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Republicans Surrender to Obama, Will Not Repeal Affordable Care Act

Republicans won Congress and the Presidency by vowing to repeal ObamaCare. But now, after controlling Congress and the White House for over a year, Republicans have admitted that the Affordable Care Act is too popular and too effective for them to repeal:

“It would be a heavy lift. I think everybody knows,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the No. 3 GOP leader. “We sort of tested the limits of what we can do in the Senate last year. And we’re one vote down from where we were then” [Burgess Everett, “Republicans Give up on Obamacare,” Politico, 2018.02.01].

All Thune and friends managed to do is take down the individual insurance mandate, which will lead to higher premiums and fewer insured Americans.

So America’s Great Again… or Great Enough, right, John? And if we’re not getting rid of it, then the Affordable Care Act must be part of what makes America great.

29 Comments

  1. grudznick

    BAH

  2. leslie

    and further idiocy, trump boasted to loud applause (I heard later snippet-didn’t watch the idiot): “We repealed the core of the disastrous Obamacare. The individual mandate is now gone. Thank heavens,” Trump said.

    That’s about as stupid as daugaard’s denial of Medicaid expansion, then on top of that adding work requirements. “I’ve always wanted that!” Daugaard keeps exposing his ignorance.

  3. jerry

    Just in time for the 2018 election will be the new rates for the insurance plans the roypublicans have ravaged. If you thought the current rates for 2018 were higher than a Giraffes arse, wait until you see what is coming round the bend for 2019. Wonder if the good folk here in South Dakota will remember that Benedict Donald and his cohorts completely screwed the whole thing up for those who do not receive a subsidy.

  4. Roger Cornelius

    John Thune’s the party of ‘repeal and replace’ leader Trump promised during the 2016 campaign that Obamacare would be replaced by a republican health plan that was “bigger and more beautiful” than Obamacare. Where is that republican plan, John?
    Thune apparently doesn’t listen to dear leader when he chortles that he has repealed Obamacare.

  5. Greg Deplorable

    That Trump is such a liar, repeal Obamacare my ass.
    Just like his claim that this is the lowest Black unemployment ever. Well, pre-1865 Democrats had 100% full Black employment.

  6. grudznick

    That’s kind of a deplorable comment, isn’t it, Greg? I think Mr. Trump is a pretty big fibber but I think he insaner than most and cannot really tell the difference between facts and lies. And I still say BAH on Obamacare, despite Mr. H getting enraged about it.

  7. Roger Cornelius

    Dear leader is not a “pretty big fibber”, he is a blatant liar.

  8. jerry

    Employment is when you get paid. Pre-1865 does not qualify for employment. It does qualify for what it was, slavery. Democrats, Republicans or Whigs and those not registered as any party were guilty of slavery, the great stain.

  9. Donald Pay

    The black guy is gone. We got to call it Obamacare when it was Obamacare, and being administered with competence. But when a good program is purposely administered to make it not work, then it becomes Trumpcare. Trump is the President. He’s in charge, and he, alone, can fix it, or so he said. If Trump and John Boy and the rest of the deplorables in Congress screw it up, it’s on them.

  10. Rorschach

    It is ironic that the Democrats brought the slaves here, and now the Republicans want to send their descendants back, or silence them, or both. The slaves knew who was on their side back then – Republicans, and their descendants know who is on their side today – Democrats.

    The Republicans were for Obamacare (or should we call it Romneycare?) before they were against it. Obamacare/Romneycare was the Republican alternative to Hillary Clinton’s healthcare plan in the early 1990s. After all, the individual mandate is merely a way of enforcing personal responsibility, which Republicans claim they are for.

    Anyway, Sen. McConnell made some promises to Sen. Collins that his party would take action to stabilize the insurance market after breaking the market by repealing the individual mandate. They better get with it, because if they don’t the premium increases between now and November will be yuuuuuge!

  11. moses6

    T he man in the empty suit has spoken, go photo op.

  12. OldSarg

    Mueller asked the sentencing judge for Flynn to not go forward. . . I wonder why

    The Democrats are in an all out fight to prevent the release of the memo. . . I wonder why

    The media is in a battle to disparage the memo. . . I wonder why

    Trump is excited. . . I wonder why

    The wave builds. The wave is cresting. The dawn will break with a blinding light on the truth.

  13. jerry

    The government just announced healthcare for all. “India announced Thursday a program to give half a billion citizens free health insurance, a potentially transformative upgrade of the country’s dilapidated public health-care services and a key element of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government’s last budget before national elections next year. […]

    Under the plan, the government will cover health-care costs of up to $7,800 for 100 million poor families and spend some $188 million to create “health and wellness” centers, Jaitley announced to loud table-thumping in India’s lower house. Spending on nutrition for tuberculosis patients, cleanliness drives and education will also result in significant improvements in public health, he said. […]

    India spends 1.4 percent of its gross domestic product on health care compared with ­China’s 3.1 percent and the United States’ 8.3 percent, according to the World Bank.— http://www.washingtonpost.com/...” Don’tcha just wish we here in the United States had an announcement like that? Now that would be a yuuuuuge blinding light.

