LA Times: Is The Republican Campaign To Repeal Obamacare Over?

After five years and more than 50 votes in Congress, the Republican campaign to repeal the Affordable Care Act (the ACA or “Obamacare”) is essentially over, states the LA Times.

According to the LA Times, GOP congressional leaders, unable to roll back the law while President Obama remains in office and unwilling to again threaten a government shutdown to pressure him, are focused on other issues like trade and tax reform.

Another interesting development is that senior Republican lawmakers have quietly incorporated many of the law’s key protections into their own proposal bills, including guaranteeing coverage and providing government assistance to help consumers purchase insurance.

Oddly, facing the situation that the Supreme Court this year could strip away insurance subsidies provided through the law, several GOP lawmakers have even proposed extending the aid, perhaps even until a new president takes office.

Former Florida Governor and presidential candidate Jeb Bush has shown little enthusiasm for a new healthcare fight. Last year, he even criticized the repeal effort, states the LA Times.

This doesn’t mean that efforts to repeal the law will completely stop.

“Only 18% of Americans want to go back to the system we had before because they do not want to go back to some of the problems we had,” Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster who works for presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.

Republicans like Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who still demand a repeal, appear to be long shots for the presidential nomination, states the LA Times.

More realistic might be adjustments to Obamacare rather than outright repeal. For example, the Affordable Care Act allows states to enact policies that specifically ban abortion coverage in health plans offered through the health insurance exchange.

Right now, Republicans in the House State Affairs Committee in Texas are considering just such a bill that would ban coverage for abortion in health plans offered through the ACA’s health insurance exchange.

Opponents, however, argued that House Bill 3130 would create yet another hurdle for women.

More:

http://www.latimes.com/business/healthcare/la-na-obamacare-republicans-20150418-story.html#page=1

(Updated article)

Republican Bill In West Virginia House Would Make It Criminal To Enforce The Affordable Care Act in The State

According to wvgazette.com, some Republicans in West Virginia’s House of Delegates want to make it illegal for federal and state officials to enforce the ACA health-care law (Obamacare).

Under the GOP-backed bill (HB2509), federal employees would face felony charges if they try to administer any federal regulations under the Affordable Care Act.  Oddly, state workers would only be arrested for a misdemeanor.

The bill itself is possibly illegal and would jeopardize health insurance for many West Virginians.

The piece of legislation also states that the federal health-care law is “invalid” in West Virginia.

“It’s one thing to oppose the Affordable Care Act, but it’s another thing to make it a criminal act for people to do their job,” said Perry Bryant, who heads West Virginians for Affordable Health Care.

“This is really an extreme piece of legislation, as extreme as anything I’ve seen this session.”

More:

http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20150224/GZ01/150229623#sthash.izwwaEw9.dpuf

Did Republicans ‘Flip-Flop’ On Anti-Obamacare Lawsuit?

On March 4th, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case of King v. Burwell.  King v. Burwell threatens to unravel the Affordable Care Act – a.k.a. Obamacare – because the plaintiffs argue that the health-care law does not authorize subsidies through federally run insurance marketplaces.  Instead, they say, the law only allows such subsidies in the 14 states (and District of Columbia) which set up their own exchanges.

It was argued that because the law did not clearly state that premium subsidies would be provided to Americans living in a state that did not set up a health-insurance exchange, an Internal Revenue Service rule of extending the subsidies to all states was illegal.

Have some Republicans flip-flopped on the issue?

Advocates of the law have pointed to statements made by leading Republican lawmakers that have suggested that at one point they too assumed the subsidies would be made available to all Americans.

The Washington Post reports that GOP Senators John Cornyn, John Barrasso, and Orrin Hatch, along with Rep. Paul Ryan, are all previously on record making statements that appear grounded in the assumption that subsidies would be available to people who got health care on the federal exchanges, in addition to state ones.

The King lawsuit, of course, alleges that the ACA does not authorize subsidies to all those people, and now, Cornyn, Hatch, and Ryan have signed a brief siding with the challengers. Meanwhile, Barrasso is openly rooting for the Supreme Court to “bring down” the law.

Some of these statements have been previously aired. What’s new here is that these Senators and their spokespeople have now attempted to explain their shift in views. Most of their explanations, Kessler concludes, are pretty weak, and amount to an “unacknowledged flip-flop.”

The back-tracks earned these politicians an “upside-down Pinnochio” in the Washington Post, showing that they “flip-floped” on the issue.