Word is that House Republicans will attach an amendment to the latest federal spending bill that will cut-off funding for the health care bill.
The last Congress never finalized a budget for the current fiscal year—the feds have been operating under a series of continuing resolutions. The most recent one will expire on March 4th. If another resolution is not agreed to, much of the government has to shutdown.
House Republicans, under heavy pressure from their base, have decided to take the Democrats on over the new health care law by cutting all remaining funding for implementation of the law in the current 2010 fiscal year (October to October).
Democrats, under the same heavy pressure from their base to protect the bill, aren’t about to let them do that. While the Republicans can accomplish this in the House—and will next week—they don’t have the votes in the Senate and they don’t have the President’s pen.
Now, I know the Republicans won the last election and they control the House. But what is their end game here?
Shut the government down until the Democrats agree to suspend the health care law? With Democrats under the same intense pressure from their base to protect the new law at all costs, they aren’t going to agree to do that.
With the polls showing the country evenly split on this law, about the only political outcome either side will accomplish is to show their base just how macho they are.
Just where might a compromise occur? HHS can have half the money it needs? That won’t make the Republican base happy.
Where will this end?
As George W Bush used to say, don’t get into a war unless you have an exit strategy.
6 comments:
Ugly, yes. But considering the way PPACA was passed and made law without meaningful bipartisan support the likely shift in congressional power was going to result in ugliness.
The Dems passed PPACA just because they had numbers and because they could, not because it has real value. PACCA embraces the worse parts of our health care system.
PACCA by itself is ugly. It certainly does not need the help of the 112th Congress.
Following Judge Vinson's ruling Obamacare (ACA) is unconstitutional in 26 states and probably in all 58 states. This ruling should be on the steps of the Supreme Court as we speak. Republicans may be pushing the administration to take the case to the Supremes, while administration is waiting for one of the Justices to die.
And by the way, what's an employer in Florida to do ... follow the law (Vinson) or follow ACA?
Thank you for your post. I too have wondered the purpose of the Republican tactics.
To me this is a sign that Obama needs to continue to explain the benefits of the health reform bill to business large and small.
Could the threat to withhold funding be a bargaining chip for some other concession - what might they reasonably achieve? Or maybe they fully expect to lose (as with repeal vote) but just want to force Democrats to stand behind health reform and be seen to spend money on something unpopular? Do you have a sense of the public reaction to a government shutdown (my guess is not good for Republicans)?
The last election should be all the explanation needed that the country itself is Not, "Bipartisan."
It's highly partisan. So why do we as a nation continue to lionize the fiction that just because Government Edicts are bipartisan they are necessarily in the country's best interest?
America does not take itself to the polling booth to mark their ballots "Bipartisan", and if anything good comes of this atrocious seizure of power by the President's party, perhaps it will be a clarification that what America itself Wants, is not, as Jed Babbin observed, for their representatives to "Go Native" the minute they get to DC.
2 parties, not 1. Make them identify exactly what they Do stand for above and beyond crossing the aisle to bring home the pork, or in This instance, to create an even bigger Mega Bureaucracy to park more of their friends, families, and party faithful into.
Reading Deane Waldman, MD MBA's latest book titled, "Uproot U.S. Healthcare: To Reform Healthcare" was a huge eye opening experience. I realized that Washington is not going to fix this broken system. Tweaking what we now have will not make it work. Only the public can fix healthcare. The book has a lot of great tips on how this can be done.
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