Obamacare Repeal Fails

Do you remember, back in 2009 when all of America turned to the election of Scott Brown to the Senate from Massachusetts? Then state-senator Brown promised to be the 41^st vote against Obamacare, stopping it in its tracks and delivering a death blow to the bill that few in the country wanted to see pass. For his part, when he was elected Senator Brown did just what he promised. But Democrats found a way around Sen. Brown and the GOP filibuster using a shaky parliamentary procedure known as reconciliation, and they passed Obamacare.

After pushing the bill through in such a questionable way, Democrats would like you to believe that there isn’t anything that can be done to stop Obamacare. It’s a done deal and you have to live with the higher taxes, increased spending and onerous mandates the bill includes. But the reality is, it’s not a done deal. Most of Obamacare’s mandates take until 2014 to implement, and those already implemented (like the so-called tanning tax) can be easily reversed.

After the court ruling by Judge Roger Vinson, states have begun dismantling their efforts to implement Obamacare, because as they say, the law is now defunct. Barring a stay on Judge Vinson’s ruling by the 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals, Obamacare is dead. States have no legal reason to comply or implement any of the law. As James Capretta writes at National Review “Obamacare may be too cumbersome to be workable even with state cooperation, but it most certainly won’t work without the states doing most of the dirty work.” Do you think the folk in Utah that elected tea party Senator Mike Lee are going to allow their state government to implement the mandates of Obamacare if there is a way out of it? Doubtful at best.

Speaking of the Senate, it voted yesterday on whether or not to repeal Obamacare. Predictably all the Democrats voted against repeal (except Senator Mark Warner of VA who for some reason wasn’t around). Rather than repealing the radical Obamacare bill, Democrats are focused on the 1099 canard instead. The 1099 reporting requirement was always a bad idea that would be repealed and everyone knew it. The reporting legislation was written because it was estimated to generate more tax revenue, and therefore help balance the budget on Obamacare. After its repeal, there should be no talk about “budget neutral” or any such nonsense.

Senate Democrats are going to try to slow down any progress the newly elected House might make. It’s a race to 2012 here and only with powerful conservative leadership will constitutional principles win out.