This week, a bill – the Restoring Americans’ Healthcare Freedom Act – will go to President Barack Obama’s desk. This bill would repeal his signature domestic policy achievement, the Affordable Care Act or ObamaCare. Of course the president will veto this bill, and he and his supporters will say this is no more than Republican political theatre.
But they’re wrong; it’s not just a stunt. Rather, this bill achieves three important things: It shows that Republicans are dedicated to fighting a bad policy with demonstrably bad results. It confirms that Republicans are listening to the will of the people on this policy. And Republicans are reminding the public that they can be trusted to repeal ObamaCare with a new Republican president.
The Congress has, for the first time, sent legislation to the president repealing great swaths of ObamaCare. The House passed repeal bills in every Congress since the health overhaul law was enacted, but the Harry-Reid-controlled Senate never acted, blocking the bills from reaching the Oval Office. Mr. Obama will veto the bill, of course, but it sets an important marker for action that Congress could take next year under a new president who would sign the legislation.
Today, the House will pass a budget-reconciliation bill that repeals ObamaCare and stops taxpayer funding to abortion providers. After more than 50 House votes to repeal ObamaCare in part and in full, and after the conscience of our nation was awakened again to the great evil of the abortion industry, we will put this bill on the president’s desk.
Unfortunately, we know and have known for a while that President Obama will veto any bill that repeals ObamaCare or defunds Planned Parenthood. That isn’t news. But with this bill, Republicans show that we have listened to the American people and can use reconciliation to pass substantive policies despite opposition from congressional Democrats and the constant threat of filibuster. That means we can repeat this same process with a Republican in the White House, overcome obstruction from congressional Democrats, and accomplish our greatest priorities.
Congress returns to work this week, and for once those words shouldn’t trigger a panic attack. As early as Wednesday the House will vote to send a bill repealing most of ObamaCare to President Obama, and this may become a consequential moment, assuming Republicans are prepared to make an argument.
The task now is to leverage Mr. Obama’s veto to hold Democrats accountable for their votes and the consequences. Liberal spin can’t disguise that the law is failing on every level other than expanding coverage—as if anyone ever argued that a new entitlement couldn’t reduce the uninsured rate.
According to the Department of Health and Human Services, half the uninsured who are eligible for subsidized coverage through the exchanges have refused to purchase it. As a result, those remaining in the insurance pool have tended to be sicker and older — and they’ve used more health services than insurers expected.
How much more? According to the consulting firm McKinsey & Co., insurers collectively swallowed $2.5 billion in unexpected medical expenses from exchange enrollees in 2014.
A bill intended to repeal key parts of the Affordable Care Act and defund Planned Parenthood would now decrease the deficit by about $553 billion, should it become law.
The legislation would save about $318 billion without macroeconomic benefits between 2016 and 2025, according to an updated score of the bill by the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation.
Released on December 22, 2015, the third estimate of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the third quarter indicates growth in health services spending is maintaining a disproportionate share of still slow GDP growth.
Spending on health services grew faster (4.8%, annualized, in current dollars) than spending on non-health services (3.9%) The growth in health services spending ($24.8 billion, annualized) accounted for 17% of all GDP growth ($146.5 billion), just under one fifth of personal consumption expenditure ($130.6 billion) ), and 29% of all services spending ($84.7 billion).
The evidence continues to indicate Obamacare is not bending the cost curve.
If it’s December, it must be time for a massive, one-time, all-or-nothing annual spending bill. That’s just what has become of Congress’s core function over the past decade. This year’s version includes a 2,009 page omnibus appropriations bill and a 233 page tax bill mostly extending various “temporary” tax preferences and other provisions.
Republicans have majorities in both houses, so this bill reflects their priorities on the whole. But on health care, it’s actually most interesting for what it suggests about the Democrats—some meaningful number of whose votes are after all necessary for passage.
The Senate voted overwhelmingly today 65-33 in favor a $1.8 trillion package of spending bills and tax breaks, sending the legislation to President Obama’s desk for his signature. Included in the two bills are provisions trimming some of the levies that help finance ObamaCare. A tax on medical devices would be suspended for two years, a levy on health insurers would stop for a year and a tax on higher-cost insurance policies would be postponed two years until 2020.
It has been called into question whether it’s true that Sen. Marco Rubio is responsible for the provision (inserted into last year’s annual spending bill and now again into this year’s) that requires the risk-corridor program in ObamaCare to be budget neutral. Like this year’s giant spending law, last year’s omnibus bill was the result of a leadership-driven process that drew on substantive expertise from the relevant committee staffs but did not much involve most members of either house. But Rubio was without question the first and most significant congressional voice on this subject, and if he hadn’t done the work he did, the risk-corridor neutralization provision would not have been in last year’s (or this year’s) budget bill.