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  • fpete13527

    I’m now calling others and passing the word on.

  • belcatar

    And he voted for the bill. I don’t think I’m going to get far persuading him to repeal it. Especially after I wrote to him and told him that he should spend the rest of his term playing computer solitaire, and to get drunk and pass out on the couch every time there’s an important vote.

  • earlgrey

    You are tacitly saying the bill is a good thing. You undo all the good that came from the publics firm opposition, and you can take credit for the breakdown of our medical system. Dems would love for the Rs to share or even take the blame for their failure.

  • http://www.FranBaker.com frankieb

    Repeal and Replace. A great bumper sticker slogan!

  • BoatFoot

    We should have a national sick day on April 15th. Millions can gather around their local emergency rooms with signs like, “I’m gonna be on Medicaid now, so going to the E/R is Free!”. “Repeal, Re-start, & “Redo”.

  • http://online.logcabin.org/about/ suzieQ

    I’m not saying ti isn’t worth doing, because it is. But there is a long road ahead. It has to start with re-taking the House. If republicans do not have a majority in the House, repeal will be impossible. A bunch of dems that just passed it aren’t going to repeal it.

    Then we need 67 in the Senate. Sixty-seven republicans, in order to override the presidential veto pen that a repeal would surely bring about. That means getting republicans elected in states like California, Oregon, Washington, and Maryland.

    It also means that 2012 we must get a republican president. Once people are on Obamacare and beholden to it, it will be near impossible to get rid of.

  • http://www.thesubstratum.com GJ Merits

    Can’t say I’m surprised the GOP is waffling. I put my chances they change their tune to what we want to hear and then revert after November 2010. Any takers on a bet?

    From Orin Kerr at Volokh Conspiricy: http://volokh.com/2010/03/22/what-are-the-chances-that-the-courts-will-strike-down-the-individual-mandate/

    He goes on to talk about the Commerce Clause and Federalism. Hmmm, where I have I heard about that before.

    Dr. Hunter is not convinced politicians will repeal:

    “The so-called ?conservative? party?The GOP?has mastered its own political rendition of the late Michael Jackson?s Moonwalk?appearing to walk in one direction while actually perambulating in exactly the opposite direction. And, when they accompany their stroll with singing of freedom, accompanied by waving flags and blaring patriotic music, the paying audience gets an adrenalin rush that makes them think George Washington himself has returned from the grave.”

    He continues: “Expecting politicians to fix the problem they created is delusional.”

    Read his bio and see why you should listen to what he has to say:

    http://www.socialsecurityinstitute.com/about-us/board-of-directors/dr-lawrence-hunter-biography/

    And read the entire post as well:

    http://www.socialsecurityinstitute.com/blog_post/show/487

    So should we put all our eggs in one basket, or look for other, constitutional solutions to pursue simultaneously? My personal experience with the GOP last year (with the exception on DeMint) is spot on to Dr. Hunter’s analysis. They almost sold us out.

    My conclusion: There is no solution to this problem in the political arena if it is at all possible. The only way I see the courts striking the mandate is if they believe the people finally understand their rights under the constitution, see the courts as the initiators of absconding with those rights and handing them over to the federal government and fear the outing will lead to a serious backlash. I am not happy to hear what Orin Kerr had to write. I actually was quite surprised. I don’t think counting on politicians or the courts at the expense of other solutions is the course of greatest wisdom. Pursue it, certainly, but place all your hope in it? I strongly counsel against such a tactic.

  • E Pluribus Unum

    OK, seriously, other than lawsuit-abuse reform, i don’t think there is a huge problem here. Various things that are less than perfect. But holy cow. I am not down with this ‘start over’. It is a manufactured crisis.

    What IS a major concern is the 12% (or 17%) unemployment issue. This is what that bunch of charlie-sierras should have been focusing on for the last year, and what Republicans in Congress RIGHT NOW should be clamoring for and campaigning on.

    Along with repeal, I mean.

