Republican-Controlled House Passes Continued Complete Funding for ObamaCare and Planned Parenthood

God help us!!

Republican House Leaders John Boehner, Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise

TPNN: September 18, 2014 By Matthew Burke: 

House Republicans, led by Speaker of the House John Boehner, joined with Democrats to pass a continuing resolution late Wednesday that will continue to fully fund Obamacare, which has never had majority support in any poll since its passage, as well as funding Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion factory which also teaches sadomasochism to girls as young as 15-years-old. 

Additionally, the bill to fund the government through December 11, provides funding for Obama’s request to “train and equip appropriately vetted elements of the Syrian opposition,” i.e., “Syrian rebels.”

Democrat Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi joined Republicans in voting for the bill, which passed 319 to 108. Four members did not vote.

Among Republicans who voted against the bill included Trey Gowdy, Louie Gohmert, Jim Jordan, Michele Bachmann, Dana Rohrabacher, and John Fleming, while several far-left Marxist Democrats voted in favor of the Republican leadership sponsored bill, including John Conyers and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
“The truth is that, if you look back under this president as commander-in-chief, we trained people in Libya,” said Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-TX). “We provided weapons to Libya that were then used against us in Benghazi. There are Americans dead because this administration felt compelled to go in and take out Qadhafi.”

“One of the big problems, too, when we go in and train, as this President wants to do for the Syrians, they learn our tradecraft,” said Rep. Gohmert. “They use it against us, as they did at Benghazi,” Gohmert predicted.

“If we are going to degrade and destroy them [ISIS] it will not happen through an indecisive strategy that relies on unreliable and largely unknown help from Syrian rebels, whose own motivations and goals are mixed, and almost impossible to be certain of,” said Rep. John Fleming (R-LA).

Republican currently hold a majority in the House of Representatives and are led by Speaker of the House John Boehner, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and new House Majority Whip Steve Scalise.  

Palin: I Do Not Want to Leave the Republican Party, But If They Leave Me… 

EXCLUSIVE: Chris McDaniel: ‘People Need to See the Ugly Under Belly of Some Elements of the Republican Party’

The GOP’s Grandfather Weapon

Daily Caller: ‘If You Like Your Obamacare, You Can Keep Your Obamacare’: I don’t quite understand the new, near-unanimous Dem line on Obamacare – which is that because it has signed up a few million people, many previously uninsured, it is now somehow invulnerable to repeal. From WaPo:

“A fundamental political shift happened on January 1 because millions of Americans now have health insurance,” said Dan Pfeiffer, an Obama senior adviser. “The Republican strategy now means taking that insurance away. It was all theoretical until now, and the Republican repeal plan is no longer politically viable.” [E.A.]

It may be true, as the New York Times hopefully declared, that “[o]nce a benefit has been bestowed, it is nearly impossible to take it away” (though there are a million or so Americans who’ve been receiving long-term unemployment benefits who might want to argue the point). But there’s a traditional political solution to this Take Away Problem, namely the “grandfather clause.”

It wouldn’t be hard for Republican repealers to write a law that got rid of Obamacare while somehow keeping those few million who’ve signed up on some form of similar insurance. “If you like your Obamacare you can keep your Obamacare.” Exchange policies could be converted to non-exchange policies in a special, no-new-enrollments program, for example. Over time, attrition would whittle this grandfathered class down to trivial size–a process with which you’d think Obamacare’s architects would be familiar.

I don’t know if Obamacare will survive or not. Even its cockiest defenders, now whistling past the graveyard of missed deadlines, concede** that (as one of them, Josh Marshall, puts it) if “the mix of young and old people, healthy and sick” is “significantly out of whack you’ll have problems.”*** Problems that include, in Greg Sargent’s words, the possibility that “insurers pull out, and the exchanges collapse.”

But I do know that if Obamacare isn’t repealed it won’t be because two (or ten) million people in a country of 300 million have already signed up.

P.S.: Its also possible that Obamacare, instead of collapsing, will become a long term, slow-bleeding, painfully unpopular policy wound, as millions more middle class Americans who don’t qualify for subsidies get shunted into the individual market where they have to buy policies that offer them less for more. It’s not clear that this outcome is better, politically, for the Democrats.

P.P.S.: You want a health care benefit that would be nearly impossible to take away, or to grandfather? Extending Medicare to age 55 would have been more or less impossible to take away, even by grandfathering (i.e. by continuing Medicare for existing 55 year olds but denying it to new 55 year olds). Just sayin’.

