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.

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

(Updated article)

Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma: “There Has Not Been A Unified Republican Position” On How To Replace Obamacare

The House of Representatives passed a bill on Tuesday to repeal the Affordable Care Act for the first time in the new Congress, according to the New York Times.

Democrats said it was the 56th time since 2011 that the House had voted to repeal or undermine some or all of the law, which was passed in 2010 without any Republican votes.

However, it was the first time any Republican in Congress has ever voted against the total repeal of Obamacare. Three Republicans Tuesday voted against the GOP’s latest effort to fully repeal the law.

The measure passed 239-186, a margin that largely followed the outcome of House Republicans’ three previous bills. This time, however, the party hopes to offer a replacement within the next six months.

Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma, acknowledged that “there has not been a unified Republican position” on how to replace the law.

Yet according to Politico, it was the three dissenters who attracted the most attention late Tuesday afternoon. They were: John Katko of New York, Bruce Poliquin of Maine and Robert Dold of Illinois. All are in seats held last-term by Democrats and likely to be contested hard in 2016.

Both Katko and Poliquin said in statements Tuesday that while they did not support the Affordable Care Act, they couldn’t support its repeal without something immediately ready to replace it.

No Democrat crossed party lines to support the legislation.

In the end, the latest vote will remain largely symbolic.

Republicans in the Senate are expected to address Obamacare within the next several months, but a full-scale repeal bill has little chance of clearing that chamber’s 60-vote threshold. President Barack Obama has also made it clear he will veto any repeal or significant roll-back of his signature health legislation.

“In addition to taking away Americans’ health care security, the bill would increase the deficit, [and] remove policies that have helped slow health care cost growth and improve the quality of care patients receive,” the administration said in a statement. “The last thing the Congress should do is re-fight old political battles and take a massive step backward by repealing basic protections that provide security for the middle class.”

The question still remains, if the bill increases healthcare security and reduces the deficit, why would any Congresspeople be against it?

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/3-republicans-say-no-as-house-again-votes-obamacare-repeal-114882.html#ixzz3Qo9jZpgY

Republicans Can Still Go After Obamacare

According to Mother Jones, now that Republicans control Congress, they’re again threatening to end Obamacare. On Monday, Senate Majority Leader-elect Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) vowed to hold a repeal vote when Republicans take over the upper chamber in January, adding that GOPers “will go at that law…in every way that we can.”

Obamacare is not going anywhere as long as President Barack Obama is in office. But there is a sneakier way GOPers could deal a blow to the health care law in the next two years: They can make the law look more costly than it is, boosting the case for dismantling it.

In 2012, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)—which produces official budget projections—calculated that the combined effect of the tax increases and spending cuts in the Affordable Care Act will reduce the deficit by $109 billion over the next decade. (This is the CBO’s most recent estimate.)

Conservatives cried foul, saying that the CBO double-counted savings in the law and ignored billions in health care spending in order to make the economic effects of the law seem rosier than they were. They charged that Obamacare actually adds billions to the deficit.

But how does health care spending affect the deficit? Only the Medicaid expansion is government run insurance. The insurance on the exchanges is from private companies, so that wouldn’t affect the government budget.