  • E Pluribus Unum
  • garbear

    We’ve won three of the four big political battles this year–VA and NJ governor offices and MA Senate seat. We lost healthcare which we were supposed to lose last August and then in Dec and then the goal line was moved to Jan and they finally crossed it in late March. And now BO is having to spend precious political time and capital selling this health care bill.

    Pushing repeal keeps the Dems on the defense. And while they’re on defense the Republicans should go on offense: The Economy and Taxes.

  • http://xmmlbchat.blogspot.com katesmith

    I heard Nebraska Rep. Jeff Fortenberry interviewed on John Batchelor’s show last night. Most important to him was how congress was perceived by the public, he wants it to be seen as something special and good. He views his public service as a high calling. Emphasized he has good friends on other side of the aisle, that it’s too bad the public doesn’t see that side of congress now. He said he tries to be bipartisan. He said his constituents are all for health care reform that it must be done, he’s just sorry it came out looking bad for the congress. As Batchelor said to his co-host after the interview, you have just heard the heartland. Maybe Fortenberry is something other than what came through in this interview, but if this is really how he is, and if others are like him, I didn’t hear someone who wants to fight, but is more concerned about bipartisanship and appearances. I felt bad for Fortenberry as he sounded so sad, but if one’s primary concern is how the public view’s congress I don’t know how much can be accomplished.

  • scubadiver49er

    As long as he did that, he did what he was supposed to do. Glad that it was “No”, which is what his constituents wanted him to do. And fortunately also what the majority of Americans wanted as well.

  • aesthete

    Problems with employment are currently demand-driven and (one would imagine) temporal. Supply-side tax cuts have, IMO, run their course. Republicans should campaign on preserving the Bush tax cuts (which, while not perfect, are pretty good), on pointing out how short-term government policies have few effects on employment (Stimulus II is a fantastic case-in-point), and on preventing further tinkering with the economy. Economic growth won’t continue unless the market is sure that no big changes, or opportunities to cash in on new government programs, are coming down the pike.

    Besides, isn’t running on “fixing” the economy buying into the idea that government can and should “fix” the economy, just as fixing healthcare buys into the “crisis” talking point? There’s little that Congress and the President can realistically do to “fix” an economy short-term. There’s quite a bit, OTOH, that they can do to screw it up, and I’d rather not risk the latter in search of the former.

  • Bill S

    I said when the so-called “stimulus” was passed that things would work themselves out if they’d just leave it the heck alone. The problem comes in trying to fix it – things just get worse with their “fixes”.

    The question about supply-side tax cuts is hard to answer. What it comes down to is: what side of the Laffer curve “hump” are we on? No one knows.

  • E Pluribus Unum

    Of all that you know about me, what part has ever called for a big-government solution.

    My point was, and still is, that these buttheads should have been addressing the economy that has the nation nearly in ruins and not some trumped up emergency need to overhaul health care.

    What I MEANT by “addressing unemployment” was pretty much the opposite of Porkulus and this silly “jobs bill” recently passed. I would make permament the Bush tax cuts, lower cap-gains, perhaps to zero, I would do what was possible to do to dissolve Fanny and Freddy and get Uncle Bambi completely out of the real estate business (and the car business while we’re at it).

    Further, I would halt the EPA’s bid to impose cap-n-tax on the economy.

    THAT is what I meant by “addressing unemployment”.

    Still disagree?

  • E Pluribus Unum

    Of all that you know about me, what part has ever called for a big-government solution.

    My point was, and still is, that these buttheads should have been addressing the economy that has the nation nearly in ruins and not some trumped up emergency need to overhaul health care.

    What I MEANT by “addressing unemployment” was pretty much the opposite of Porkulus and this silly “jobs bill” recently passed. I would make permament the Bush tax cuts, lower cap-gains, perhaps to zero, I would do what was possible to do to dissolve Fanny and Freddy and get Uncle Bambi completely out of the real estate business (and the car business while we’re at it).

    Further, I would halt the EPA’s bid to impose cap-n-tax on the economy.

