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With Stroke of a Pen, Trump Takes First Substantial Slice Out of Obamacare
Rush Limbaugh.com ^ | October 12, 2017 | Rush Limbaugh

Posted on 10/12/2017 3:28:44 PM PDT by Kaslin

RUSH: Something dramatic, crucial, and extraordinary has just happened, ladies and gentlemen. It just happened mere moments before this program began. The timing certainly not coincidental. It happened at the White House. It involved the president of the United States and a pen. And what happened was a first serious slice taken out of Obamacare. Despite Senator John McCain’s best efforts to thwart President Trump and preserve this boondoggle, the president’s triumphs here at this stage.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: So let’s go to the audio sound bites, you tell me what you hear. This is the signing ceremony today, executive order to promote health care choice and competition. We have two bites. This is the first.

THE PRESIDENT: In a few moments I will sign an executive order taking the first steps to providing millions of Americans with Obamacare relief. It directs the Department of Health and Human Services, the Treasury, and the Department of Labor to take action to increase competition, increase choice, and increase access to lower priced, high quality health care options. And they will have so many options. This will cost the United States government virtually nothing.

RUSH: We don’t care about that.

THE PRESIDENT: And people will have great, great health care. And when I say people, I mean by the millions and millions.

RUSH: And here’s the next and last bite that we have.

THE PRESIDENT: I’m also directing Secretary Acosta to consider ways to expand these associations and these health care plans all across state lines.

RUSH: There you go.

THE PRESIDENT: This will create tremendous competition —

RUSH: There you go.

THE PRESIDENT: — and transformative in so many ways, change aimed at creating more and lower prices for millions of Americans.

RUSH: There you go.

THE PRESIDENT: The competition will be staggering.

RUSH: There you go. That’s right.

THE PRESIDENT: Insurance companies will be fighting to get every single person signed up. And you will be hopefully negotiating, negotiating, negotiating. And you’ll get such low prices for such great care.

RUSH: All right. So before getting into the nitty-gritty, I happened to be watching Fox News when this was over and they had some leftist on with Ed Rollins. I don’t even know this guy, never saw him before. Doesn’t matter. Dime a dozen. Guy’s reading — well, he was reciting talking points. And you should hear. “Well, this is good-bye coverage for preexisting conditions. The president has just seen to it that the poor are gonna lose their health insurance. The wealthy are going to get a tax –break.”

It was just monolithic, formulaic, cliched talking points. And the infobabe was Melissa Francis. She got frustrated listening to this guy and finally cut him off and said (paraphrasing), “You didn’t see what everybody else saw.” Ed Rollins came on, “He’s just spouting talking points.” The guy was fuming. You could see him when the camera was still on him but he wasn’t speaking. He tried to go through it again after Ed Rollins finished, and Melissa, “Well, we’re just gonna have to agree to disagree, ’cause you didn’t watch what we saw.”

It didn’t matter what Trump said; the left has their reaction to this. Now, here are the basics. Some things, the pictures of this were kind of incredible. Rand Paul, who came up with the shell of this idea, was introducing it and Mike Pence, the vice president. Rand Paul praised Trump for boldness and leadership. Rand Paul, when it comes to Obamacare, has been from the beginning of this opposed to anything that didn’t literally get rid of Obamacare.

You know, all these previous health care bills that some of them started in the House, the ones that had their origins in the Senate, he wasn’t eager about any of them because in his mind they didn’t really change anything other than cosmetically, but he’s all aboard on this. And I think it has the potential to be a huge deal.

Now, it’s not everything, it can’t be everything with just an executive order or executive action, but it’s something, and it’s more than we were ever gonna get if we had left it up just to the Senate or just to the House. What the executive order will do is erase existing rules on small businesses banding together to buy health insurance through what are known as association health plans. It will lift limits on short-term health insurance plans, according to an administration source, and the order here directs the Department of Labor to modernize rules to allow small employers to create association health plans.

Let me translate this for you, what all this news media-speak means. The problem with Obama — well, one of the many problems is that healthy people are not buying it. And the reason they’re not buying it, it’s twofold. It’s wildly expensive, it’s irrationally expensive, and it’s irrationally expensive because the mandate in Obamacare was going to force them to buy it, and their purchases were gonna fund health care for the poor and the elderly and others who couldn’t afford it, and so the burden was on the young and healthy. It never made any sense.

In a free market the young and healthy would not buy health insurance other than catastrophic because they’re young and healthy. They don’t need it. So the mandate was created requiring them to, and they just didn’t do it. They opted to pay the fine or they just rolled the dice that the IRS couldn’t catch ’em with all the other things the IRS has to do. And so there wasn’t anywhere near enough money coming in to fund, at the front end or the back end, Obamacare. And it led to a whole lot of people without insurance.

