House GOP Prepares to Override Wishes of 70%+ of Americans on Health Care

As House healthcare debate begins, report finds millions of Americans have preexisting medical conditions
WASHINGTON -- On the day Republicans in the House begin their charge to the Repeal the sweeping healthcare overhaul law, the Obama Administration released a report Tuesday that estimates that as many as 129 million Americans under age 65 have preexisting medical conditions that could make it more difficult for them to obtain health coverage. The analysis prepared by the Department of Health and Human Services marks an attempt to quantify how many across the country would be affected if the law,...

Bill Frist: Health Care Is 'Law Of The Land,' GOP Should Drop Repeal And Build On It
WASHINGTON -- As congressional Republicans ready themselves for a largely symbolic effort to Repeal President Obama's Health Care reform law, at least one former GOP leader is urging them to drop the charade and build on the Legislation instead. Former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who caused a stir during the construction of Health Care reform when he said he'd vote for the bill, said it was important to consider the bill the "law of the land" and move on from there. "It is not the bill...

House kicks off debate over health-care repeal
The House meets Tuesday for its first day of debate on a measure that would Repeal the national Health Care overhaul, following a week during which legislative action came to a standstill following the Tucson shooting tragedy. Debate on the Health Care Repeal bill is expected to begin after the House reconvenes at 2 p.m. The House has set aside seven hours for debate on Tuesday and Wednesday, with a vote on the measure expected to come Wednesday afternoon. The Repeal measure is expected to pass ...

Poll: Slim majority want Congress to repeal healthcare reform
A slim majority of Americans want Congress to Repeal the Obama Administration's Healthcare Reform law, a new poll reported Tuesday. The poll by Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, released today, found that 48 percent of Americans want the Republican-controlled Congress to Repeal the reform Legislation, while 43 percent want the law to stay in place. The poll's results come on the same day that House Republicans open up floor debate for repealing the legislation. The House is scheduled ...

Polls Show Voters Still Want ObamaCare Repealed, Scaled Back
The day before the House of Representatives is slated to vote for Legislation to Repeal the Obamacare Health Care law, new polling data shows Americans continue to support repeal, or at least scaling back the measure. “Support for Repeal of the national Health Care law passed last year remains steady, as most voters continue to believe the law will increase the federal Budget Deficit,” pollster Scott Rasmussen said yesterday in talking about a new National Poll his firm released. The...

On health-care reform, GOP has an unmet obligation to get beyond NO!
This week, House Republicans will take the symbolic step of voting to Repeal the health-insurance reform act signed into law by President Obama last year. The vote won’t mean anything, given that the Senate will refuse to go along and that President Obama holds a Veto. But it will at least allow GOP House members to claim they took action. What we don’t know, however, is how the Republicans propose to address Health Care reform themselves. Their slogan during the campaign was ̶...

Liberal group up with new ad on health care repeal
The political fight over the federal Health Care law is ramping up in Nevada and elsewhere. And, let’s be clear, a political fight is what this is. Republicans, with a fresh majority in the U.S. House, have vowed to Repeal the Affordable Care Act. Of course, even if they could muster the votes to Repeal the law in the House, it wouldn’t make it through the Senate controlled by Democrats or past President Obama’s Veto pen. So think of this as the early days of the 2012 election. To that end

Health care: Democrats for full repeal of this 'malignant tumor' says Rep. King
Using what he terms a "Health Care vernacular" ,  Representative King calls the Obama health care bill a "malignant tumor"  and says the entire bill must be  and will be repealed - with significant  Democrat support. Rep. King feels American rights are diminished by the Federal Government making decisions about King says we must "Repeal it, pull it out by The Roots , so that it doesn't grow back again. " Breaking this down to two primary issues - the philosophical issue of Am...

The Real Showdown
Ezra Klein's healthcare preview: In the end, Repeal will pass the House -- likely tomorrow -- and quickly die in the Senate. Then comes the more interesting phase of the fight over health-care reform: The GOP's effort at revision. Republicans, who already know that Repeal will fail, are preparing to begin the longer and more complex campaign to replace, rewrite, or simply undermine various parts of the bill. The relevant committees in the House will try to develop alternatives, w...

Frist: GOP Should Drop Repeal Effort
Sam Stein at Huffington Post reports: As congressional Republicans ready themselves for a largely symbolic effort to Repeal President Obama’s Health Care reform law, at least one former GOP leader is urging them to drop the charade and build on the Legislation instead. Former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who caused a stir during the construction of Health Care reform when he said he’d vote for the bill, said it was important to consider the bill the “law of the landR...

Independent analysis debunks false GOP claims about health reform
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a group with a reputation for producing materials that are balanced, authoritative, and accessible to non-specialists, has released a study of the claims central to the debate on repealing health reform that will reopen in the House this week. The short answer is that the CBO analysis is deemed accurate while Republican claims to the contrary are deemed inaccurate. At issue is the pending bill to Repeal "job killing" Health Care reform, a bill who's ve...

Jon Stewart takes on the empty health care reform rhetoric (Video)
This week the Republicans plan to pass a bill repealing Health Care reform with their majority in the House of Representatives.  Rather than call the bill the “Repealing Health Care Reform Act” or even the “Repealing ObamaCare Act” the GOP went further in calling the bill the “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.”  The practice of naming a bill persuasively is nearly as old as Legislation itself.  The Democrats named their Health Care ...