_____

**– Marshall also downplays the non-payment problem –i.e. the possibility that many of the 2 million who’ve signed up on the exchanges “won’t end up paying their premiums.” He says GOPs who make this argument are “dead-enders” in an “intense form of denial.” But the non-payment threat seems like a reasonable worry for supporters of the law as well as a source of hope for opponents.

***– I favor a more panicked, pro-active approach that accepts the need for reasonably big fixes (e.g. fewer mandatory benefits). Letting Americans know improvements (if necessary) are planned might in turn help build confidence and boost enrollment.

Technorati Tags: ObamaCare,Grandfather Clause,GOP,ObamaCare Alternatives,Stand-Up,Exchanges

James Carville: Don’t Blame Republicans; Blame Obama

CapitalismInstitute: The roll-out of Obamacare has been nothing short of a disaster. Naturally, the Obama Administration has pathetically tried to pin the blame on Republicans.

But, even James Carville, a top Democratic strategist, says Obamacare was a “self-inflicted … disaster.”

Blind party loyalty should never trump facts and Carville demonstrated this in an interview with Fox Business Network recently.

The Washington Examiner reports:

The rollout of this has been awful, and it didn’t have to be that way at all. I think the president has himself to blame as much as anybody. I don’t think he was done in, in this instance by the Republicans, or done in by the media, done in by anything.

While Carville (mistakenly) believes that Obamacare is “going to get better” with time, he is right about one thing: The roll-out of Obamacare was a “massive mess-up” and no one else is to blame but Obama.

Carville is also a little off on the “massive mess-up" as well… It’s more like the “planned dirty Secret behind” ObamaCare,,, rationing, that no one’s talking about and that the goal is Single-Payer Socialized Medicine for all but the elite, but again, either way it all falls into the lap of Obama and the Democrats… not the Republicans, but as long as the media plays the lap dog for the administration, you won’t get the straight scoop from the mainstream media news.

Carville continued:

I look at these polls, and I got to tell you, I think it is all self-inflicted. I think this rollout, which I think they got to get right, was a disaster; it was a joke.

Carville joins the rest of the American people in recognizing Obamacare for what it is: a joke.

He addressed Obama’s “if you like it, you can keep it” lie:

Well, the truth of the matter is, it could be said that he could have — he could have said it a lot more elegantly than he did. …

And there was a way to talk about, you know, how many people would get to keep their health insurance in a way that wasn’t causing this much trouble.

In other words: You should avoid lying to the American people about the consequences of your economically catastrophic law. To say the least, it could “[cause] some grief.”

Even the Obama Administration’s long-time allies are realizing that Obamacare has been a disaster – and no one else is to blame except Obama. If you agree, “recommend” this article on Facebook, Twitter and forward it to help spread the word.

RUSH: GOP Will Be Tricked Into Saving ObamaCare

Audio: RUSH: GOP Will Be Tricked Into Saving ObamaCare

Tea Party vs. Progressives on ObamaCare

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton - Cross-Posted at Right Wing News, Gateway Pundit and Ask Marion 

You can blend in or blend out — the Tea Party chooses to take a stand and blend out. Leading the fray is Ted Cruz. Sarah Palin has written a kick butt article on Cruz Control. Take a moment and smell the tea:

More and more Americans are waking up to the nightmare of ObamaCare as its rollout continues.

Hardworking families are losing their employer-provided health care coverage. Businesses are cutting back their employees’ hours to skirt ObamaCare's mandates. Americans barely scrapping by are discovering that ObamaCare has made health care completely unaffordable. Those who aren’t part of a protected special interest group have been left in the cold.

When you’re living on a fixed income, having to pay hundreds of dollars more each month for health care will cut into your ability to pay for basic necessities like food, electricity, or gas (which has increased 90% under Obama). Open your eyes, America. When the full reality of ObamaCare strikes home, we’ll thank God that principled leaders like Ted Cruz and Mike Lee took a stand to stop it in its tracks.

But the permanent political class is handwringing and howling that if there’s a government shutdown the media will blame Republicans for it. Here’s a little newsflash, GOP establishment: Whenever anything bad happens, the media blames Republicans for it. That’s not an excuse to roll over and play dead. It’s a call to follow the advice I give my daughters: Woman up, stand your ground, and fight like a girl!

While Democratic Senate Minority Leader and major weasel, Harry Reid, is calling the Tea Party anarchists and telling the Republicans to sit down, shut up and take ObamaCare like good little Marxists, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee are moving forward fighting all the way and threatening a filibuster:

“The Affordable Care Act has been the law of the land for three years,” Reid said. “Democrats stand ready to work with reasonable people who want to improve it, but Republican attempts to take an entire law hostage simply to appease the Tea Party anarchists are outrageous, irresponsible and futile.”

