Veto me, Baby

The Senate voted Thursday evening for the first time ever to repeal President Barack Obama’s signature health care law, passing the measure 52-47.

Was Harry “The Great Wall of Obama” Reid Missing that day?

 

The bill will now head to the House, where it should win easy approval from the Republican majority.

Congress will then send the measure, which also strips federal funding for Planned Parenthood, to Obama who will veto it.

And he’ll denounce it as a “cynical” partisan bill. Unlike the cynical partisan Executive Orders he’s thrown around like candy.

Oh, speaking of partisan and cynical:

Democrats sought to score political points by offering an amendment sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) to bar suspected terrorists from buying guns. It failed by a vote of 45 to 54.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee blasted vulnerable Republicans who opposed it.

“It’s reprehensible that with everything going on in the world, these senators won’t stand up to the special interests and pass a commonsense measure like closing the terrorist gun loophole,” said Lauren Passalacqua, a spokeswoman for the committee.

These are the people who can’t even call them terrorists to begin with. Now that’s cynical.

This marks the first time the Republican controlled Congress has ever sent a bill to repeal Obamacare to the president’s desk.

Because of Dem filibusters, Senate has never before debated/voted on bill to repeal Obamacare or defund Planned Parenthood before tonight

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) December 4, 2015

In a statement, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who has been relentless in his efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, said the vote represented a “significant step towards repealing every word of Obamacare.”

The Senate bill also repeals the over-the-counter medicine tax, the prescription drug tax, an annual fee on health insurers and the tax on indoor tanning services. It reduces the threshold of healthcare costs that can be deducted from 10 percent to 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income.

“Since before my first day in office, I pledged to do everything within my power to repeal Obamacare,” he said. “And over the last three years, I’ve worked day and night to do exactly that, sometimes to the dismay of those in Washington.”

“This bill repeals as much of that failed law as we can under arcane Senate rules and the narrow guidelines of the budget,” Cruz added. “I am also encouraged that this bill prohibits taxpayer funds from going to abortion-providers. This bill is a substantial improvement over the original House bill, and I’m grateful to Senate conservatives and Senate leadership for joining me in making it so.”

Planned Parenthood, however, saw things differently, releasing a statement calling the measure a “cynical political attack.”

No, you want “cynical” and “political” just wait for the Liberal response and the media firestorm. 🙂

“In spite of these political attacks, we’re focused on providing high-quality, compassionate health care to people all across this country. We won’t be deterred by violence, smear campaigns, or cynical political attacks like this.”

Yeah, we have our own to run in the Liberal Media… 🙂 After all, we are the Masters of Who Lives and Who Dies!

But here’s the fun part:

The Senate voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to repeal ObamaCare’s “Cadillac tax” on high-cost health plans, a rare area of bipartisan agreement around the healthcare law. 

The Senate voted 90-10 to include the amendment repealing the tax in a larger bill gutting ObamaCare. The larger bill, and the tax repeal included therein, will not become law, however; President Obama is expected to veto the attempt to dismantle his signature domestic achievement. 

This was one of the “soak the rich” schemes built into the Obamacare funding formula which was never going to work to begin with but this is yet another funding mechanism that they trashed which will make Obamacare EVEN WORSE!!

Nearly 6 years ago in this very blog: Jan 8, 2010:

The administration wants to put it on the backs of the middle class in the form of a 40% excise tax on the value of health insurance coverage that exceeds $8,500 a year for individuals or $23,000 for families.

Those who think they’ll be exempt from the tax because their health care insurance isn’t one that Obama would define as a “super, gold-plated Cadillac” plan are kidding themselves. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, director of the Congressional Budget Office under George W. Bush, says 95% of Americans who are covered by plans that fit into the Cadillac category make less than $250,000 a year.

Even groups on the left get it. As Jim Kessler, vice president for policy for the progressive Third Way think tank, puts it: “A lot of those folks that have Cadillac plans have Chevy wages.”

Also don’t believe the claim that the tax will be on the insurance companies only. Sure, insurers will write the checks to Washington. But they’ll forward their costs to the customers, adding to a tax burden that’s already too punitive — and going to get worse.

“Passing the tax on to workers would result in an effective tax rate that is even higher than the specified 40%,” Curtis S. Dubay wrote in October in a Heritage Foundation WebMemo. “When the insurance companies embed the cost of the excise tax in premiums, the prices of plans will rise. A higher price means the excise tax would be higher, too.”

This would happen when the tax on a $10,000 individual plan adds $600 (40% of the $1,500 beyond the $8,500 threshold) to the cost, leaving a new premium of $10,600. The new cost will then be subject to the tax, boosting the premium another $840 (40% of the $2,100 over the $8,500 threshold). By now, that $10,000 plan is costing $11,440 a year.

“This cascading effect,” explains Dubay, “could raise the effective rate for the excise tax to 67% according to one estimate — considerably higher than the 40% specified in the bill.”

The problems don’t stop there. The growing premiums will drive many private employers that provide coverage for their workers to downgrade to cheaper insurance plans, which defeats the effort to improve health care.

A Liberal Democrat “soak the rich” scheme that blows up in their face and does the exact opposite. Nah, that never happened before… 🙂

(see Alternative Minimum Tax)

“There is no opposition to this legislation,” he said. “The unions support this amendment, the Chamber [of Commerce] supports this amendment, seniors support this amendment.”

They also SUPPORTED IT when it was in ObamaCare before it passed. It was a “soak the rich” rallying point even though back then it was pointed out this was going to happen but they did it anyways to fudge the numbers.

THEY WERE FOR IT BEFORE THEY WERE AGAINST IT. 🙂

Democrats were also unable to block the GOP measure, which was brought to the floor under budget reconciliation rules that prevented a filibuster.

“For too long, Democrats did everything to prevent Congress from passing the type of legislation necessary to help these Americans who are hurting,” McConnell said on the floor. “Today, that ends.”

Someone gave McConnell a backbone? Since When?? Oh right, when he knows it doesn’t matter and he’s showboating for re-election probably.

Speaking of that…

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, missed the final vote. 

Convenient wouldn’t you say? 🙂

Oh, how the wheels of Doublethink keep a ‘turnin