Joel Gehrke:
Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) introduced an “Obamacare Repeal Act” that would repeal the Affordable Care Act “as if such Act had not been enacted.”
The text of Cruz’s bill to repeal the 2,700-page law — which spawned another 10,000 pages of regulations — barely runs onto the third page. It comes as Republicans have debated whether to use a procedural tactic that circumvents filibusters known as reconciliation to repeal the legislation.
“This repeal bill is pro-growth, pro-jobs, and pro-liberty,” Cruz says in a statement on the bill. “It provides time for Congress to start over, to pass true market-based reforms that will allow the purchase of insurance across state lines, expand health savings accounts, and make health insurance, personal, portable, and affordable.”
The bill is co-sponsored by 44 Senate Republicans, including Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) and several leading members of the Obamacare working group that is mulling the GOP’s possible response to a major anti-Obamacare lawsuit pending before the Supreme Court. If the Court rules against the administration, Americans who enrolled in Obamacare through the federal exchanges would not qualify for subsidies.
Yeah, right. Three pages should be enough to sort things out.
If the SCOTUS is radical enough to actually gut the law over a minor glitch which even Sen Chuck Grassley says “oh, that’s ridiculous. We obviously meant that the subsidies would go to the federal exchange and not just the state exchange”, that will set up the fall for both the ACA and the GOP.
If the SCOTUS doesn’t gut ACA, it’s here to stay (unless the rabid extremist of the Robert’s court dream up some other nonsense).
Either way, Cruz is simply appeasing the crazies as repealing ACA in its entirety will be politically suicidal.
@Greg:
The United States Constitution, including signatures, was written on four pages. Are you saying that the U.S. Constitution, the very basis for our nation’s government, didn’t “sort things out?”
@Ronald J. Ward:
Not according to Jonathan Gruber, who was the main author of the ACA.
@Ronald J. Ward: There is a lot more that is wrong with Obama Care than the subsidies.
@retire05, #3:
Why do you think laws exist? The U.S. Constitution was intended as a foundation to build on. If that were not so, the document wouldn’t have created a Legislative Branch responsible for creating such laws.
@Greg: Missed the point again Greg. Retire05 was making a comparison that a well short, written document has more power than 10,000 pages passed by those who ‘have to pass it to understand it”!
President Ted Cruz
@Randy, #7:
Maybe if someone were writing instructions explaining how to program a telephone answering machine. The nation’s healthcare delivery and health insurance systems are somewhat more complex.
@Greg:
Yes and the ACA makes it all more complex, complete with knee jerk moving rules and regulations largely based on a avoiding paying a political price.
Of course since no one actually read the bill prior to passage it’s just perfect in your opinion. I just wonder how many pages a bill would have to be to be too large for you? When does it become unworkable and unwieldy? Obviously 2 thousand unread pages is no problem at all for you.
How many contracts do you sign without reading them? You just sign based on the sales presentation.
The lemming march continues.
@Greg:
Well, that all depends. Is the intent to describe some legislation to be voted on or to completely mask, camouflage and hide the actual intent of the legislation?
@Ronald J. Ward:
And who does Obama appease when he unilaterally enacts an illegal amnesty of illegal immigrants? At least Cruz follows and abides by the Constitution and law.
Sounds like Ron and Greg are PO’d that they must foot the whole bill for their planned gender reassignment procedures.
How much more Orwellian doublethink can one law have?
An “affordable care act” in which over 90% of enrollees cannot pay their monthly premiums without taxpayer subsidies covering at least 75% of the cost….
As a bill, characterized as “not a tax” but a fee in order to get it passed, then defended in front of SCOTUS by its proponents as constitutional – as a tax….
Having a primary architect – Gruber – state unequivocally on multiple videos that only states that set up state run exchanges would be eligible for taxpayer funded premium subsidies, specifically designed in that fashion to coerce states into setting up subsidies, but now arguing that the clear wording of the law does not prohibit subsidies in states that chose not to set up exchanges…
Another architect of obamacare – Emmanuel – writing that having freedom of choice in selecting one’s physician is unimportant, despite years of the left insisting that personal choice on abortion is an absolute right that should never be curtailed….
