(Newt Gingrich) – It’s beginning. What will likely be at least a two year effort to repeal ObamaCare started this week.
On Tuesday, Democratic Senator Max Baucus of Montana introduced legislation in the Senate to repeal part of ObamaCare. He was joined by four other Democrats (and Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts) in moving to repeal a requirement in the law that forces businesses to file paperwork for business transactions with a vendor or supplier if they amount to more than $600 a year, more commonly referred to as the “1099 provision.”
Senator Baucus, a Democrat who actually helped negotiate passage of ObamaCare, cited the destructive impact that the law was having on job creation, arguing that “businesses need to focus their efforts on growing and creating good-paying jobs – not filing paperwork.”
We at American Solutions couldn’t agree more. But this is only the beginning of achieving what Americans want: full repeal of ObamaCare.
Also this week, Senators Scott Brown (R-MA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced legislation to allow states to opt out of the individual mandate in ObamaCare. This comes on the heels of multiple lawsuits challenging the mandate as unconstitutional, as well as passage of a recent ballot measure in Missouri where over 70% of Missourians voted against their state complying with such a requirement. It also comes just days after the Congressional Budget Office found that the average family policy will cost about $2,000 more under ObamaCare than if the government had done nothing.
Ironically, even the White House is now admitting that President Obama’s reordering of the healthcare system will raise costs and reduce the availability of affordable health care.
Last week the Department of Health and Human Services released a list of over 100 companies that are receiving waivers from the burdensome requirements of ObamaCare, citing factors like “whether or not a premium increase is large or if a significant number of enrollees would lose access to their current plan.”
Translation : The White House now has to exempt companies from the new health care law because President Obama’s repeated promises are being broken before our eyes, as ObamaCare will cause premiums to skyrocket and force people to lose their current coverage.
Adding insult to injury is that many of these waiver recipients are actually unions and other labor groups who lobbied strongly for Congress to impose ObamaCare on the rest of us and who helped fund President Obama’s election.
The bottom line is that ObamaCare is so destructive that even Democrats in Congress are trying to repeal parts of it while the Obama White House is granting exemptions left and right to shield its political allies from suffering what it promised all of us would never have to suffer: rate hikes and lost coverage.
At American Solutions, we’re continuing to build momentum for a grassroots, citizen-led push for repeal. In the coming months we’re going to be developing a range of tools for all Americans to use to make this movement as big and as meaningful as it needs to be. We’ll soon have an interactive map that includes contact information for each U.S. Senator, and we’re also developing a citizen’s guide to repeal, which will be a handbook describing how people can make a difference in this fight for repeal.
As always, thanks for everything you do, and stay tuned for more updates from me and American Solutions about ways we can work together to repeal ObamaCare.
(Mr. Gingrich is General Chairman of American Solutions)