This change will allow for the market to begin creating policies that match the need and desire of customers, meaning they’re going to be allowed to scrub existing policies and rewrite new ones that only offer X coverage of this, this coverage, that coverage, not mandate universal coverage for every damn thing that a young 25 year old guy will never need, like contraception coverage. Not gonna be required to buy this kind of stuff. The insurance companies will now be free to create policies that actually feature things people want.

The theory of competition is such that if a number of insurance companies play the game, then they’re gonna be in competition with one another to get those dollars, and the policies will have to be reflective of the market and desires and then cost will lower because of the competition. Small employers will be allowed to form their own groups to create association health plans and qualify for group coverage based on their needs and their desires.

Now, the left is just having a cow over all of this. The Politico: “It’s not yet clear how far the administration will go, or how quickly it can implement the president’s order. But if successful, the new rules could upend the way businesses and individuals buy coverage — lowering premiums for the healthiest Americans at the expense of key consumer protections and potentially tipping the Obamacare markets into a tailspin.”

No, it already is in a tailspin. It makes no sense for the healthiest and youngest Americans to be paying the most! They won’t buy it. They’re not in the market, therefore none of their purchases get factored into the total amount of money in the pool that treats people who are in need of it. Obamacare was designed to fail just this way so that the demand for single payer would be met much easier.

Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow at the Kaiser Foundation, used to work for Obama, said, “Within a year, this would kill the market.” No, no, no. It will kill Obamacare and the phony and fake market.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: There is another aspect of Obamacare that is being rolled back. Short-term health insurance plans. The Trump administration is gonna end Obama-era restrictions on short-term health insurance plans. They were not legal under Obamacare. “Short-term plans allow insurers to sell stopgap policies and procedures, which don’t cover preexisting conditions or mental health services and a whole lot of other costly things.” In other words, you’re going to be able to go buy what you want and not be forced to buy a bunch of things that will never affect you.

You’re not gonna have to help pay, for example, for preexisting conditions if you don’t have one. You’re gonna be able to go out and buy a tailored policy, and the coverage could extend for as long as a year. Current limit is three months on these kinds of policies. People can’t make plans on three months a year. It’s a little bit more time ’til you figure out where in the marketplace you want to be as a buyer. It’s all good, folks.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government
KEYWORDS: 0bamacare; government; repealandreplace; rush; rushtranscript; third100days; trumpeo
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1 posted on 10/12/2017 3:28:44 PM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin
The President should tell all concerned private parties and the states that they are free to simply ignore the ACA as it is an invalid and illegal act, and he should order a stop to any federal actions that implement or support the ACA.

If there's more to be done to undo it, then those steps should be taken. Trump should nullify/reject ACA as unconstitutional but not try to change or make new laws as an alternative.

2 posted on 10/12/2017 3:31:47 PM PDT by Jim W N
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To: Kaslin

Great to see the leadership of Congress supporting the President...oh, wait


3 posted on 10/12/2017 3:32:16 PM PDT by Jolla
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To: Kaslin

A law which was enacted by means of fraud and chicanery.

And upheld in court by a tissue thin legal fiction.

And which a previous president had altered without legislation, but with mere decrees.


4 posted on 10/12/2017 3:35:01 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: Kaslin

Obamacare is a Congressional act, howbeit an unconstitutional congressional act. The Constitution only authorizes Congress to make legislation.
To the degree Trump is initiating legislative acts, he is imitating Obama’s unconstitutional behavior. NOT GOOD!

Doing the wrong thing for the right reason is still WRONG!!!

THE issue in America isn’t healthcare, it is THE CONSTITUTION, LIMITED FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, and STOPPING FEDERAL TYRANNY.

When the Right violates the Constitution for the “right” reason they enable the Left to utterly dispose of the Constitution and establish REAL tyranny.

The answer to unconstitutional Obamacare is for the executive branch AND the states to simply NOT ENFORCE Obamacare until the American People FORCE Congress to act and legislate constitutionally.

To the degree Trump rejects and refuses to enforce Obamacare because it is unconstitutional, to that degree Trump is behaving constitutionally. But Trump must not change or create law through EO’s like Obama did.


5 posted on 10/12/2017 3:38:24 PM PDT by Jim W N
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To: BenLurkin

Well said. The media never mentions how it was rammed through by the Democrats, and only the Democrats with a lot of twisted arms and payoffs.


6 posted on 10/12/2017 3:39:38 PM PDT by Moonman62 (Make America Great Again!)
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To: Kaslin
Presidential Executive Order Promoting Healthcare Choice and Competition Across the United States

Not sure if this is the Excecutive Order or a Memoranda about the Executive Order. It's under Memoranda.

