Ending U.S. shutdown

The U.S. shuts non-essential services for the first time in 17 years, laying off 800,000 workers at a cost to its economy of $1B a week.

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Obamacare

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foxnews - Obamacare

Republicans

House votes to keep government open, defund ObamaCare

Published September 20, 2013

FoxNews.com

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The House voted Friday to keep the government open through mid-December but only if Congress strips funding from ObamaCare.
The vote was 230 to 189, and largely expected.
Current funding for the government is set to expire at the end of the month, and lawmakers must approve the stopgap bill in order to keep Washington open.
The GOP measure would fund the government through Dec. 15, at current funding levels.
“Today, the constitutional conservatives in the House are keeping their word to our constituents and our nation to stand true to our principles, to protect them from the most unpopular law ever passed in the history of the country-  ObamaCare- that intrudes on their privacy and our most sacred right as Americans to be left alone,” Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, said on the House floor.
The vote sets the stage for a showdown next week in the Democratic-led Senate. Realistically, the chance of the measure surviving a Senate vote is slim to none. One Senate Democrat has already announced the bill dead on arrival and called Friday’s vote a “waste of time.”
"Republicans are simply postponing for a few days the inevitable choice they must face: pass a clean bill to fund the government, or force a shutdown,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in a statement following the vote. “I have said it before but it seems to bear repeating: the Senate will not pass any bill that defunds or delays Obamacare.”
The Senate is in recess until Tuesday.
At a noon rally on Capitol Hill, House Speaker John Boehner said the House vote speaks to the popularity of the Affordable Care Act – known as ObamaCare.
“You've got businesses all over the country who are not hiring because of the impact of this law,” he said. “You've got other businesses who are reducing the hours for their employees because of this law. And so, our message to the United States Senate is real simple: the American people don't want to the government shut down and they don't want ObamaCare.”
The House measure would replace ObamaCare with a plan that expands tax breaks for Americans who buy their own insurance, setting the stage for a showdown with Senate Democrats that could push the government toward a partial shutdown at the end of the month.
More than 140 congressional Republicans signed on to the bill to keep the government running at existing funding levels and delay the health care law.
Democrats have vowed to oppose that bill, warning the strategy risks a government shutdown, with funding set to expire by Oct. 1.
Under the proposal, Americans who purchase coverage through state-run exchanges can claim a $7,500 deduction against their income and payroll taxes, regardless of the cost of the insurance.
Families could deduct $20,000. The plan also increases government funding for high-risk pools.
One day after conceding that the Democratic-controlled Senate probably would prevail in stripping the health law provision, Sen. Ted Cruz still vowed to do "everything and anything possible to defund ObamaCare." That includes a possible filibuster of legislation to prevent a partial government shutdown, the Texas Republican said.
Cruz, one of the most vocal supporters of the “de-fund ObamaCare” push, startled his House colleagues when he released a written statement Wednesday afternoon that appeared to acknowledge the bill will probably fail in the Senate.
“Harry Reid will no doubt try to strip the defund language from the continuing resolution, and right now he likely has the votes to do so. At that point, House Republicans must stand firm, hold their ground, and continue to listen to the American people,” he said.
House Republican aides said rank-and-file lawmakers on the House floor at the time vented their anger at what appeared to be a pre-emptive surrender.
Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., tweeted that Lee and Cruz "refuse to fight. Wave white flag and surrender."
Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., tweeted, "Senate R's already declare defeat... before the battle even begins. So much for standing up for the American people."
Internal divisions have plagued Republicans this year as they struggle to produce alternatives to the Obama plan. Legislation backed by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., to increase funding for high-risk pools was pulled without a vote after some conservatives objected to improving ObamaCare at a time when they want to repeal it.
Obama and Democrats frequently criticize Republicans for focusing so much attention on repeal efforts without coming up with an alternative.
A senior GOP leadership aide said Wednesday they don't expect this dissension to blow up the bill in the House on Friday. But they are concerned about where things are going now if the GOP senators don't defend their turf.
The legislation includes a number of proposals that Republicans long have backed to expand access and hold down the cost of health care, including features that permit companies to sell policies across state lines and that let small businesses join together to seek better rates from insurers.
In addition, awards for pain and suffering, emotional distress and similar noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases would be capped at $250,000, unless a state had a higher cap.
No overall cost estimates for the bill were available.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/20/house-to-vote-on-plan-to-defund-obamacare-as-shutdown-fight-looms/#ixzz2fY6diUco

nationaljournal - Obamacare

Inside Boehner's Plan to Avoid Shutdown (and Wound Obamacare)

