House Committee Chair: Repeal Of Affordable Care Act Is Dead
Congressman David Camp, Chair of the House Ways & Means Committee states the blindingly obvious:
Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, acknowledged Thursday that Republican plans to repeal President Barack Obama’s signature health care law were “dead.” Instead, Camp predicted, the GOP would turn its focus to overturning the most controversial portion of that legislation: the mandate requiring individuals to buy insurance.
“Obviously, I voted to repeal the bill and you pretty much know where I am on replacement because I put out a bill last year on that,” Camp said. “Is the repeal dead? I don’t think the Senate is going to do it, so I guess, yes.”
Camp added, “In terms of the House, I put out a bill [to replace the law]. We know where I stand.”
“I think we have to see where this [health care] lawsuit that is working its way through the courts goes,” he said. “I’m monitoring that pretty closely. The individual mandate, I think, we need to get an answer from the courts on that. … I do think we may have a vote to repeal that provision some time in this Congress … the individual mandate.”
A chief plank of the 2010 GOP platform was to wipe the Affordable Care Act from the books and replace it with something else. The latter promise has long since dissipated. But Republican leadership still held on to the former — attempting to attach repeal language, most recently, to the continuing resolution to fund the federal government.
Camp also threw a bit of cold water on the Medicare reforms included in Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) proposed 2012 budget. He said that legislation to turn Medicare into a voucher system would likely not get a hearing in his committee.
“I’m not really interested in just laying down more markers,” said Camp. “I’d rather have the committee working with the Senate and the president, focusing on savings and reforms that can be signed into law.”
Camp is really just stating political reality here — the PPACA is not going to be repealed by legislative act as long as the Democrats control the Senate and White House — but I think we can expect to hear him getting denounced by the Tea Party crowd very shortly.
I think we can expect to hear him getting denounced by the Tea Party crowd very shortly.
Got that right. They aren’t very fond of reality.
It’s dead? It was only ever alive in the minds of the naive.
I would hold out hope that the GOP and the Dems could reach some sort of a compromise alternative to the mandate, altering the health-care law and pre-emptively making all the lawsuits moot. But I doubt this is going to happen. Anyone who’s paying attention knows the GOP wants the whole bill scrapped, and the attacks on the mandate are merely a means to an end. Making the bill less vulnerable to judicial challenge would represent a surrender for them.
Five SCOTUS were appointed to and have voted in order to appease your average republican congressman, so democrats shouldn’t rest easy. Laws are made by imperfect people, and therefore the law can be used against rather than for good bills.
I’m going to LMFAO if the republicans kill the republican idea of an individual mandate and thus cause an insurance industry collapse that leaves ultimately with the single payer we should have had all along (and which Obama fought so hard to keep us from getting). The combination of irony, schadenfreude, and relief would be intoxicating.
They’ll still require insurers to issue policies but not have an individual mandate? That will totally work. Genius!
Interesting that we have this whining that Republicans can’t repeal PPACA nor can they enact their Medicare “reform” until they have the House, the Senate, and the White House…chances of them getting all three are very slim…oh well, at least they will be able to continue the whining…
Reform is dead because the GOP lacks both brains and spine and utilizes as strategy “pre emptive surrender.”
The House controls all spending period. It can crush Obamacare anytime it wishes.
Just another example of why the GOP is the stupid partry and why they’re useless.
The Legacy GOP must be rejected along with its Bush-Rockfeller wing.