Have Republicans read the health care bill they are about to repeal?
During the Health Care reform debate of 2009-2010 opponents of the Health Care Reform Bill frequently asked "Have you read the bill?"  The question was aimed at attacking the complexity of the Health Care reform bill, which ended up being over 2,300 pages long.  Lost in the debate was the fact that legislators nearly always rely on their aides to inform them of the provisions of every bill.  In addition, the bill was so long in large part because it quoted old laws that it was cha...

Boehner: 'Job Killing' Health Care Bill Now 'Job Crushing,' 'Job Destroying'
WASHINGTON -- Republicans pushing to Repeal President Barack Obama's Health Care overhaul warn that 650,000 jobs will be lost if the law is allowed to stand. But the widely cited estimate by House GOP leaders is shaky. It's the latest creative use of statistics in the Health Care debate, which has seen plenty of examples from both sides. Republicans originally called their thumbs-down Legislation the "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act." Postponed after the Mass Shootings in Tucson,...

GOP will defund healthcare bill, get around to "replacing" it never
Congressional Republicans are excited for the opportunity to repeatedly cast symbolic votes to "Repeal" the Healthcare Reform bill passed by Democrats last year. The first such vote will happen Wednesday in the House, and while it won't undo the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, it will make all the Republicans feel really good about themselves. Then, as Politico explains today, they'll get around to messing with the bill piece by piece. They will cast votes against the unpopular indiv...

Definition of a good bill
A good Health Care bill is affordable, meets all the needs, and is easy to understand so that it can be implemented.  Period. There is no room for complexity in a bill.   Bills can be comprehensive without being complex. Complexity leads only to confusion and then of course Lawsuits.  There is no reason why a bill can't be written so that people - without legal training - can understand it and that matters since it is the people who ultimately have to implement it and not those wh...

Democrats Make a Case for the Health Care Law
With House Republicans planning to approve a bill on Wednesday that would Repeal the big Health Care overhaul, Democrats on Tuesday ramped up their efforts to defend the law. The secretary of health and human services, Kathleen Sebelius, will hold a news conference on Tuesday Morning to discuss a report by her agency showing that as many as 129 million Americans under age 65 have some pre-existing medical condition that could lead them to be denied health Insurance Coverage without protections ...

"House Republicans plan to vote tomorrow to repeal last years health care overhaul."
"One of the key defenses of the law is that it will reduce the Deficit over the next decade and the decades to come. But the projections employed to make this argument just aren’t believable. Democrats gamed the Congressional Budget Office’s scoring process, producing a score that distorted the long-term numbers and was believable only under a set of fantastic and improbable assumptions." ...

Polls Show Conflicting Results on Health Care Law as House Readies Repeal Vote
As Congress resumes regular business this week and prepares for a vote in the House on repealing the Health Care reform law, a number of new polls provide conflicting results on how the public feels about the law and efforts to scrap it or scale it back. A Quinnipiac University poll of Registered Voters, conducted Jan. 4-11, says the public supports Repeal by 48 percent to 43 percent with 8 percent Undecided. (The Margin of Error is 2.4 points). Support for repeal, according to this poll, is bol...

Preview of Boehners New Civility
Out of respect for Tuscon Victims, House Republicans have downgraded their designation of Health Care reform from “job-killing” to “job-crushing” and “job-destroying.” But with this new verbal sensitivity, John Boehner is insisting, “No act of violence is going to keep us from doing our jobs and representing the will of our constituents. The American People have made it clear they want us to focus on cutting spending and removing barriers to job creatio...

Guns Dont Kill People, They "Crush" People: FIGHT ME!
Politico reports… As evidence of a slight rhetorical shift, House Speaker John Boehner abandoned labeling the current Health Care law as "job killing," and instead called it "job crushing" and "job destroying" in a new message posted on his webpage. No! No! No! No! No! No! Fuck. I need to count to 10 now. 1…2…YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES! The problem with this country is not the "Rhetoric" or the "vitriol" or any other word you vaguely rememb...

Obama Administration Warns, 129 Million Americans With a Pre-Existing Condition Could Be Denied Coverage Without New Health Refo
Tuesday, January 18, 2011 By Susan Jones Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius speaks to reporters at HHS headquarters in Washington on July 1, 2010. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr) (CNSNews.com) - With a Health Care Repeal vote scheduled for Wednesday in the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives, the Obama Administration is warning Americans of dire consequences if the Democrats’ law is repealed, defunded or gutted. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius...

Republican Health Care Repeal Threatens Coverage for 129 Million
       If  the new Health Care reform law is repealed—and today Republican lawmakers are taking their first step toward Repeal—more than 129 million Americans would be put at risk of  losing their Health Insurance. A new study by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) estimates that as many as  half of Americans younger than 65 have preexisting conditions such as high Blood Pressure, asthma, Cancer or other chronic health conditions. Before the Aff

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius: GOP Effort to Repeal Health Care Reform Is "An Opportunity"
ABC’s Brian Hartman reports: HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told reporters today she welcomes the House effort to Repeal Health Care reforms as “an opportunity.” “The debate in some ways in the House gives us a chance to … remind people what it is that’s at stake,” Sebelius said. “Why we can’t go back to where we were.” Toward that end, HHS today released a new administration analysis that estimates the law will, when it fully kicks in three ye

One More Reason for Dems to Welcome the Repeal Debate
[Guest post by Noam Scheiber:] On Sunday, Jon Chait cited one reason Democrats should relish the debate over repealing Healthcare Reform: public support for Repeal appears to be dropping. Two days earlier, Jonathan Cohn hinted at another reason: Repeal is likely to divide the business community--a.k.a the GOP base--a significant portion of which prefers the health reform law over the GOP's nonexistent alternative. Today, a piece in Politico highlights a third reason Democrats should be high-fi...