Morning Action: House Votes to Repeal Obamacare in Its Entirety

Katherine Rosario | May 17, 2013

OBAMACARE. Thursday, the House Republicans voted to repeal Obamacare in full. They were joined by two Democrats (sub. req’d):

House Republicans renewed their long-standing effort to overturn the 2010 health care overhaul, passing a bill Thursday to repeal the law in its entirety.

The chamber voted 229-195 to advance the bill (HR 45). Two Democrats, Jim Matheson of Utah and Mike McIntyre of North Carolina, joined a unified Republican Conference in backing the measure.

The legislation, sponsored by Minnesota Republican Michele Bachmann, is the first such effort in the current Congress. The bill marks the GOP’s third attempt to fully repeal the law (PL 111-148,PL 111-152) since taking control of the House in 2011 — none of the attempts advanced in the Democratic Senate. In total, Republicans have voted to undo the law, or parts of it, more than 35 times, with the last vote for a total repeal in July 2012 as a symbolic gesture following the Supreme Court’s decision to largely uphold the law.

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The bill passed Thursday comes more than three weeks after House GOP leadership unexpectedly pulled from floor consideration a measure (HR 1549) that would have extended enrollment in the high-risk pools by transferring money from another part of the law. Several conservative groups, like Heritage Action for America and Club for Growth, blasted the bill for attempting to fix the law and encouraged the House to vote on a full repeal.

Sens. Coburn and Burr Fight the Medicaid Expansion

Katherine Rosario | May 16, 2013

Obamacare’s Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) uses the bait of taxpayer dollars to incentivize the states to adopt a massive Medicaid expansion. In light of the federal debt that will soon surpass $17 trillion dollars, additional federal spending is extremely imprudent. If left unchecked, Medicaid spending is estimated to cost $4.3 trillion over the next ten years. Moreover, the promise of federal support and federal taxpayer dollars for the Medicaid expansion is just another false promise.

That’s why Senators Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Richard Burr (R-NC) have introduced a bill called the Preventing an Unrealistic Future Medicaid Augmentation Plan (FMAP) Act of 2013 (S. 963). The bill would repeal FMAP so that the states are no longer falsely led to believe that federal funding will ever come through for the Medicaid expansion.

Sen. Coburn’s message to the states was:

This bill sends a basic message to governors and state legislatures considering expansion: don’t count on the enhanced federal funding for Medicaid expansions, because Congress has overpromised what it cannot deliver. Realistically, the funding will not be there and the check will bounce

Morning Action: After Harrowing Testimonies Gosnell is Convicted

Katherine Rosario | May 14, 2013

GOSNELL. Our nation breathed a sigh of relief knowing that justice has been served for the infants and women who were murdered by abortionist Kermit Gosnell. But our work in protecting life is not complete. The abortion industry still receives taxpayer funding:

Late-term abortionist Kermit Gosnell was convicted yesterday of first-degree murder in the deaths of three infants who were born alive after botched abortions performed in his run-down West Philadelphia clinic. He was also found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Karnamaya Mongar, a 41-year-old woman who died from an overdose of anesthetic drugs during an abortion procedure.

The jury’s deliberations came after six weeks of harrowing testimony detailing the brutal deaths of newborns and unthinkable mistreatment of women. The gruesome murder of moving, breathing infants after botched abortions allegedly became a regular occurrence at the filthy West Philadelphia facility, with one clinic worker estimating nearly 100 living babies were killed shortly after birth.

Morning Action: Internet Sales Tax Is Just a Bad Idea

Katherine Rosario | May 13, 2013

IST. Heritage explains that though the Senate rushed the internet sales tax bill through, the House will have more time to deliberate about this harmful bill:

For someone running—or thinking about starting—a small online business, trying to deal with tax codes for all of the states that charge sales tax is a huge deterrent.

Yet the Senate rushed this bill through. Americans for Tax Reform’s Grover Norquist said the rush itself was one of the reasons the Internet sales tax made it this far.

“It’s only passing the Senate because they took it out of regular order,” he said. “Why did they want to rush it through without amendments? Why did they do that? Because if people looked at it too long, it wouldn’t pass easily.”

The House is going to consider the bill through the normal committee channels, giving Members more time to review it and ask questions.

This also allows time for more facts to enter the debate and misconceptions to be exposed.

The States Should Reject the Medicaid Expansion

Katherine Rosario | May 10, 2013

As Josh Robbins reminds us, we must not forget that preventing the implementation of Obamacare is our last line of defense against the healthcare law before it goes fully into effect in 2014 resulting in greatly diminished quality of care and massive costs. Rather than trying to bail out one part of Obama care by “shuffling money between accounts,” Congress should repeal the law in full.

There are two steps that conservatives can take to prevent the implementation of the Obamacare. Robbins explains:

Conservatives can battle this implementation of Obamacare on two fronts: 1) showing the federal government cannot be relied upon to provide the funding for states to cover this massive expansion of government health care; and 2) explaining that Medicaid does not work.

What is alarming is that in the state of Montana, special interest groups are going to great lengths to get federal money. Their wishful thinking leads them to believe the feds are going to keep their promises.