, because before the GOP began to hate ObamaCare with crocodile tears, they actually owned it long before RomneyCare. Many may not know it, but ObamaCare or RomneyCare, or whatever you want to call it was first the Republican answer to HillaryCare back in 1994 under the auspices of the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank and now they treat it as an illegitimate child which they aloofly ignore instead of accepting responsibility for…..
So since the GOP is the true father of Obamacare, they should help us fix it if there are any problems with it and accept responsibility for it. But instead the GOP prefers a mere repeal and the proactive rhetoric attached to it, which only puts the GOP on record for restoring the pre-existing condition cause, a return of the “donuthole” for Medicare drug recipients, the inability for your child until age 26 to stay on your health insurance policy, the reinstatement of Medicare Advantage for the rich (where the Feds pays the private sector insurance industry a $ 1.15 for every $ 1 in benefits received by the rich Medicare recipients), and the removal of millions of hard working poor from the Medicaid roles. Is that what you want, Grand Old Party? Perhaps it is, because absence RomneyCare, Obamacare, or whatever you want to call it, the only other suggestions your party has brought to the table to deal with the nation’s health care agenda in recent years has been tort reform and an enhancement of health savings accounts – two ideas, one which is “trickle-down” at best, while the other is merely an aspiration of the upper-middle income and the affluent, which should not surprise us given the GOP’s recent misdirected rhetoric and policy options on the state of health care in America today, which signals their true intent, agenda, and priorities.
I might also add, that given Jeb Bush’s recent and correct comment that the Senate has at best a “3-day French workweek” in reference to Rubio’s attendance record, there are better things than an ill-fated attempt to repeal Obamacare at the hands of a guaranteed veto, but fortunately the GOP plans to take us there. Just as they gave us Schiavo as the banks were beginning to collapse and wanted to privatize Social Security just before the markets were to crash. Only further proving what Twain once said about history, “….it sure does rhyme….”
And if you think the aforementioned assessment is wrong. Then let me remind you Senator Thune is the one who has become the true self proclaimed authority on ObamaCare. In fact, he has been doing it for sometime. Back in 2009, during a famous exchange with Senator Franken on the floor of the Senate, he told us the taxes were coming before the benefits with Obamacare , but then in 2014 he told us “…Here come the taxes….” in terms of Obamacare. I not going to ask which is true or false, because I am use to the GOP’s quantum contradictions when it comes to Obamacare and health care in general, but the people of South Dakota need to know these contradictions as well and hopefully they will be told the true narrative beginning in 2016….
Winston,
Just because the GOP is opposed to Obamacare because it isn’t working, is too expensive and inefficient, isn’t meeting its promises on significantly increasing the number of Americans with health insurance, and is actually increasing the cost of medical care (vs. cost containment) does not mean:
1) “restoring the pre-existing condition”- The GOP has proposed many alternatives which has portability and not having a pre-existing condition as a reason for denial or cancellation.
2) “Return of the “donuthole” for Medicare drug recipients:” There is not any way to reform any entitlement without impacting someone during a transition. Basically, when you make this argument, you are saying we can never reform any entitlement even if Medicare will go broke without reform.
3) “the inability for your child until age 26 to stay on your health insurance policy,” This is the case for some Republicans but not all. Nice try.
4) “the reinstatement of Medicare Advantage for the rich (where the Feds pays the private sector insurance industry a $ 1.15 for every $ 1 in benefits received by the rich Medicare recipients)”- This the case for some Republicans but not all. And, just because Republicans oppose the way this was designed doesn’t make your implication.
5) “the removal of millions of hard working poor from the Medicaid roles” Nice try blending two issues which can and should be separate in the political and policy discussion.
Troy, “long time no see, 😉 :”
1) The current repeal doesn’t address this issue as your words “has proposed” proves. Or better yet, as Congressman Grayson said to paraphrase him… “The GOP answer to health care is to not get sick, but if you do, then die quickly.”
2) Well, first let us remind the voters of South Dakota, that the “donut hole” issue or what is known as Medicard part D is a new reality with only 10+ years of life in it. When it passed in 2004 with bi-partisan support there was no true funding source for it, other than to add it to the continual cost of Medicare itself, but then in 2010, when Obamacare came into being, the Republicans all a sudden claimed “There was no funding source for it!”…. Um, thanks, for pointing out another example of the GOPS “quantum” capabilities or contradictions.
Also, in your comments are you not admitting you want to get rid of the current “donut hole” benefit. Is that something the GOP really wants to be known for? As far entitlement reform, those in favor of the appeal of Obamacare cannot now claim to be the champions of entitlement reform, when the repeal of Obamacare would reinstate Medicare Advantage, which costed the Federal government $ 1.15 for every $ 1.00 spent prior to the enactment of Obamacare.
3) This is the case of all Republicans if you repeal Obamacare, which the Senate has just tried to do. It is not a “try.” It is a truthful and successful attempt.
4) If you repeal Obamacare, you go back to square one, which is an reinstatement of Medicare Advantage, right?
5) I bet Governor Daugaard hopes they are separated. But a repeal is a repeal. We are not talking about amendments here. If the GOP would only offer doable and sincere amendments, then that would be leadership, but instead they are ignoring their illegitimate child and taking the low road of posturing and rhetoric over answers and true leadership on the health care issues in America today.
Winston,
When Obamacare was passed, the President entertained zero input from Republicans.
Since passage, the President has threatened to veto virtually every attempt to “reform” or replace Obamacare except the medical equipment tax.
Since the President won’t negotiate with the GOP on replacement, they have one choice- send him a repeal.
With regard to the specifics on Medicare Advantage, I’m realistic that even with a GOP President, replacing Obamacare will require compromise as we will not have 60 GOP Senators. i don’t know what and where I will want compromise.
Troy,
The Republican input into Obamacare was the fact that they were the initial authors of the concept. The Republicans in 2009 and 2010 were not asking for input they were looking for a defeat of the measure and were implicit to the claim of “Keep government out of my Medicare.”
I will, however, criticize the Democrats for one major thing going back to 2009 and that is that as the Republicans have aloofly treated Obamacare as their love child at best, Democrats in the beginning treated Obamacare as their step-child (Because it was primarily a Republican concept) and both of these realities have contributed to its rocky existence with no middle ground having been found on it. Is the bill perfect? Hell no! To me its a no brainer to fix, why not extend Medicare to everyone and call it a day (but I really do not want to debate that one right now, I have a Christmas tree to decorate).
However, if you think that an repeal is the only way to get Obama to act I think you are wrong. Because as long as the Republicans say “Repeal Only” then they owned all the political baggage, which comes with that slogan, and it forces them, like you, to explain or qualify away the collateral damage a total repeal would do in terms of the pre-existing condition clause, the donut hole, Medicare advantage, and covering young adults until age 26; and that is a political battle your party cannot win.
In terms of Medicare Advantage, that is a program we cannot afford, do not need, and it goes against the true intent of the Medicare program to begin with… And your concerns about 60 GOP Senators is very true and all the more reason we need to address more serious issues than the blatant attempt to repeal Obamacare, which will go nowhere. As Americans we all have bigger fish to fry: The Chinese are building a two ocean navy, Isis and the continual war pandemic, global warming, restoring the middle class, Putin is still living in the 1950s and 60s, and tweaking Obamacare too…. Good night 😉