Wait… did he just say resistance is futile? So the Dems are admitting they’re the Borg? Reid can go back to whatever alien planet or hole he calls home and stuff it.

He’s not alone though - witness the Progressive Republicans on the right who are attacking Cruz at every opportunity:

Fox News host Chris Wallace said on Sunday that top Republicans had sent him opposition research throughout the week on Republican Texas Senator Ted Cruz.

Many top Republicans are upset that Cruz is threatening to filibuster if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid reinserts funding for ObamaCare, after the House stripped the money from a recently passed continuing resolution bill, Wallace said.

“This has been one of the strangest weeks I’ve ever had in Washington,” Wallace said. “As soon as we listed Ted Cruz as our featured guest this week, I got unsolicited research and questions, not from Democrats but from top Republicans, to hammer Cruz.”

Fox's Wallace Stunned: GOP Establishment Leaders Sent Me Opposition Research on Ted Cruz

Palin Fires at Fox News: 'Keep It TRULY Fair & Balanced,' Name Cruz Critics

We the people are standing with Ted Cruz and Mike Lee and we will remember those who betray us on both sides of the aisle. In closing, take to heart Sarah Palin’s words:

The message only grows stronger. The grassroots is bigger than any one person. We the People will rise up, and we will make our voices heard. Right now, Ted Cruz is speaking for us in this ObamaCare fight. God bless him for it.

Hang in there, Ted and Mike. You have millions of supporters among ordinary hardworking Americans. We support you because you don’t shy away from the fray. May your colleagues in the Senate gain the wisdom to support your excellent efforts so that you can see that the view is better from inside the bus than under it.

Video:  Palin on Cruz Control…

The only ones that should be viewing the underside of the bus are the Progressive Left. Death to ObamaCare.

Video:  Ted Cruz, Mark Levin explain process of defunding ObamaCare - 9/20/13

House votes 230-189 to Fund Government, Defund ObamaCare

Senator Jim DeMint Heritage Action Keynote Address – Defund ObamaCare Rally

Americans petition Congress to Defund ObamaCare

House Speaker John Boehner has a message for President Barack Obama: You’ll negotiate with Russia and not Republicans? [video] – Updated

Truckers Threatening to ‘Shut Down Washington, D.C.’ for Three Days Straight

Technorati Tags: Progressives,Progressivism,Tea Party,Constitution,Freedom,Defund ObamaCare,ObamaCare,Affordable Care Act,ACA,GOP,Budget,saving America,standing-up,Ted Cruz,Sarah Palin,Mike Lee,Cruz,Mark Levin,Palin,Levin,Chris Wallace,Fox,GOP Establishment

RPV Chairman Pat Mullins Responds to ‘ObamaCare Medicaid Expansion in Virginia’ – A Susan Stimpson Email

Virginia Right: There is an email from Susan Stimpson the former Republican Candidate for Lt. Governor in Virginia circulating concerning the Republican’s plan to expand the ObamaCare Medicaid program in the Commonwealth. My fellow blogger Sandy Sanders covered this story today here.

We all remember the deal the Republicans made in the last session to get Democrats to go along with the Transportation Tax increase pushed by Governor McDonnell and the Republicans. At the time, it was reported that Republicans agreed to set up a commission on the Medicaid expansion that would actually be empowered to expand Medicaid under the ObamaCare program. Many believed that this was a first move towards that goal.

Susan Stimpson believes that agreement is about to come to fruition despite many Republicans words to the contrary and she sent out an email this morning urging citizens to call the Republican Party of Virginia and express their concerns to Chairman Pat Mullins.

Apparently, the calls are coming in as requested by Stimpson, however, Mullins says that he and Speaker Howell are against the expansion.

According to Chairman Mullins:

“ObamaCare is an expensive, unaffordable train wreck that threatens to bring everything that’s wrong with the federal government into our health care system. I have said repeatedly that expanding Medicaid in Virginia is a terrible idea. It threatens to create a massive new unfunded liability for the Commonwealth that would at the same time put hundreds of thousands of Virginians into a system that people in both parties know is badly broken. Speaker Howell has been rock solid on this issue, and I commend him for his leadership. Just this weekend he told our state central committee that Medicaid expansion in Virginia is not going to happen. I stand with Speaker Howell in opposition to the expansion of Medicaid under ObamaCare and I call on all members of the General Assembly to do likewise.”

