Posted on 10/23/2012 6:05:59 AM PDT by Kaslin
Anticipating victory in November’s elections, both parties are working up their legislative plans for 2013. Republicans, looking forward to regaining a Senate majority along with the White House, will have repeal of ObamaCare high on their list.
But how to do it? Attempts to repeal the law in the current Congress have fallen short. Flush with gains from the 2010 election that gave Republicans control of the House, the lower chamber made ObamaCare repeal Job #2. On January 19, 2011, H.R. 2, the “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act,” passed the House on a 245-189 vote. In never got a vote in the Senate.
Same story this year. The House passed (244-185) a full repeal bill, H.R. 6079, in July, right after the Supreme Court ruling. Again, the Senate refused to consider the bill.
Clearly, repeal will not happen next year unless both the Senate and the Oval Office change hands. Yet, even if that happens, the standard legislative process will not be adequate to strip the law from the books. The filibuster power would allow a pro-ObamaCare minority to stop repeal legislation in its tracks… unless a new Senate leadership adopted a new strategy.
That strategy requires, first and foremost, commitment. The new leadership must be committed to the proposition that full repeal of ObamaCare is the first order of business for the next Congress—to the exclusion of any other work. In other words, leaders of the new Senate majority must resolve that no other legislation shall pass until they send a full repeal bill to the desk of a new President.
With that commitment in place, here’s how the strategy would play out. First, the House convenes and passes legislation to fully repeal ObamaCare on day one. Then the Senate would take up the legislation, forcing a vote. Liberals would be expected to filibuster, but Senate leadership would keep putting the bill on the floor—to the exclusion of any other Senate work—until the opposition allows a simple majority vote. The Senate Majority Leader has the power to force liberals to filibuster the legislation for weeks, or even months, if he has the will.
Make no mistake. It will require a lot of will. Opposition will be determined, as well, notwithstanding the fact that many liberal Democratic Senators have loudly deplored filibustering. Indeed, last year Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Tom Udall (D-N.M.) lead an effort to scale back the filibuster power. However, liberal opposition to the idea of a filibuster historically evaporates just as soon as they find themselves in the Senate minority. It is doubtful that anti-filibuster Democrats will stand on principle and refuse to filibuster a full repeal of ObamaCare on the first try, so many cloture votes will be necessary.
The most effective tool for breaking a filibuster is urgency—as created by the introduction of must-pass legislation. And a very real sense of urgency may be provided soon by the Department of Treasury. Not long after the elections, Treasury is expected notify Congress of the need to raise the debt ceiling. Thus, a debt ceiling increase might be demanded sometime early next year.
Now, the Congressional Budget Office may score repeal as adding to the deficit. If so, the amendment could also include commonsense measures—such as increasing Medicare premiums—to off-set the alleged cost of repeal. Or, it could simply cite the numerous studies showing that ObamaCare is, in fact, a budget buster—and that repeal would save much, much more over time.
In any event, conservatives should attach the full-repeal bill to any debt-ceiling measure that is introduced. Indeed, a full-repeal amendment should be attached to every piece of legislation that comes before the Senate, until repeal is passed.
Certainly this isn’t the only strategy possible to repeal ObamaCare. But it’s the simplest. Success hinges on a strong-willed leadership to keep the Senate on legislation to repeal ObamaCare until it is passed. If conservatives force liberals be in the position of using the dreaded and demonized filibuster to thwart the will of the American people and Congress – the liberals will cave.
The little fly in the ointment, and by “fly” I mean a POS, is if Reed (Sick!) is still sliming around in the wake of the election. It’s not a given that the Senate goes ‘R’, and there needs to be contingencies for zer0Care if plan ‘B’ is required.
The ‘Rats biden’ed their time for 80 years, with some false starts, to put commieCare in place. It took a perfect storm to do so. We can’t wait for another 80 years, for when conservatives have control of all the branches of govt to repeal (and by branches, I mean all of them: Executive, Legislative, Judiciary, Regulatory, Mediatory...)
Perhaps President Romney could at least neutralize nobamacare via an EO?
Unfortunately I don’t think the GOP will get to 49, much less 50 thanks to Akin and his enablers & no way does Dirty Harry or whomever become Maj. Leader allow a repeal to hit the floor.
