Posted on 03/07/2012 1:59:14 PM PST by ColdOne
President Obama's healthcare reform law skews healthcare funding in a way that would put many of the nation's medical programs at risk if the law is repealed, the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Health subcommittee warned Wednesday.
The remarks from Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) are surprising because Republicans - including Shelby - have been calling for the law's repeal ever since it was passed. In his opening statement at a hearing on the Health and Human Services Department's proposed budget for FY 2013, Shelby suggested lawmakers should start taking a hard look at the impact of repealing the law as the Supreme Court this month prepares to hear hours of arguments for why it should strike it down.
"The administration has used the Affordable Care Act's mandatory spending, which is not subject to a vote by Congress every year, to backfill key discretionary programs," Shelby said in his opening remarks.
"The administration then diverts discretionary dollars to fund new programs. When the Affordable Care Act is repealed, many important programs like Community Health Centers and the [federal] Immunization program at the Centers for Disease Control will be in jeopardy because their base funding … has been so significantly reduced."
Shelby also raised concerns with the budget's flat-funding of medical research at the National Institutes of Health, at $31 billion. The administration says it is overhauling its NIH grant-making process in order to increase the number of new research grants.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Good time to start zero-based budgeting for all departments.
All he’s saying is that Obamacare diverted funds from other programs, and they will need to be restored if Obamacare is repealed.”
That may be what he thinks needs to happen but I don’t think that necessarily true. There is such an accounting mess in DC that we might be better off cancelling everything and starting over. It seems to take Congress five new laws or regs to fix one enacted previously and it generally ends up being worse than when it first began.
This is a bill congress didn't write, they didn't read, no one wants, and yet you have Repubs afraid to repeal it.
God help us.
See - we can’t repeal it. It’s too important.
Now why don’t you little people go pay your taxes? We need raises. :)
Isn’t that so like a stinking politician; they proclaim a problem so they, the politicians can dump billions of our money into a solution that the people DO NOT WANT because it includes unaffordable/unconstitutional mandates and erodes the people’s liberties. The citizen outrage continues to grow so the politicians pander and say they will repeal the solution (only because they want to be reelected) and soon start admitting the solution is actually worse than the original problem. So it has now evolved to the political mantra that the solution can’t be repealed because repealing it will cost too much money and will create more problems and exacerbate the original problem. While they’re stepping in high cotton on our dime due to their laws and regulations we the people are left to wade neck deep in their created swill. Anybody else getting sick of this crap?
“The administration then diverts discretionary dollars to fund new programs. When the Affordable Care Act is repealed, many important programs like Community Health Centers and the [federal] Immunization program at the Centers for Disease Control will be in jeopardy because their base funding … has been so significantly reduced.”
DO YOUR JOB.
And so it begins......
If our elected officials (most of them lawyers), had read the bill before passing it, they would have seen the poison pill in the contract.
Instead of simply the Stupid Party they now need to be known as The Stupid and Cowardly Party.
I think they are already the latter, but in the interest of truth in advertising, they need to make it official.
A massive number of people wrote, telephoned and emailed Congress to express their very negative views on Obamacare before it was deemed passed. As Ben Franklin put it, "a republic, if you can keep it".
This is actually an important note for conservatives.
An essential part of Obamacare was that it had to destroy Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal health care systems, so that it could absorb their functions. And this is probably the only successful thing Obamacare has accomplished. Those systems are in tatters.
So if the Republicans “just kill” Obamacare, it will result in a disaster. It has to be a “controlled demolition” to get rid of the damned thing, without suddenly throwing millions of people “out on the street”, with no support at all.
Republicans have to plan *right now* on how they are going to bring about an end to Obamacare “safely”.
This is terribly hard. They do not want to bring back Medicare and Medicaid, which are unstable and collapsing, so they must devise some stable replacement, with hopefully far less government involvement, until private systems can fill the gap.
Any bill to repeal it all could also return funding mechanisms to their previous state.
I swear these people are going to force this to end in bloodshed.
Good time to start zero-based budgeting for all departments.
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Excellent point! Though it’s always a good time for that most necessary reform.
We can't afford and we do not need discretionary programs. I'd be quiet happy if those items enumerated in the Constitution were funded. No more, no less. The rest goes to the several States and the People.
YES! Totally agree. So shut up and fix it, SENATOR!
>>I personally believe, that despite his promises to the contrary, a President Romney would decide that it would be too harmful to totally repeal Obamacare. He’ll do what he has said he would do before .... ‘keep the good parts’ .... and tinker around the edges with the rest.<<
And I personally believe that you’re absolutely correct. If the GOP nominates Romney, we’ll be better off with Obama as President for four more years because a GOP Congress can defund ObamaCare. But if Romney is President, we’ll get exactly what you fear, tinkering around the edges, because the GOP will fall in behind their “leader.”
Of course, four more years of Obama and maybe health care will be the least of our concerns.
“It was always about overwhelming the system.”
Exactly; it was about destroying private-sector healthcare.
Never Again? In my opinion, ObamaCare is Holocaust II with Death Panels instead of showers and wooden soap. Big Brother and his Big Sis will determine who lives and who dies. Anyone wonder what the Regime’s database has on each of us to decide if we get healthcare or a Hospice Pill? I’m sure being Freepers doesn’t add to our resumes.
Never Again? In my opinion, ObamaCare is Holocaust II with Death Panels instead of showers and wooden soap. Big Brother and his Big Sis will determine who lives and who dies. Anyone wonder what the Regime’s database has on each of us to decide if we get healthcare or a Hospice Pill? I’m sure being Freepers doesn’t add to our resumes.
There is no doubt in my mind that if he could get away with it, 0bama would make Hitler and Stalin look like Boy Scouts.
If 0bamacare is not repealed, the evil bastard is well on his way.
May God have Mercy on the United states.
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