Forget Friday's big spending-bill vote. House leaders know the Senate will reject it and are ready to respond. Here's the GOP playbook. By Tim Alberta

September 20, 2013 | 6:00 a.m.

Aides say timing is everything in Boehner's plan. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

House Republicans have orchestrated a master plan to avoid a government shutdown, delay the implementation of Obamacare, and maintain the current, post-sequester spending levels.
But first, they need the Senate to shred the very proposal that House conservatives have spent this week celebrating.
According to several Republican lawmakers and senior aides who described the plan on condition of anonymity, a strategy is coming into focus that, if properly executed, would accomplish multiple GOP policy objectives in one maneuver. With the deadline for a new continuing resolution looming on Oct. 1, and the House poised to pass a CR that will be dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate, sources are confident the strategy can work—but only if the dominoes fall in precise fashion.
The Republican plan, molded by leadership and some top conservatives, presupposes two things: First, the House passes a CR that funds the government through mid-December while permanently defunding Obamacare (Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina, among others, expects an "overwhelming" victory on the House floor Friday); and second, the Senate promptly strips the anti-Obamacare language and sends back to the House a "clean" CR (Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, the Republican ringleader of the anti-Obamacare drive, acknowledged Wednesday that the GOP proposal stands little chance in the Senate).
If all goes according to plan on these two fronts, the ball will be back in the House's court, and the threat of shutdown will be less than a week away. House Republicans, it has been assumed, will have two choices at that point: Either instruct leadership to hold their ground and send another anti-Obamacare CR to the Senate; or acknowledge their lack of leverage and pass the clean CR, hoping for another opportunity to fight Obamacare soon thereafter.
But sources familiar with the planning say House Speaker John Boehner is preparing a third option, one that keeps the government open at post-sequester spending levels while not conceding defeat on Obamacare. To accomplish this, the Republican leadership is planning to propose a debt-ceiling package—perhaps as early as next week—that has as its centerpiece a one-year delay of President Obama's health care law.
Meanwhile, House leadership would supplement the revised CR with some assortment of conservative policy provisions (such as a "conscience clause" for health care coverage, or a verification system for insurance subsidies). Adding such items, the thinking goes, would secure sufficient support from skeptical House Republicans while not antagonizing enough Democrats to derail passage in the Senate.
Top Republicans say shifting their anti-Obamacare efforts from the CR to the debt ceiling is smart strategy and sound politics. For one thing, conservatives now realize that delaying Obamacare—as opposed to repealing or defunding it—represents their best shot at scoring a health care victory. Also, Boehner can honestly tell his members that he did everything he could to defund Obamacare in the CR. And, at the end of the day, Republicans still believe their leverage will be maximized when negotiating the nation's borrowing limit.
But timing is everything. If Boehner's debt-ceiling plan isn't presented in close proximity to the Senate's defeat of the House CR, Republican aides worry that conservatives could grow restless and orchestrate another CR battle over Obamacare. But if the debt-ceiling proposal is introduced just as the Senate is sending back its clean CR, Boehner can combine the separate skirmishes and sell his plan as a two-step solution to the challenge that has galvanized conservatives: how to defeat Obamacare without shutting down the government.
"It's all one battle," said Rep. Tom Price of Georgia, a leading House conservative who is vice chairman of the Budget Committee.
Some details of the strategy are still being hashed out, and not all members are aware of the plan. But broadly speaking, conservatives seem receptive to the concept of combining the fall's two major fiscal fights.
"Speaker Boehner has said several times that there are other options.... We're listening to them to see what those options are," said Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho. Labrador added: "At this point we're in a 'trust but verify' moment where we're trusting our leadership [but] we're asking them to tell us what that next move is going to be."
"The goal, the ultimate outcome that we desire, is that the American people don't have to live under this law," Price said. "Whether it's on the CR, whether it's on the debt ceiling, it's all the same battle. Nobody should be wedded to one tactic to get something done."
Get the latest news and analysis delivered to your inbox. Sign up for National Journal's morning alert, Wake-Up Call, and afternoon newsletter, The Edge. Subscribe here.