The letter below from Stimpson enumerates the names and numbers of State Legislators that Stimpson asked Virginian’s to contact that are involved with this “super committee”. While I understand Speaker Howell and Pat Mullins claim that they don’t want to expand Medicaid, it is hard to deny the record of various government “super-committees” – remember sequestration?

Republicans have a trust issue in Virginia – especially with the Conservative wing of the party. Denials of intent are well and good but the creation of this committee in and of itself should give Virginians cause for concern. The Republicans controlled the House, Senate and Governor’s Office and we still got a huge tax increase and a super committee that places the pockets of Virginians in even deeper jeopardy.

And despite the denials of impending Medicaid expansion, most of us are still not reassured that ObamaCare will not be coming to a Medicaid Expansion Center near you.

The full letter from Susan Stimpson is published below for reference.

Fellow Virginia Republican,

Remember earlier this year when Governor McDonnell and the Republican leadership in the General Assembly cut a deal with Senate Democrats — leaving Obamacare expansion on the table in return for the votes Republicans needed to pass the largest tax increase in Virginia history?

Republican leaders told us it was just a good will gesture necessary to broker a compromise (massive tax increase) and that expanding Medicaid, a key component of Obamacare, would never happen. Governor McDonnell claimed the budget language was a “firewall” to expansion. The commission isn’t a firewall, it’s a torch.

Instead of keeping their constitutional responsibility to ensure Obamacare expansion would never become reality, legislators abdicated to a super committee of five senators, five delegates and two “experts”. The decision rests with these 10 legislators. Republican leaders claim this will save money in future years and lessen the devastating fiscal impact of such an expansion.

While conservatives in Washington are attempting to draw a line in the sand by trying to defund Obamacare, and the full effects of this disastrous law begin to become clear, what are Virginia Republicans doing?

This week Governor McDonnell said “If they say ‘done,’ Medicaid expansion goes into place.”

And listen to Republican Senator Emmett Hanger, a member of the commission and proponent of Medicaid/Obamacare expansion, bragging about the Obama administration being close to accepting proposed reforms: “I’d say we are a little more than halfway there.”

Of course what our Republican leaders don’t seem to recognize is that once any entitlement is created or expanded, it is almost impossible to reverse. If they don’t have the guts to fight expanding its implementation, do you really believe they would ever end it? And the Obama administration will make whatever concessions necessary in the short term to achieve their goal; Obamacare in every state. Liberals never give up, and they will see the erosion and elimination of reforms. Obamacare expansion will be a budget buster for Virginia leading to more massive tax increases.

But if recent history is any indication, they don’t care. Didn’t they take note of the last election where two longtime incumbents were ousted because of their vote to raise taxes on a transportation bill that doesn’t even address roads?

When I ran for Lieutenant Governor I spoke out when no one else would against the GOP-led tax increase. And I am warning you now that Republican leaders are on the precipice of expanding Medicaid and Obamacare in Virginia. It’s happening right before our eyes. For more detail, read this blog post by RPV State Central member Steve Albertson.

I urge you to call Pat Mullins and demand he denounce this move towards Obamacare expansion. And call the individual members of the Medicaid Innovation and Reform Commission and urge them not to expand Obamacare. Call your own delegate and senator.

The majority of Americans and Virginians disapprove Obamacare. They know it is already wreaking havoc on our own healthcare, on our small businesses and our families. If you agree with me, please contact our GOP leaders and the members of the commission. Let’s fight this together.

Sincerely,

P.S.: It’s time for our Republican leaders in Virginia to stand for the principles of our creed. If we can’t trust them to fight Obamacare expansion in Virginia, can we trust anything they say?

Chairman Pat Mullins – (804) 780-0111

Speaker Bill Howell – Capitol: (804) 698-1028 District: (540) 371-1612

Senator Tommy Norment – Capitol: (804) 698-7503 District: (757) 259-7810

Senator Walter A. Stosch – Capitol: (804) 698-7512 District: (804) 527-7780

Senator Emmett W. Hanger, Jr. – Capitol: (804) 698-7524 District: (540) 885-6898

Senator John C. Watkins – Capitol: (804) 698-7510 District: (804) 379-2063

Delegate R. Steven Landes – Capitol: (804) 698-1025 District: (540) 255-5335

Delegate Beverly J. Sherwood – Capitol: (804) 698-1029  District: (540) 667-8947

Delegate John M. O’Bannon, III – Capitol: (804) 698-1073 District: (804) 282-8640

