The Chamber Shifts Right to Back Health Care Repeal

U.S. Chamber of Commerce Calls for Repeal of Obamacare
Wednesday, January 12, 2011 By Penny Starr Tom Donohue, CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, gave his State of American Business address Tuesday in Washington, D.C. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr) (CNSNews.com) - Tom Donohue, CEO and president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said on Tuesday that the Health Care bill signed into law last year by President Barack Obama should be repealed. “Last year, while strongly advocating Health Care reform, the Chamber was a leader in the fight against th...

U.S. Chamber President: Repeal Of Health Reform Is Just To Get Everybodys Attention
U.S. Chamber President: Repeal Of Health Reform Is Just To ‘Get Everybody’s Attention’ This morning, U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue, who just yesterday announced the organization’s support for the GOP’s Health Care repeal bill, hinted that his group is more interested in tweaking the measure than eliminating it outright. Asked why he was endorsing a measure that had no chance of becoming law, Donohue reminded MSNBC host Chuck Todd that the Chamber...

US Chamber backs "Repeal the Job Killing Health Care Law Act"
Good thing that the U.S. Chamber ally Bill Daley will be in the White House to provide a liaison to the business community, to bring them along on President Obama's agenda for the nation and The Economy. Or not. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is backing Republican plans to try and Repeal President Obama's Health Care bill. "We see the upcoming House vote as an opportunity for everyone to take a fresh look at Health Care reform," chamber president Thomas J. Donohue said in his annual State of Amer...

U.S. Chamber of Commerce backs health repeal
Source: Politico U.S. Chamber of Commerce backs health Repeal By CHRIS FRATES | 1/11/11 1:20 PM EST U.S Chamber of Commerce president Tom Donohue said Tuesday that the powerful business lobby supports the House Republican Legislation to repeal President Obama’s Health Care reform law. “Last year, while strongly advocating Health Care reform, the Chamber was a leader in the fight against this particular bill — and thus we support Legislation in the House to repeal it,” Donohue said during

Republicans Denounce Republican Health Care Plan
Tim Noah on Republican outrage over high risk Health Insurance pools: Of all the arguments Republicans have been waging against ObamaCare as the House of Representatives prepares to vote for its Repeal, none is harder to take than their criticism of the federally subsidized high-risk pools the law created to provide immediate relief to the Uninsured. In May, the House Republican Conference complained that these high-risk pools would be unfair to people currently enrolled in existing state-run r...

Tom Donohue: 'Recovery Is Fragile and Uneven'
The agenda of the nation’s biggest business lobby comes down to one point: turning “an Economic Recovery into a jobs recovery,” U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas Donohue said. Not a Subscriber? To continue reading, sign up for a free trial....

Donohue Goes All In, But Chamber Is Split On Health Repeal
Donohue Goes All In, But Chamber Is Split On Health Repeal Sam Stein is reporting that Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue is now calling for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, despite previous statements that the organization wouldn’t dedicate any resources to the effort. From today’s Speech: DONOHUE: For example, the new Health Care law creates 159 new agencies, commissions, panels, and other bodies. It grants extraordinary powers to the Department of Health and Human...

U.S. Chamber backs health repeal
U.S Chamber of Commerce president Tom Donohue said Tuesday that the powerful business lobby supports the House Republican Legislation to Repeal President Obama’s Health Care reform law. “Last year, while strongly advocating Health Care reform, the Chamber was a leader in the fight against this particular bill — and thus we support Legislation in the House to Repeal it,” Donohue said during a Speech on the state of American business. “We see the upcoming House vote...

Big business is back in business
By Dana Milbank WashPost Wednesday, January 12, 2011; There was a festive atmosphere at U.S. Chamber of Commerce headquarters Tuesday Morning as the corporate lobby delivered its annual "State of American Business" address. Margaret Spellings, the former Bush Cabinet officer who cashed out and joined the business group, made the introductions, telling members that despite "the worst economic climate since the Great Depression," the chamber had scored a "number of legislative victories, tremend...

Chamber Will Support Repeal Effort After Saying It Would Stay Out
When the Affordable Care Act passed last March, the powerful Chamber of Commerce initially ruled out any future efforts in support of Repeal. "If people want to try and repeal, let them," Thomas Donahue, the Chamber's president, told the Wall Street Journal. "We're not going to spend any capital on that." During the Midterm Elections, however, the Chamber ran more than 25,000 ads, almost all of them against Democrats and most of those demonizing the Candidates' support for Health Care reform. No...

U.S. Chamber of Commerce President: Regulatory 'tsunami' threatens economy, supports Obamacare repeal
U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue delivered his annual “State of American Business” address this morning. Donohue was also emphatic about the problem of overregulation of the American Economy: We must rein in excessive regulations and reform the regulatory process. At the federal level alone, regulations already fill 150,000 pages of fine-print text and cost Americans $1.7 Trillion a year. Many of these rules are necessary and business strongly supports them. Yet in rece...

What the health reform repeal effort says about the 112th Congress
Members of the House of Representatives will vote next week on a bill to Repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010, the health reform law that aims to cover the Uninsured through state Health Insurance exchanges, an individual coverage mandate, and an expansion of the Medicaid program, among other provisions. While the measure will probably pass the House, it is unlikely to be approved by the Democrat-controlled Senate, and even if it were to pass both chambers, the President has threatened t...