washingtonpost - obamacare

Kathleen Parker

Opinion Writer

Waiting for Obamacare

By Kathleen Parker, E-mail the writer

News consumers by now have absorbed the message that Republicans are going to defund Obamacare, shut down the government, ruin the economy and starve the poor.
This is what Democrats would have you believe and, given the GOP’s recent obstructionist history, it would not be a stretch. However, there is an alternative scenario that bears fair consideration.

Not defund, as the House voted to do Friday, but delay.

Democrats and President Obama see delay as just another maneuver to upend Obamacare. “Extort” is the word Obama recently used. But let’s step back a moment and examine some of the reasoning. Sometimes even partisans are right.
Topping the list is the fact that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is becoming increasingly unpopular. Only 39 percent of Americans currently favor the health-care program, compared with 51 percent in January, according to a recent CNN/ORC International poll.
Some of the reasons:
●Many companies are cutting worker hours to below the threshold (30 hours) at which they're required to comply with Obamacare. (SeaWorld is cutting hours for thousands of workers.)
●Others are cutting workers completely to avoid compliance or to reduce costs associated with the expanded coverage. (The Cleveland Clinic cited Obamacare as one reason for offering early retirement to 3,000 workers and hinting at future layoffs.)
●Many young people, unemployed or earning little, will have trouble paying premiums once open enrollment for health insurance exchanges begins Oct. 1. Even discounts won’t be enough for some, who then will face fines or have to turn to parents who face their own insurance challenges. List-price premiums for a 40-year-old buying a mid-range plan will average close to $330 per month, according to a recent Avalere Health study. For someone who is 60, premiums will run about $615 a month. Forget retirement.
One of the most popular aspects of Obamacare has been that children can remain on their parents’ policy until they’re 26, but there’s nothing magical about 27 if you don’t have a job, are still in school or are otherwise dependent. Expect many under-30s to decline to buy insurance, whereupon America’s youth will be under the thumb of the Internal Revenue Service. Remember, the Supreme Court ruled that the individual mandate to purchase insurance is a tax.
The other most-popular item was the requirement that preexisting conditions not preclude insurance coverage. Under a proposed alternative plan unveiled recently by the Republican Study Committee — the American Health Care Reform Act (H.R. 3121) — this provision would be protected and funded through state-based, high-risk pools and other reform measures.
The biggest concern across all demographics is the likely effect on the larger economy. What happens when so many people lose hours and work and, therefore, income?
Moreover, the law is being applied unfairly and unequally, with exemptions and delays offered to special groups and the brunt of the strain falling directly on middle-class Americans.
Larger employers, for example, have been given a one-year reprieve on fines for leaving workers uncovered. No such grace for individual citizens. The incentives to cut employees and hours prompted three powerful former supporters to write a strong letter of dissent to Democratic leaders. The letter writers, saying the ACA would destroy the backbone of the American middle class and “the very health and wellbeing of our members along with millions of other hardworking Americans,” also lamented the falsehood that employees could keep the insurance they like. This is obviously not true, despite Obama’s repeated assurances to the contrary.
The authors were all union leaders, including James Hoffa, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
Finally, in a tweak not likely to inspire admiration, the president is offering Congress a break other Americans won’t get. Obamacare requires congressional leaders and staff to enter the exchanges like everyone else, but Obama has offered a special dispensation to soften the blow. Their employer — you — will pay part of the premium, a compensatory option not offered to non-federal employers and their befuddled, underemployed staffs.
Delay may feel like one more Republican strategy, but that doesn’t necessarily make it unwise. If we can delay sending cruise missiles to Syria pending a better solution, perhaps there’s some sense to delaying a health-care overhaul that creates unacceptable collateral damage to citizens and that is not quite ready for public consumption.
In the long run, delay might benefit Obama, especially if it averts a revolt once citizens fully absorb the expensive realities of Obamacare and promises not kept. He has already demonstrated that he is comfortable with waiting when risks are disproportionate to theoretical gains.

