The battle is on within the extreme right wing of the Republican Party to defund “ObamaCare” in the upcoming budget battles, or shut down the government.
Leading the charge are the Tea Party Republicans in the House of Representatives, and 12 Senators, including Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Mike Lee.
A majority of Senate Republicans are loathe to do what the Tea Party wants, figuring it will cause electoral defeats for the Republicans in the midterm Congressional elections of 2014.
But what this is doing is putting Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and other more mainstream conservatives, including Speaker of the House John Boehner, in a tough situation, which is causing Tea Party challenges to McConnell, Graham, and others.
But ultimately, the biggest problem is that the Republican Party used to say they supported an alternative to “ObamaCare”, but now there is no such talk, and that means, were “ObamaCare” to be defunded by some manipulation, that millions upon millions of American citizens, who have not had health care insurance, and expected they would now have such coverage, would end up NOT having it!
And that means the Republican Party is saying, “To hell with these less fortunate people! Let them rot, let them do without, let them have to deal with a situation that denies them the “American Dream!””
Is that a message to draw voters, to show that government, and really all of us, have no compassion, and concern for those less fortunate? Is it a good thing to say to children, the elderly, the disabled and sick, and poorer citizens that they do not matter? That all that matters is acquisition of wealth and assets by the fortunate minority of Americans?
Is this the kind of country we want in the future in the 21st century?
Oh Professor, you know love when you talk ObamaCare!! LOL!
“As Republican politicians seem ready to go on the offensive, there’s a palpable sense of anxiety, even despair, among conservative pundits and analysts. Better-informed people on the right ( this does mot include Ted Cruz, he is delusional) seem, finally, to be facing up to a horrible truth: the Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s signature policy achievement, is probably going to work”.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/26/opinion/krugman-republican-health-care-panic.html?ref=paulkrugman&_r=0
Make no mistake, Republicans have known all along that the ACA is going to work and that people will come to value it like social security and Medicare. Sure it needs some tweaking, things added, changed or removed. The Democrats and President Obama said as the bill began to take effect we will find some bipartisan fine tuning is going to be necessary for the next few years. That’s completely understandable since health care has never been done like this in this country.
Conservatives are running scared because they know darn good and well the ACA is going to be hailed as President Obama’s legacy health care bill that improved health care and access AS WELL AS brought costs down!!
It’s really amusing to watch
Cruz and his buddies become more frantic in their efforts to STOP OBAMA CARE. Nothing scares these morons more than President Obama AND the Democrats receiving positive political credit for anything!!
Admittedly there will be bobbles along the way, and those of us committed to getting excellent access to health care to all Americans understand this, and are willing to work together to find new and innovative ways to improve it. Many hospitals and physicians have already started working on strategies to successfully implement the core values of the ACA which is to provide all Americans with health care, decreasing costs of that health care and helping Americans become more healthy.
We firmly believe it will be worth it. This is going to become an immensely popular program. By the time Liz Cheney challenges Hillary Clinton’s reelection campaign, there will be signs at the rallies declaring “Don’t let the government get its hands on Obamacare!
As a Nurse for many years, working in a private physician’s practice, in academics, for health care organizations including hospitals and Hospice, and as a nurse consultant, I have seen the writing on the wall for decades as to how health care is delivered (or not) to our general population. Our current system has for years been riddled with perverse incentives, which have greatly profited physicians, hospitals, and most especially and obscenely pharamaceutical and insurance companies to the detriment of the health and wealth of our citizens. While some physicians and health care corporations wish to continue with the status quo, many more are looking towards the eventual development of a single payer system which would probably be a “Medicare-like program” of care for all. I have felt for years that it would take a huge crisis for this to occur or for health care consumers to finally say enough is enough!!
But I didn’t realize that it would also take a political and financial crisis. We are in the midst of all three!
Conservatives are right to be hysterical about this: pulling out all the stops to try to convince people the world will end as the ACA takes effect. It’s an attack on everything they believe — and it’s going to make Americans’ lives better!
OMG!!! What could be worse for the Republicans?
And this is causing their heads to explode!!! LOL!!!!