Boehner: Anything Short of Full ObamaCare Repeal is Unacceptable
“Our economy continues to struggle, and the president’s health care law is making things worse,” Speaker John Boehner said today. Whether the Supreme Court strikes down all or part, or upholds the law as it is, Boehner says Republicans are committed to “repealing ObamaCare in its entirety”:
“Our economy continues to struggle, and the president’s health care law is making things worse -- raising health costs and making it harder for small businesses to hire workers. The only way to change this is by repealing ObamaCare in its entirety. We voted to fully repeal the president’s health care law as one of our first acts as a new House majority, and our plan remains to repeal the law in its entirety. Anything short of that is unacceptable.” – Speaker John Boehner
The House Republican majority has voted 29 times so far to repeal, defund, and dismantle President Obama’s health care law. Here’s an update to a previous post looking at these efforts:
- REPEALING THE LAW: One of the first actions taken by the House in 2011 was to adopt H.R. 2, a bill repealing the health care law in its entirety.
- DEFUNDING THE LAW: The jobs-focused budgets passed by the House this year (H.Con.Res. 112) and last (H.Con.Res. 34) fully repeal and defund the government takeover of health care. Several amendments to H.R. 1 would prohibit funding from being used to implement or enforce provisions of the law.
- REPEALING THE SMALL BUSINESS PAPERWORK MANDATE: The House passed and the president signed H.R. 4, Pledge to America legislation that repealed the health care law’s job-crushing paperwork mandate.
- FREEZING THE IRS BUDGET: Another provision in the spending cut agreement prevented the IRS from hiring 16,500 new agents to help impose the health care law’s tax hikes and mandates.
- ELIMINATING SLUSH FUNDS: Several ObamaCare slush funds were eliminated in last year’s spending cut agreement signed by President Obama. The House approved H.R. 1213 and H.R. 1214 to repeal other slush funds and save taxpayers billions of dollars. And the House recently cut an ObamaCare slush fund to pay for a bill that stops student loan rates from doubling.
- SCRAPPING THE RATIONING BOARD: The House passed legislation (H.R. 5) repealing the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), a panel of 15 unelected and unaccountable government bureaucrats tasked with rationing care for America’s seniors.
- EXPOSING TRUE COST OF THE LAW: The House voted to repeal the CLASS Act (H.R. 1173) whose phantom “savings” were “crucial to garnering support for passage” of Obamacare, according to a bicameral Congressional investigation.
- BACKING STATES & SMALL BUSINESSES: Speaker John Boehner filed a brief in federal court backing the effort by states and small businesses challenging the constitutionality of the law.
- HOLDING THE ADMINISTRATION ACCOUNTABLE: House committees held roughly three dozen hearings in 2011 examining the impact of ObamaCare on job growth, the costs imposed on families and small businesses, the administration’s use of waivers to exempt select groups from the law’s mandates, the constitutionality of the law, and much more.
The president’s health care law makes it harder for small businesses to hire new workers, jeopardizes seniors’ access to care, and adds to the debt that threatens job growth. It needs to go. “There’s only one way to truly fix ObamaCare,” Speaker Boehner has said -- “and that’s by fully repealing it.”
Republicans made a Pledge to America to repeal ObamaCare and create a better environment for private-sector job growth. And the House is going to continue working to keep that pledge to repeal the law and then work on step-by-step, common-sense legislation that will help lower health care costs for families and small businesses, and protect American jobs.