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Showing Original Post only (View all)McConnell, Boehner Announce FIRST Obamacare REPEAL Target [View all]

An op-ed from House Speaker John Boehner and soon-to-be Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in The Wall Street Journal outlines their plans for crippling government what they call helping the "struggling middle-class Americans who are clearly frustrated by an increasing lack of opportunity, the stagnation of wages, and a government that seems incapable of performing even basic tasks." That includes taking on Obamacare, of course. They begin with the totally false premise that, "Health costs [ ] continue to rise under a hopelessly flawed law that Americans have never supported." Never mind that the rise in healthcare costs has slowed dramatically in the last several years, in part because of the law. And never mind that the laweven in Tuesdays' Republican electorategets more support than the idea of repealing the law. It's been a good 14 years since Republicans abandoned the reality-based world, and it's been working for them. So they're sticking with it. And how they say they'll start on the dismantling of Obamacare is this:
"... a proposal to restore the traditional 40-hour definition of full-time employment, removing an arbitrary and destructive government barrier to more hours and better pay created by the Affordable Care Act of 2010..."
http://online.wsj.com/articles/john-boehner-and-mitch-mcconnell-now-we-can-get-congress-going-1415232759
http://online.wsj.com/articles/john-boehner-and-mitch-mcconnell-now-we-can-get-congress-going-1415232759
Right now, full-time employment is 30 hours/week for the purposes of the law. Republicans say that is forcingforcingpoor beleaguered employers to cut workers' hours to below 30 hours to save them from the exorbitant costs of having to provide health insurance. And raising that threshold is going to restore those employees' hours how exactly? Now employers would be able to make workers put in a 39.5-hour work week without shelling out for health insurance. Which is, of course, the whole point for McConnell and Boehner. Hint, American worker: They're not looking out for your paycheck. Or your health insurance.
Problem one for Boehner and McConnell is getting their respective caucuses to go along with any Obamacare plan. Boehner's been at it for almost four years with no success, and McConnell's got at least three would-be presidentsSens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Floridato wrangle. Problem two for the "reformers" is the $83 billion hit to the deficit over the next ten years the CBO says this provision would cost. (Here's another hint: They don't really care about the deficit.)
Here's problem three for them, provided that the proposal actually gets to the respective floors, put succinctly, by Henry Aaron at the Brookings Institute: "If you break it, you own it. [ ] They're going to have responsibility for anything that goes wrong." That is, if Democrats refuse to play along and don't provide any votes to pass it.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/06/1342579/-McConnell-Boehner-announce-first-Obamacare-repeal-nbsp-target
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If no employers had to provide health insurance then it wouldn't be hard to pass a tax increase
scarystuffyo
Nov 2014
#15
Agreed. But it's not going to happen while we have whiners and haters in Congress.
randome
Nov 2014
#34
I never wrote they would welcome it but when their profits increase by 20 to 25%
scarystuffyo
Nov 2014
#38
And...Medicare is much cheaper than insurance, paperwork alone would save billions
J_J_
Nov 2014
#40
Easy? Did you watch the election. We are going to be very busy just keeping what we have. If we can.
jwirr
Nov 2014
#27
What is most amusing is the things Republicans say they hate the most are the things that
Bandit
Nov 2014
#23
People cannot afford ridiculous copay costs which seem like they should cover the whole operation
J_J_
Nov 2014
#43
One would think, every Chamber of Commerce and HR Professional Association ...
1StrongBlackMan
Nov 2014
#35
Immediately on winning both houses in Clinton's second term, Dole and Gingrich chortled
Hortensis
Nov 2014
#45
Hope all those who voted for these whores enjoyed their health care while they had it.
liberal N proud
Nov 2014
#51
Damn, can't believe they would even think about repealing Obamacare. Oh, nothing to worry about,
Thinkingabout
Nov 2014
#53