The U.S. Senate last week voted to repeal major portions of the Affordable Care Act. Once joined to House legislation, President Obama will be faced, for the first time in the law’s six year history, with having to act on his threat of veto. Calling it more than “mere symbolism,” David Catron writes:
This measure will actually reach Obama’s desk, which will force him to once again tell the voters to ‘go to Hell’.
Obamacare has been neither affordable nor popular with the American people. Soaring Obamacare insurance premiums and annual deductibles make the insurance a bad financial deal for the young and healthy, and many more than expected have opted to pay the penalty instead of buying insurance, as Betsy McCaughey explains:
Obamacare isn’t working because the design is fatally flawed. The 5 percent of the population with serious medical conditions consume nearly 50 percent of the health care. When you try to sell insurance to sick and healthy people for the same price, the healthy don’t sign up. It’s too expensive.
The Senate’s bill, which is even stronger than the House legislation passed earlier, repeals Obamacare’s individual mandate, employer mandate, and “other provisions included in the House bill,” writes Michael Cannon,
…as well as Obamacare’s two major entitlement programs — its Medicaid expansion and subsidies for exchange plans — and smaller forms of corporate welfare to Obamacare’s participating insurance companies. That’s a majority of Obamacare.
Atop the lies and lawlessness that have reduced Obamacare to an illegitimate law, Obamacare is failing patients. Staggering premium increases of 39 percent or more, scandalous and rare before Obamacare, are now ubiquitous. Even with premiums skyrocketing, patients’ choice of doctors is narrow and the coverage skimpy. Enrollment has stalled. Insurers are headed for the doors and begging for bailouts. Obamacare has thrown millions out of their health plans, including those with cancer and other serious conditions, and threatened their access to care. It will continue to do so until Congress and the president repeal it. …
Yesterday’s Senate vote brought America closer to enacting health-care reforms that actually make health care better, more affordable, and more secure, particularly for the most vulnerable. That’s history worth making.
Sources:
Obamacare Repeal Bill: More than Mere Symbolism, David Catron
ObamaCare is Entering Its Dreaded ‘Death Spiral’, Betsy McCaughey
The Senate’s Historic ACA Vote, Michael F. Cannon