Delegate James P. Massie, III – Capitol: (804) 698-1072 District: (804) 377-0100

Technorati Tags: First Move,Fruition,General Assembly,Health Care System,Last Session,Lt Governor,Medicaid,Medicaid Expansion,Medicaid Program,Move Towards,Republican Candidate,Republican Party Of Virginia,Republicans,Rpv,Sandy Sanders,State Central Committee,Stimpson,Train Wreck,Unfunded Liability,Virginians

Don't Leave ObamaCare Alone - Republicans Need to Get Back to Repealing ObamaCare

U.S. News - By Peter Roff - March 27, 2013

Even after three years, the nation remains divided on Obamacare. The people who already had health insurance—as well as those who have lost their insurance since Obamacare became law—still seem to hate it. The people who didn't have insurance before, and don't yet have insurance now, seem to love it because they think it means free health care. Obviously they have never heard the old saw about the free lunch.

Health care and health insurance are two distinctly different things. Having health insurance helps insulate a family against the costs of a catastrophic illness, for example, but really does nothing to guarantee any kind of quality care. All the insurance in the world will be of no use to the person who has a fatal illness science has not yet figured out how to cure.

Too much of the discussion about health care is really about the cost of health care and not enough is about quality. Some of the big thinkers out there, like former Bush White House senior aide Jim Pinkerton, have been sounding the call for even more spending on health care and on research. He makes the very salient argument that the economic costs of not doing so could be crippling 50 or even 25 years out as the nation grapples with the declining health of an aging population that is, overall, living longer—which is exactly why Obamacare is the wrong prescription for moving forward.

As many health care experts have explained, the route that the president's signature legislative achievement puts the country on is one that makes stops at places like rationing, denial of care, quality of life determination boards and other backwaters where, it will become clear uncomfortably soon, people go to die. To put it simply, America needs to spend more money on health care, not less, an idea that really is at the heart of most of the conservative proposals to transform the nation's health care industry.

Nevertheless it is the GOP that gets the rap for being parsimonious and uncaring. It's the GOP that gets ads run against it showing prominent elected officials pushing grandma out of her wheelchair and over a cliff. It's the GOP that needs to get to work talking up real reforms that will replace the sham that is Obamacare; reforms that will improve the quality of the health care available and, over time, make more health care available to more people.

The first step down this long road is for the GOP-controlled House of Representatives to once again take up the mantle of "repeal and replace" and take Obamacare apart brick by brick, beginning with the individual purchasing mandate.

Whether it's a tax, like Chief Justice John Roberts says it is, or a penalty for not buying insurance, like the Obama Administration said when trying to get its bill through Congress, the individual purchasing mandate is the singularly most unpopular part of Obamacare. Previous efforts to repeal just that section were set aside while the constitutional challenge made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court on the grounds that no one wanted to change the law before the court had a chance to rule.

Well, the court ruled and, contrary to what just about everyone expected, the law stands. So Congress is free to attack the mandate, head on. The House should vote on repeal of the mandate just as soon as it can. It will pass. And it should vote on it again in the fall, when key parts of Obamacare are supposed to be coming on line.

In fact, House Speaker John Boehner should make it a monthly event, forcing a wedge between the supporters of Obama and his health care plan, who like the mandate, and the folks back home, who hate it. Make congressional Democrats go on record again and again until Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid is willing to let the issue come up for a vote on the other side of the Capitol. Get everyone one record as to just where they stand on the issue of the individual mandate. Then check and recheck to see if anyone has changed their position. The political media may laugh, may think it's all just political theater, but it will underscore to voters the essential point that one party really does want to repeal Obamacare, just like they do, and the other doesn't.

There may be some on the other side of the issue who would welcome this, thinking it would make the GOP look ridiculous. And they would be wrong. Right now, with the Obamacare bureaucracy still in its infancy, no one has really had to deal with how dysfunctional it will be. Over time, as the health care exchanges fail to come on line, as the system malfunctions, as it proves to be worse than anyone but its most severe critics believed it could be, public attitudes in favor of repeal will grow stronger. And when that happens it will be, for most politicians, good to have been on record as a "long time critic" of Obamacare rather than a "Johnny-come-lately" advocate for reform.

The voters may not have long memories, but the people who run the public interest groups and super PACs do. And they're still willing to spend millions on ads and grassroots development to get rid of this awful, awful law—before we all really do have to send grandma out on the ice floe and toast her memory.

Related:

Read the U.S. News Debate: Is Medicaid Expansion Good for the States?

Read the U.S. News Debate: Should Congress Repeal the Affordable Care Act?

Technorati Tags: ObamaCare,repeal and replace ObamaCare,defund ObamaCare