Defund Obamacare

                Obamacare is still very much in the news in spite of the fact that it is now the law of the land.  The simple fact is, Obamacare is not working and it will never work.  It is “unfair, unaffordable, and unworkable.”  Obama and his supporters are attempting to convince Americans that Obamacare is a good thing, but Americans are slowly learning the truth about this terrible law and do not like what they are hearing.

                The Heritage Foundation is actively making the truth come out about Obamacare.  You can find a wonderful infographic about how and why Obamacare is not working here.   

                Some of our representatives in Congress are actively working to defund Obamacare.  Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced their Defund Obamacare Act (S. 1292); Representative Tom Graves (R-GA) introduced a similar bill in the House known as H.R. 2682.  Under this bill, “no Federal funds shall be made available to carry out any provisions” of Obamacare.  It also states that no “entitlement to benefits under any provision of” Obamacare will remain in effect, and all “unobligated balances” will be rescinded.  The authors of the bill propose to attach it to a must-pass continuing resolution (CR) before the federal government runs out of money on October 1.

                Hans A. von Spakovsky of The Heritage Foundation explained: “No one disputes that Obamacare would stay on the books and that defunding would not change the existing law.  But all federal funds already appropriated for the implementation and enforcement of Obamacare could not be used by any federal agency to take any action – whether it is issuing new regulations or filing an enforcement action against an individual or an employer for not complying with the new health insurance mandates.  The termination of all `entitlement to benefits’ would stop the automatic appropriation of new entitlement spending for things like the law’s Medicaid expansion.  The rescission of `unobligated benefits’ would return to the Treasury appropriated funds that have not yet been spent on items such as the payment of outside contractors – navigators – for enrolling participants in Obamacare, although it would probably not relieve the government of the contractual obligation to pay for services already rendered.

                “There is no question that such a defunding bill can stop entitlement spending.  The Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funding of abortions and is part of yearly discretionary appropriations bills, has prevented federal funds in the Medicaid entitlement program from being used for abortion coverage for almost four decades.”

                In his long explanation of how Obamacare can be defunded, von Spakovsky wrote, “The smartest thing the House of Representatives could do is pass a CR as soon as possible that funds the government with the exception of Obamacare.  That would force the President and his supporters to explain why they would shut down the government to fund an unfair, unaffordable, and highly unpopular law that is so unworkable that the Administration has itself admitted it cannot manage to implement major portions on time such as the employer mandate to provide insurance.”

                Jim DeMint, former Senator and current President of The Heritage Foundation, told Chris Wallace on Fox News,  “One of the biggest priorities that we should have as Americans … is repealing Obamacare.”  Emphasizing that the coming legislative fight over funding the government is “an opportunity to push for repeal,” DeMint stated, “This is a very destructive law that’s going to hurt our country, it’s going to hurt a lot of people.  This may be the last opportunity to stop it.  Now there’s no Republican who I’m aware of that wants to shut the government down.  The whole point is we need to fund the government, but we should not fund Obamacare.”

                The more we learn about Obamacare, the more we understand that it is a terrible law.  All Senators and Representatives should vote to defund it; however, progressive members of Congress are more interested in furthering their agenda than they are in doing what is right for our nation.  We must contact our representatives in Congress and urge them to vote to defund Obamacare – and then hope and pray that they do so.