Read more from Kathleen Parker’s archive, follow her on Twitter or find her on Facebook.

CBS - News

House passes bill funding government, defunding Obamacare

Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, celebrates as he speaks during a rally as other House Republicans look on after a vote September 20, 2013 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. / Alex Wong/Getty Images

slate.com - Obamacare

What the GOP Could Learn From Obamacare

The problem the Republican Party is facing right now is just like the one the architects of Obamacare once faced.

By Joe Onek|Posted Friday, Sept. 20, 2013, at 3:35 PM

In the manner in which President Obama must broaden the insurance pool to cover those with pre-existing conditions, John Boehner and his fellow Republicans must broaden their primary-voter pool to keep the party from becoming too extreme to win elections.

Photo by Dennis Brack/Pool/Getty Images

Even though it may be suicidal for their party, congressional Republicans are threatening to shut down the government in order to defund Obamacare. They feel compelled to take this highly risky step because Republican primary voters are so conservative that any hint of moderation could be politically fatal.

Ironically, the problem now facing Republicans is similar to the one the architects of Obamacare faced several years ago. A central goal of Obamacare is to ensure that persons with pre-existing conditions are not denied access to affordable health insurance. But prohibiting the exclusion of persons with pre-existing conditions raises the specter of a health insurance death spiral. Here’s the logic: If health insurance plans are required to enroll high-cost individuals, premiums will go up substantially. Healthier (and less costly) individuals will then leave the plans, while high-cost individuals, who may have no other option, remain. As a result, premiums will rise even higher and even more low-cost individuals will leave. Before long, the insurance plans will face bankruptcy.

The Republican Party faces a similar phenomenon. In many regions, Republican primaries nominate far-right Senate and House candidates. These candidates, whether they win or lose, drive moderate voters to leave the Republican Party. Conservatives then dominate the party to an even greater extent and nominate even more extreme candidates, thus driving away more moderates. Bankruptcy follows in the form of lost elections.

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Of course, in many states and House districts, Republicans are so dominant that they cannot lose no matter what candidate they put forward. But in the last two election cycles, Republicans lost Senate seats in Colorado, Delaware, Indiana, Missouri, and Nevada because of the ultraconservative candidates they nominated. They may have lost a seat in Maine because of the threat that a fringe conservative could successfully challenge Sen. Olympia Snowe. And they lost several House seats in 2012 because of the extreme candidates nominated and elected in 2010.  Furthermore, Mitt Romney’s campaign was hurt by the positions he felt compelled to take, especially on immigration, in the presidential primaries, and the current antics of congressional Republicans may damage any future GOP nominee in 2016.

How does the Republican Party counter its death-spiral problem? Earlier this year Karl Rove proposed using the financial clout of wealthy mainstream Republicans to prevent the nomination of extreme candidates. But this is unlikely to work, in part because the party’s far-right wing has plenty of its own rich backers.

The best solution for Republicans may be found in Obamacare.

Obamacare abolishes pre-existing-condition exclusions and requires health plans to enroll high-cost  individuals. But it seeks to ensure that health plans have a broader subscriber base than just those who are expensive to insure. It imposes a mandate and provides generous income-based subsidies in order to induce healthier individuals to join the plans, too.

The Republican Party could take an analogous approach. It could broaden its primary voter base by opening its primaries to independent voters or, at least, to those independent voters who have registered as Republicans at some point during the last two decades. By becoming more inclusive, it would become more competitive.

The present Republican state party leaders aren’t likely to embrace this approach. But if Republicans continue to lose key elections, some leaders will begin a campaign to get moderately conservative independent voters to register as Republicans to take back the party. It will be a long slog; change is hard. Why do you think it has taken so long to provide health insurance for all Americans?