  14. The Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama’s signature legislation, withstands a Republican Congress and White House. That’s why the birds are singing, OS. Trump and Thune have failed to deliver one of their key promises. Throw the bums out.

  15. Dicta

    The individual mandate’s repeal is going to be extremely damaging to the healthcare law. They don’t have to repeal it; they will kill it with a thousand cuts and a few big ones. You have to know this, Cory.

  16. owen reitzel

    I’ve been on a healthcare plan via the ACA for 2 months now. It’s the only way that I can afford healthcare. Hopefully, soon, I’ll be on an employers plan. But until then I appreciate that there is a way I can have insurance.
    My question for Thune is “why do you want to take this away from me?” I want to hear an explanation.
    Of course Thune is too scared to have a Town Hall meeting so it’s a question I’ll never be able to ask in person.

  17. o

    Doesn’t the GOP have to keep the ACA around? Otherwise how can they blame EVERY cost increase in insurance on Obama? Leaving the ACA in any capacity provides the GOP the scapegoat for their failed/nonexistent policies to get health care and health insurance under control. Politically, their legislative incompetence is their rhetorical greatest hit.

  18. jerry

    Those thousand cuts to the ACA will only make the subsidies larger. As we have seen in 2018, the premiums skyrocket and so do the subsidies to offset them. The ACA is here to stay, with higher subsidies and a 30% increase for 2019. If you thought 2018 premiums were high, look into the future, not to hard to see as we now have a road map. The ACA was always designed for the workers on the low end of the pay scale. Now by eliminating the mandate on group health, even more will now qualify for the subsidy.

    The reports now in state that with the tax scam..er cut, workers who will receive it will now be able to pay for the higher premiums on their health plans. This is something that the elderly have seen over the years with COLA’s. The amount of increase was about the same as the increase in their Medicare Part B. Life is funny like that.

  19. jerry

    Since the trump’s teleprompter read, the stock market has dropped 1,000 points. Interesting. The only thing that has helped to keep it from 2,000 has been an announcement regarding Berkshire, Amazon and that shady banker, Dimon to form their own healthcare company.

  20. Roger Cornelius

    The stock market closed today at 666 points down, is that ominous or what?

  21. grudznick

    I’m looking forward to the day the market closes 666 points up, 7 days in a row. That will really be a sign.

  22. grudznick

    Even after releasing all of Mr. mike’s Iowa goats, my pen is full.
    Goats. I got ’em. Come get ’em.

  23. leslie

    Ditka- old sarge already said what you just said. “The wave builds. The wave is cresting. The dawn will break with a blinding light on the truth.” Why?

    grdz is repeating himself too: “still say BAH on Obamacare” Why?

    Why? There are only 3 of you. You have to keep repeating your negativisms (trumpisms)

  24. Jason

    The premiums already escalated under Obamacare. And Obamacare is dead. The mandate was the issue.

    It appears not one of you has self-employed health insurance. If you do, please tell us the percentage your rate increased from before Obamacare was enacted to now?

  25. jerry

    Just keep clickin your heels together and clapping your hands Jason. All you have to do is look at your rates for 2018 and then multiply by 30%. You know that the State of South Dakota will not only be giving the nod for the increase, they will not hesitate in doing so. BTW, what is self-employed health insurance, just another name pulled out of your… not gonna say it. Of course, the ACA was enacted in 2010 so that was 8 years ago. One must assume that you age by 8 years, or does that math escape you?

    South Dakota news does not have the heart to tell the truth about our future with health plans. Nebraska sure does though.

    http://www.nptelegraph.com/news/state/repeal-of-individual-mandate-could-raise-nebraska-premiums/article_9afd064c-8e9d-5716-be3f-42f96e8b6d6b.html

  26. Gee, Jason, pre-ACA, the premiums for self-employed individuals with pre-existing conditions were effectively infinite. The premiums are now obtainable. That’s an improvement over the status quo ante.

  27. mike from iowa

    Take a critical look at the wingnuts reactions to the ACA and see if you can figure out why they have done everything in their power to escalate costs across the board, then, look at yerself and ask why you’d support a party intent on causing serious medical hardship and death on so many Americans.

    The truth is plain and obvious. Your party supports only the very wealthiest and globs of cells before they are forced to be brought into this world where wingnuts gladly legislate feeding, educating and insuring them.

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