Are Republicans finally getting serious about repealing Obamacare?

  One of the issues that many Republicans ran on during the 2010 election cycle was their support of repealing or defunding Obamacare but so far they have not been willing to do either. The House did manage to pass a measure to repeal Obamacare but it was not much more than a publicity stunt as the measure stood no chance of passage in the Senate. But has that changed? Are Republicans finally getting serious about repealing and/or defunding Obamacare?

  Two reports today indicate that the Republicans are finally making their move on Obamacare. Earlier today the Congress passed a bill which would repeal two aspects of Obamacare and the bill will be headed to Barack Obama for his signature or veto. Included in this bill is the repeal of a paperwork requirement which would mandate small businesses to file 1099 tax forms for every person under their employment who makes at least $600. This measure was considered to unfairly burden small businesses and its repeal had always had bipartisan support.

  Why did it take this long to repeal an aspect of Obamacare that both parties and the president realized needed to be repealed? The answer is politics. Both parties supported this move, but both blocked the repeal when they felt that the other party would benefit politically from the repeal. Both parties had been putting politics above the interests of small businesses and the American people and I find this show of contempt and disregard for the good of the American people to be utterly inappropriate and disgusting. Finally today the politicians in Washington put the interests of the American people ahead of their own personal political goals.

  However, the final outcome of this bill is still in doubt because of the second aspect of Obamacare to be repealed which the Congress passed today, and that is the issue over how healthcare subsidies are paid for. Here is the issue at hand:

Under current law, consumers are allowed to keep much of the money when the government overpays them, but the new bill would claw back most of that money from taxpayers

  As one who believes that the federal government is robbing the American people of their hard earned money the fact remains that under the law if the government overpays an American citizen, that person should be required to give that overpayment back but apparently that is not the case with Obamacare. This second provision in the bill would require American citizens who receive money from the government that they do no deserve to give that mony back. That seems like a reasonable position to me but both the Democrats in the Congress and the president do not agree. Because of this there is the chance that Barack Obama could veto this bill and once again the small businesses will fall victim to partizan politics under the 1099 provision in the Obamacare law.

  The Republicans are calling this a “down payment” on the full repeal of Obamacare

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican, called the bill “a down payment on total repeal of the onerous health care law.”

  They are claiming that this is only the beginning of a systematic dismantling of Obamacare which they will achieve on small piece at a time.

  The Republicans also offered a budget for the fiscal year 2012 which will totally defund Obamacare.

The Republican proposal says one of its aims is “making sure that not a penny goes toward implementing the new [health care] law” enacted last year.

This includes repealing about $800 billion in new taxes that were built into the law.

The proposed Republican budget resolution lists as one of its “key objectives” that it “Repeals and defunds the President’s health care law, advancing instead common-sense solutions focused on lowering costs, expanding access and protecting the doctor-patient relationship.”

“There is no way for ‘experts’ in Washington to know more about the health care needs of individual Americans than those individuals and their doctors know,” says the proposal. “The new health-care law, rammed through Congress last year on a partisan vote, has taken the nation one step closer to this fully government-run system.

“The problems with this approach are already popping up all over the country,” says the proposal. “Health care costs continue to escalate relentlessly. The new law has aggravated the worst aspects of the U.S. health care system, without fixing what was broken. The country needs to move away from this centralized system, not towards it.

“This budget starts by repealing the costly new government-run health care law, saving roughly $725 billion over ten years by repealing the new exchange subsidies and making sure that not a penny goes toward implementing the new law,” says the resolution. “Then, this budget goes further with reforms that make government health-care programs more responsive to consumer choice.”

  This is also being talked about by Republicans as part of the systematic dismantling of Obamacare:

“The health-care law enacted last year contained roughly $800 billion in new taxes and tax increases–the result of dozens of changes to tax law that added complexity and unfairness to the code.” The proposal calls for repealing all of these new taxes and tax increases as part of repealing the entirety of the Obamacare law.

  So the question in my mind is; how serious are the Republicans about this? It seems to me that there is about a 50/50 chance that the 1099 repeal will go into effect as I think the president may be willing to compromise the subsidy funding for the very popular 1099 repeal, but what chance does the 2012 budget stand to pass if it includes a defunding of Obamacare?

  We all know that there is no way in hell that the Democrats are ever going to agree to a budget which defunds Obamacare but if the Republicans are serious about this it could have repercussions in the 2012 elections which will make the defunding and repeal of Obamacare possible. The Republicans know that they cannot achieve this goal with the Senate as it is currently constituted, but if they can make this an issue moving into the 2012 election cycle there is the chance that they could pick up enough seats in the Senate to pull this off, and I think that is exactly what they are looking at with this move today.

  I think that the Republicans are finally starting to get serious about this issue–and I also feel as if they probably waited until the 2012 election cycle started to gear up–and intend to make this a political issue in the next election. The Republicans know that they cannot either defund or repeal Obamacare–yet–but if they can convince the American people they are serious about this issue there is the very real chance that the Republicans can pick up enough seats in the Senate to repeal this unpopular bill.

  The Republicans will be attacked and demagogued for this position by the Democrats, but if they hold true to this position they may be able to convince the American people that they are serious about this. Then and only then will they be able to actually pull this off. This is the beginning of a long battle, but it seems as if it is finally underway.