Section 1. Policy. (a) It shall be the policy of the executive branch, to the extent consistent with law,...

7 posted on 10/12/2017 3:46:08 PM PDT by DannyTN
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To: Jim 0216

The Democrats have gutted the constitution and rule of law. If we don’t play by their rules we may be finished. But as you point out, we may be finished either way. Pick your poison.


8 posted on 10/12/2017 3:57:49 PM PDT by Spok
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To: Jim 0216

Your post #2 is right on the money.


9 posted on 10/12/2017 3:58:19 PM PDT by T Ruth (Mohammedanism shall be defeated.)
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To: Kaslin

Only in the mind of a lunatic liberal or Democrat would a collapsing, failing, overpriced, and misrepresented insurance scheme be considered the signature “achievement” of Obama’s failed Presidency. If it was an achievement, what would be a failure?


10 posted on 10/12/2017 4:04:40 PM PDT by Sasparilla ( I'm Not Tired of Winning.)
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To: Spok
I choose to stand and fight for freedom and the Constitution which protects it. Too many seem to have given up their God-given rights and freedoms to the Delusional Lying Left without a fight. But Trump is an example of how we should fight and how we should carry the fight to these tyrants.

With God's help we'll win. We are really in a Second American Revolution, this time to recover our rights and our Free Constitutional Republic.

11 posted on 10/12/2017 4:05:52 PM PDT by Jim W N
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To: T Ruth

Thank you.


12 posted on 10/12/2017 4:06:11 PM PDT by Jim W N
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To: Kaslin

Only in the mind of a lunatic liberal other democrat would a collapsing, failing, overpriced, and misrepresented insurance scheme be considered the signature “achievement” of Obama’s failed Presidency. If it was an achievement, what would be a failure?


13 posted on 10/12/2017 4:07:05 PM PDT by Sasparilla ( I'm Not Tired of Winning.)
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To: Jim 0216

Obamacare was forced on us via fraud and deceit—the executive branch can and should protect the citizens from such abuses.

Congress has been utterly derelict.


14 posted on 10/12/2017 4:52:01 PM PDT by jazminerose (Adorable Deplorable)
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To: jazminerose

When the Right violates the Constitution for the “right” reason they enable the Left to utterly dispose of the Constitution and establish REAL tyranny.

The answer to unconstitutional Obamacare is for the executive branch AND the states to simply NOT ENFORCE Obamacare until the American People FORCE Congress to act and legislate constitutionally.


15 posted on 10/12/2017 4:59:18 PM PDT by Jim W N
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To: BenLurkin

“And which a previous president had altered without legislation, but with mere decrees.”

And who also issued exemptions to any Democrat special interest group who begged for one.


16 posted on 10/12/2017 5:59:55 PM PDT by FrdmLvr
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To: Jim 0216

As I read the ACA there were a lot of things that were left at the discretion of the Executive branch. There were all sorts of waivers that could be granted or taken away. Which is the only reason the congress critters aren’t required to adhere to it.

I see this Executive Order as a major implementation of the allowed waiver authority granted the Executive branch by the Legislative branch. Very similar to regulatory authority in a number of other areas, where the congress has (in my mind unconstitutionally despite what the SC stated in the early 1900s) passed regulatory authority to various executive bureaus, administrations, committees, commissions, etc.


17 posted on 10/12/2017 9:40:48 PM PDT by reed13k
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To: reed13k

Well, if the ACA is unconstitutional, which it is, then it doesn’t matter what its provisions are, because it the whole thing is invalid and should be rejected and nullified by the states and the President.

Valid presidential action here is to tell all concerned private parties and the states that they are free to simply ignore the ACA as an invalid and illegal act, and he should order a stop to any federal actions that implement or support the ACA. If there’s more to be done to undo it, then those steps should be taken.

The ACA is unconstitutional because the Constitution gives the feds no power over healthcare. Trump should NULLIFY/REJECT ENFORCEMENT OF ACA as unconstitutional but NOT try to unconstitutionally CHANGE or make new laws as an alternative and/or USE the invalid law to further unconstitutionally interfere with healthcare.


18 posted on 10/13/2017 11:15:11 AM PDT by Jim W N
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To: Jim 0216

My point was the law allows for a plethora of waivers and his actions fall within that scope.


19 posted on 10/13/2017 3:59:37 PM PDT by reed13k
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To: reed13k

OK, but that “law” is invalid because it is unconstitutional, so it doesn’t matter that it “allows for a plethora of waivers and his actions fall within that scope.”

Trump’s action should be to implement NON ENFORCEMENT of ACA. His action should not be more unconstitutional acts in the name of doing the “right” thing.


20 posted on 10/13/2017 4:07:33 PM PDT by Jim W N
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