The clout and cover of Tom Donohue
Unlike a politician, Thomas Donohue -- CEO of the US Chamber of Commerce -- doesn't have to worry about the next election. He can provide cover to politicians who might get scared off by tough decisions on The Economy and spending....

Chamber Joins Push for Health Care Repeal
The US Chamber of Commerce has decided to come out in public support of repealing the recently passed Health Care law. From Chamber CEO Thomas Donohue’s State of American Business address: By mid-December, HHS had already granted 222 waivers to the law—a revealing acknowledgement that the law is unworkable. And, with key provisions under challenge in the courts by states and others, it’s time to go back to the drawing board. Last year, while strongly advocating Health Care reform, th...

A Kindler, Gentler Push for Repeal?
House Republicans have postponed their vote on repealing the Affordable Care Act until next week, because of the Arizona shooting. And even when that debate resumes, Jennifer Haberkorn and Carrie Budoff Brown report in Politico today, the House Republicans will likely adopt a more measured tone. They won’t change their position on the issue itself. They remain committed to total Repeal. But the Republican insiders that Haberkorn and Brown interviewed seem to think Republicans would talk i...

Lawmakers Consider New Curbs on Incendiary Speech
© n/a Shocked and saddened lawmakers grappled on Monday with the weekend shooting of one of their own, with some suggesting that new laws and regulations are needed to curb incendiary Speech. The aftermath of Saturday's attack on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) brought a rare moment of unity on Capitol Hill, but it also escalated a contentious debate over violent imagery in the nation's political discourse. Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) was having a beer and eating pizza at a New Jersey...

U.S. Chamber CEO pushes Congress to block EPA climate regulations
The head of the nation’s Most Powerful business Lobbying group made clear Tuesday that blocking the Environmental Protection Agency’s greenhouse gas regulations is a key part of his agenda. U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue attacked EPA in his annual “State of American Business” Speech Tuesday Morning. He called the emissions rules, which have begun the phasing-in stage, part of a multi-front “regulatory Tsunami” by the Obama Administration. “We will

Big business to Obama: The fight's not over
FORTUNE -- There will be a limit to the nascent thaw between President Barack Obama and his leading antagonist in the business community, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. That was the subtext of a Speech Chamber president Tom Donohue delivered today, putting the administration on notice that the Big Business lobby plans to aggressively check moves they view as hostile to growth. In his annual "State of American Business" address on Tuesday, Donohue zeroed in on overzealous rulemaking as a...

Health care repeal postponed
The much-touted Republican midterm campaign promise of voting to Repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s signature Health Care law, has been postponed along with all other legislative business for the 112th Congress. The postponement, which will last through the week, comes in wake of Saturday’s Assassination attempt of Congresswomen Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Arizona, which killed six and injured 14 including, including Giffords. The vote for repe...

We are all #Dickwhisperers now
Dana Milbank’s column on the return of corporate power is shockingly good. Money quote: A reporter asked (Chamber of Commerce Head Tom) Donohue for a suggestion of what Corporate America, with its record profits, should do to put people back to work. “I got to think about this for a minute,” Donohue said, then added: “I think the most important thing to tell a company is to return a reasonable return to their investors.” ...

Chamber president pleased with new tone from White House
U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue also praised the tax package and said some business concerns have been addressed. The president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce used a major address Tuesday to praise the White House’s tone on business, but said the business lobby continues to worry about excessive regulations impairing Economic Growth.  In his annual State of American Business address, Chamber President Ton Donohue said The Economy is picking up steam and is in much better sha...

Chamber of Commerce backs repeal of Obama health care law
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is backing Republican plans to try and Repeal President Obama's Health Care bill. "We see the upcoming House vote as an opportunity for everyone to take a fresh look at Health Care reform," chamber president Thomas J. Donohue said in his annual State of American Business address. "And to replace unworkable approaches with more effective measures that will lower costs, expand access, and improve quality." The Republican-run U.S. House postponed a Wednesday vote on re...

The Coming Constitutional Debate
The Constitution has returned to Congress. It began with a ceremonial reading of the document on the House floor for the first time in US history. While the event had some problems, the act of reading the document that provides the authority for Congress in the first place sets the tone and defines the core purpose of the new Congress: to restore constitutional limits on the Federal Government. The real test comes with the debates over the new House rule requiring that each piece of legislatio...

GOP walks unarmed into health-care repeal battle
By Nicholas Wilbur Ed. note: Most of our posts the past few days have, understandably, been on the Arizona shooting. We'll have more on that terrible story, but now let's turn back to Congress and the House Republicans' effort to Repeal the Affordable Care Act. This is the first of two excellent posts by Nicholas on that very topic. The second will appear tomorrow. -- MJWS ********** It would take more than a Golden Parachute from Goldman Sachs, more than a harem of Argentinian mistresses, mor...

Business group: Regulation thwarts job growth
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The head of one of the nation's top business organizations said Tuesday that the U.S. economy is "improving," but "regulatory roadblocks" stand in the way of Job Creation. "When it comes to the nation's economy, we begin 2011 in better shape than we found last year," said Tom Donohue, chief executive of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "Yet we still face a number of risks that could send us in the wrong direction." Email Print Comment ...