Obamacare is based on nothing but lies and deception. It should be repealed in toto.
@Greg: Greggie, Pelosi said you have to pass it to know what’s in it!! I bet she and the idiots who voted for it, most out of office because of their vote, still haven’t read it!! Which President carried 49 out of 50 states in his second term election cycle??
@Mully, #10:
The bill was 906 pages long. Long, certainly, but not too long to be read and analyze—particularly when broken down into parts that could be examined by assigned support staff.
Members of Congress are paid a base salary of $174,000 per year. For that, you should expect to get people who are capable of reading a document that’s roughly half as long as Ayn Rand’s popular novel, Atlas Shrugged (Word count, 645,000 words.)
Not to mention the fact that republicans have created one-half of the longest ten bills presented for Congressional consideration.
Nobody ever said the bill was perfect. What you do in such cases is determine what doesn’t work as intended and correct it with subsequent legislation. Assuming that you have a Congress that actually wants to fix things. Instead, you’ve elected a majority that wants to make damn sure things don’t work. So far they haven’t even been able to do that.
@Greg: Greggie please tell me why Pelosi said we need to pass it first then?? BTW, what does Republican bills length have anything to do with this article OR the last part of my comment. Still waiting for your answer!!
@Greg:
Well, obviously one Democrat clown was not up to the task:
“I love these members, they get up and say, ‘Read the bill,’” “What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?”
John Conyers, husband of a convicted felon.
@Greg:
Obama promised that all legislation would be posted publicly for 72 hours before it would be voted on. Lie? Bogus claim? Cooked promise?
Recall what Jon Gruber said about WHY the Obamacare bill was so long and convoluted. I suggest you go and read his admissions.
Also be aware that after 10 years, this “deficit neutral” law will cost $2 trillion and, of the 30 million uninsured that the law was supposed to insure, there will only be… 30 million still uninsured.
They really should have read it, Greg.
This will be the 56th time that the republican-majority House has wasted time and taxpayer money on a totally pointless bill to kill or disable the Affordable Care Act. It probably won’t pass the Senate, because a majority of Senators likely understand the consequences of wrecking the entire system when republicans will never be able to put together and agree on a functional replacement. If they do pass the bill in spite of that, Obama will simply veto it.
Maybe they could consider doing something useful instead. They could deal with the immigration problem, for example. I’m sure Ted Cruz can sort all of that out in three pages or less.
@Greg:
Why didn’t the Democrats do that when they held both Houses in the first two years of Obama’s reign?
Wow! You mean like the Bill of Rights if you exclude the signatures?
Oh, well, John Conyers probably never read it, either. I know he doesn’t understand it.
@Greg: There are a lot of Democratic Senators who are no longer in the Senate as a result of the ACA. It is likely there will be more ex-senators after the 2016 election. Every bill is an effort to improve on the ACA. The difficulty with the ACA is it is not doing what was promised. It is doing what the administration wanted and that is to spread the wealth around. There are a lot of younger people who are highly upset that they are paying higher premiums to support older people.
@Randy: greggie now hits the remote start on his ethanol powered big wheel as ronald j teabaggee ward jumps in the sidecar to get out of town leaving a roadrunner cloud of dead brain cells and starbucks coffee cups
@Greg: If it takes 3 pages to create a dumpster fire- so be it.
@Greg: If Obama had allowed the law to go fully into effect instead of illegally and unilaterally changing/delaying/deleting parts that would most harm vulnerable (thanks to Obamacare) Democrat candidates, repeal would be far more popular. As it is, only those without a reason to continue lying and covering up the failures and dangers of the law support repeal. Like the liberals that once supported the myth that measles vaccinations cause autism, the opposition only weakens after the damage is done.
@Greg:
Thanks for a typical half an answer trying to justify your position.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/10/23/affordable-care-act-pages-long/317449