Posted on 06/28/2012 5:43:59 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The Republican Plan B is to repeal Obamacare on Day 1 of a Romney presidency.
Good luck with that.
First, today's Supreme Court decision will make it a lot harder to elect Mitt Romney. President Obama has just been handed a fearsome election weapon. 2012 is no longer exclusively a referendum on the president's economic management. 2012 is now also a referendum on Mitt Romney's healthcare plans. The president can now plausibly say that a vote for the Republicans is a vote to raise prescription drug costs on senior citizens and to empower insurance companies to deny coverage to children for pre-existing conditions. Those charges will hurt—and maybe hurt enough to sway the election.
Second, even if Republicans do win the White House and Senate in 2012, how much appetite will they then have for that 1-page repeal bill? Suddenly it will be their town halls filled with outraged senior citizens whose benefits are threatened; their incumbencies that will be threatened. Already we are hearing that some Republicans wish to retain the more popular elements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Which means the proposed 1-page bill will begin to grow.
(VIDEO AT LINK)
Third, Mitt Romney has promised to grant states waivers from the obligations of the ACA. Not all states will ask for such waivers. Many will eagerly institute the ACA, which (let us not forget) includes large immediate grants of federal aid.
Fourth, Republicans will find the task of writing their "replace" law even more agonizing than the Democrats found original passage. The party has no internal consensus on what a replacement would look like. Worse, any replacement of the law's popular elements will require financing. But where is that money to come from? New taxes are unacceptable. The proceeds of "closing loopholes" are already spoken for—that's how President Romney has promised to finance his promise to cut the top rate of tax 28%. And he's also promised to increase defense spending.
Fifth, the clock is ticking. President Obama passed the ACA in the second year of his administration. A President Romney will have to pass repeal in the first year of his, because the law goes into effect in 2014. By then, states will have to have their exchanges up and working. And states that have put themselves through that work will not be very eager to see Washington undo it. If replacement does not happen in the first 100 days, it won't happen at all—that is, it won't happen as a single measure, but rather will take the form of dozens of small incremental changes adopted episodically over the next 20 years.
The outlook then: Even if Republicans win big in 2012, they will have to fight inch by bloody inch for changes they could have had for the asking in 2010. Truly, this is Waterloo—a Waterloo brought about by a dangerous combination of ideological frenzy, poor risk calculation, and a self-annihilating indifference to the real work of government.
Fluke Frum.
The Tea Party begat the GOP route of 2010.
Obamacare lives, therefore the Tea Party grows stronger, and the election of 2012 draweth near.
I wonder what, if anything, Flum has to say about Plessy vs. Ferguson or Dredd Scott, should nobody have bothered trying to change anything, like segregation or slavery, because the Supreme Court said slavery and segregation were right, and they had to be undone in their decisions anyways. So dream on Flume, and %^(^*&%&* to you, because the only thing inerrant to me is God, and frankly he hasn’t dictated a commandment saying that I must bow down and accept every decision of the Supreme Court as inerrant and righteous.
@3 Democratic Senators are scared to death today.
Frum is gleeful in this column. He favors Obamacare obviously. He was the biggest phony conservative that ever lived.
Hell if David Frum says it’s Impossible, I’d say our chances just improved quite a bit to rid ourselves of this demon-spawn bill.
All Romney has to do is use the law to destroy the law. The executive branch was given the power to give exemptions. Romney can just exempt every person in every state in the union.
I agree with him. It isn’t going to be repealed. At least not until the money runs out.
Will never be repealed.
A fantasy? Like Frum’s alleged “conservatism”?
2012 is no longer exclusively a referendum on the president's economic management.
That'a right Frum, now Obama has to explain why he is raising taxes on the middle class during a horrible economy.
Good luck with that.
FRUM IS A PIMPLE ON THE BUTT OF A PIG.
I will never comply.
This decision is utter lawlessness.
IF the SC had 3 years to come up with this NONSENSE>
IT’s a tax?? What kind of tax?
I call Chief Justice Roberts the first AFFIRMATIVE ACTION JUSTICE.
HE GIVES A FAILING PAPER a B+. JUST LIKE WITH AA STUDENTS.
THEY DON”T DESERVE IT AND IT BITES THEM IN THE BUTT LATER>
A President Romney will have to pass repeal in the first year of his, because the law goes into effect in 2014. By then, states will have to have their exchanges up and working. And states that have put themselves through that work...
Didn't about half the states' AGs and Governors go on record against this already? Does anyone think they are even working on the exchanges? I don't think they will need to unwind much work.
In the case of ILL-ANNOY however, the minority leader in the House, Tom "Double-Cross" Cross (C-Combine, Plainfield)is already working with Crook County to start implementing KardashianCare.
The costs of KardashianCare (mandated cost shifts to the states for MedicAid) will take ILL-ANNOY from being equal to Greece, and put them down somewhere below Bangladesh. Not even Germany can bail us out.
Let me add...
...explain to all those black and hispanic voters why he is taking a couple thousand annually out of their pockets.
Oh yea...and all us non special people in the middle class as well....while muslims and unions, along with other ‘waivered’ people skate the cost.
Time to stop being delusional about Washington DC doing anything other than continually growing the Federal Apparatus and taking more of the working mans cash and freedom to support itself.
The GOP has demonstrated when it was in control that it just redirects the money extorted on a slightly smaller scale from taxpayers to capitalists, as opposed to the Democrats who give ridiculous amounts of money that doesn’t even exist to communists and morons in exchange for votes.
Washington is the problem, will never be the solution (both parties).
They just fight over who gets to control the money extorted under penalty of imprisonment from the suckers outside the Beltway.
Collapse and reset are inevitable.
If we didn't have psychoactive medications we'd know how nutty these people really are and we could keep them out of positions of power and influence.
Our real battle is probably with GlaxoSmithKlin and not really the Leftwingtards.
If you read what Frum is saying you can deduct this:
The GOP will use our vote to elect Romney and so-called
Tea Party members, Then the GOP will do nothing to stop
Obamacare. Or the recent amnesty.
One wise poster here had it right. Obamacare won’t end
until the money runs out.(I guess he means a collapse).
With Obamacare, that collapse time frame has moved up
considerably.
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