The Ds with help from the manipulative media are superior to the Rs at misplacing blame (See: Libya for example) and can and will win a PR war against the Rs and will make Romney, esp. look ineffective.
What the GOP really needs here is a tidal wave mandate; landslide in popular and electoral votes. Anything less and GOP needs to play prevent defense for two years, let Romney issue his exec order stalling ObamaCare, and focus on the econ. Nothing like a booming econ to get big wins in 2014 and then GOP can go to town dismantling Obama’s work.
It’s going to require a lot of discipline and patience because we want everything Obama gone now, but the Constitutional structure is what it is, and the Media is who they are. We can’t give them a bone. We must starve them.
What might be needed is some sort of good-faith "replacement" legislation...an Executive Order on Day 1, announcing no further support of the PPACA implementation. Then, offer up some small improvements in healthcare--things Republicans have supported in the past, that could get the support of a few Democrats, in exchange for their support of a full repeal of Obamacare. Offer a small carrot to get a much more productive agenda.
Romney should campaign for Senators now.
Assume the Presidency is in the bag.
Work on Coattails!
Defund 0bamaRomneyCare.
Don’t worry about trying to repeal it. Just don’t put enough money in there to enforce any single part of it.
For example, no new IRS agents to police it.
Grant all 50 states the same waivers 0bambi has granted to his union buddies.
This isn’t hard.
Really, the only thing standing in the way is that Romney is the intellectual father of 0bamaRomneyCare.
If we obtain control of the Senate - and that’s a pretty iffy if right now - it’s much easier than this.
Obamacare contains taxes. Legislation with taxes has budget implications. It can all be rolled into a budget reconciliation act - especially once we get a CBO report showing that repealing all of Obamacare, taxes and all, will reduce the deficit over some arbitrary time frame. Budget reconciliation is immune to filibusters.
Simple up or down vote.
Obamacare gets assigned its place in one of the lower circles of Hell.
Suppose Romney wins, but the Dems hold the Senate 51-49. There are two Democrat senators who have large targets on their back in 2014 - Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Mark Pryor of Arkansas. There will be intense pressure from their home state constituents to support repeal. They will have to determine whether they wish to commit political suicide by falling on the sword of Obamacare.
That’s true, but D’s own the Senate and what bills come to the floor for a vote and the language in those bills. So Reid can refuse to bring the bills to the floor or the rules com. can vote down lang.
Whether the Senate is barely our or barely theirs, the House needs not to fund ObamaCare. That’s step #1.
Step #2 will be
a. Alternative #1: nuke option
b. Alternative #2: coming up with a replacement national health care program. This is what Romney has indicated he prefers. Each state getting their own tailored program with federal blessing and maybe some fed money.
Until it’s repealed, Romney, through his Secretary of HHS, could blunt the disastrous effects of Obamacare by redefining the requirements for qualifying plans so that low-cost catastrophic-only (or maybe free yearly check-up plus catastrophic if that’s actuarially cheaper) policies qualify as “Bronze” plans. And he can definitely reverse the attacks on Christian morals the Obamaites have launched in the context of implementing Obamacare by an EO.
More interestingly, he could direct the Solicitor General to support a new court challenge to the law on the basis that since the penalty is a tax, as per SCOTUS, a tax that doesn’t apply to Anabaptist and Muslims in manifestly unconstitutional. (And there is no separability clause (^_^) .)
Romney is running a really good ad here in Indiana for Mourdock.
It just started this week, so I suppose it may be happening in other Senate races.
Stop being so pessimistic. You might be pleasantly surprised
Post #16 is also for you
I'm not being pessimistic, I'm being realistic.
That being said, I wouldn't be particularly surprised if we took the Senate. It's just that I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't. Right now, I think we'd take 48 or 49. But if Mittmentum builds a little further, we could get 50 or even 52.
It's just an iffy proposition.
sitetest
Not being pessimistic — realistic. There is a difference. If it’s a wave election, fantastic, but if its not, if GOP can’t get to 50, we need to be prepared for that too. Would you not agree?
The hostile takeover of the health care system was committed under a budgetary trick called reconciliation, which means it needed a simple majority and not a filibuster-proof majority to pass.
Thus, a simple majority will be needed to achieve the repeal of this odious montrosity, filibusters be damned.
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