    THAT is what I meant by “addressing unemployment”.

    Still disagree?

  • aesthete

    You’re right, particularly long-term. My guess (not a particularly informed one, at that) is that it’s variable and a range of values, rather than a specific percentage, but that it’s at the very least, somewhere lower than 50% for any given tax bracket. My point was that, short term, we aren’t dealing with a lack of industry/business, but rather, with a lack of spending on the part of consumers. As such, conservative calls for lowering the corporate tax rate, lowering taxes for the upper class, etc., while not bad ideas in and of themselves in the long term, aren’t relevant for the current predicament as they would be if, say, we had problems with declining business and investment, instead. Of course, I’m more a fan of structural reform than policies intended to “fix” the current problem, which as you observed, has the tendency to break things more often than not.

  • aesthete

    I have no doubt concerning your commitment to small government, and I think that all of what you suggest (and add killing government student loans and killing the corporate tax :) ), besides a zero cap-gains, would be good ideas for long-run economic prospects. They would also have the benefit of returning to us our freedoms (insert Braveheart scream here). But I reject concentrating on short term economic prospects, and promises to “fix” the economy, as if we were ancient Egypt and the President were an omnipotent jobs-Pharaoh. Even wise market-oriented reform can be disastrous short-term, as many of former Warsaw Pact nations found out. Concentrating on short-term prospects is a loser’s game, as it can be used with impunity by statists, and can on occasion, also lead to well-intentioned, but badly thought out, free-market reform (there’s a right and wrong way to privatize, a fact that gets lost in the media frenzy).

    All that to say this: we should laugh and point at Dem hypocrisy on jobs using their own logic, and we should point out where their short-term projects have epic failed (I’m still waiting for that 7 percent unemployment promised by the Gang That Can’t Shoot Straight). But we should focus our efforts on educating the public on the benefits of long-term legislation: it’s more reliable for increasing growth and innovation over time (witness the US’ awesome income and GDP growth rates compared to France’s), and can be made without getting complicated by the Sob Story Express? or other tangential issues that ignoramuses make the center of debate in any given “crisis”, real or contrived. (This is especially true when you consider the longevity of supposedly temporary government “fixes”.) Plus, showing the public the wisdom of the “long view” is a great jumping off point for showing how bad Socialism is when you run out of other peoples’ money, as Thatcher put it.

  • earthmover

    but it is also mathematically impossible before 2013, unless one thinks Obama wouldn’t veto a bill that repeals it.

    “Repeal and start over” sounds cute and is fine to use as a rhetorical touchstone, but when we take over the House and at least get close to a Senate majority in November, we need to be committed to overturning the bits and pieces of it that we can. Whining that you can’t touch the bill at all unless you repeal it completely will get us absolutely nowhere.

  • E Pluribus Unum

    I hope this one does not double-post. I’m starting to think I have dual identities or something

  • texasgalt

    Yea, yea, sure Big John, we need to keep some of the stuff in Obamacare. I guess that’s what you said. Is it so tough to just stick to repeal?

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/23/nrscs-cornyn-we-wont-call_n_510232.html

  • cabanon

    and pieces at a time is which pieces and getting support for that.

    The insurance industry fought against Obamacare but in the end got mandates as an enormous windfall. For them this off sets the added costs they’ll have being forced to insure high risk people with pre-existing conditions. So say we attack mandates first because they are the most obviously illegal part of the mess, guess who is going to jump in and defend it, thats right the insurance industry.

    I’m not saying we shouldn’t try but its gonna be damn difficult.

  • oldoldmom

    the insurance companies ARE going to fight repeal of mandates only , but they might get behind a TOTAL repeal of the bill.

  • E Pluribus Unum

    But don’t sweat it.

  • aesthete

    you were buying into the crap talking point that “we have to do something about unemployment NOW”. Since you weren’t, I suppose all is well in the world again :)

  • E Pluribus Unum

    bird chirping a little louder, sun shining brighter. Global Warming proceeding apace.

    :)