They Love It, They Love It Not – Republicans Need To Pick A Side On Obamacare

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – There are a lot more of the Ryans and Boehners and Cantors than there are of the Gohmerts, Amashes, and Massies.  Legislatively speaking, you don’t have a leg to stand on.  The other part of this is, and I’ve been pointing this out for the last two and a half years: Why are people like Paul Ryan and others running around saying they have parts of the Affordable Care Act that they’re absolutely enamored with?  Check out today’s transcript for the rest…

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

AG:  I do have a question to get your thoughts on as to the discussion of what changes should be made to the Obamacare law as part of this grand bargain in terms of the shutdown and debt ceiling.  Part of what we’ve discussed over the past couple weeks is the idea of — I’ve been a fan of this idea — let Obama go into practice how it’s been laid out.  Because it’s going to be so poorly run and mismanaged, the American public will see that they need to force a change with their elected officials to repeal this law.  We have supposedly three aspects of the law that are going to be changed as part of this deal.  One would be, as we discussed, the income means testing for the subsidy.  The second is the medical device tax, which is a Republican-backed proposal.  The third is the delaying the fine for a year, which is a Democrat-backed proposal to appease the union’s concern.  I don’t understand why the Republicans — I go back to the point: Shouldn’t the Republicans just want the law to go into effect as is?  Once again, you’d see how bad it is.  If I was a Republican, I would not allow that union exception to be part of the deal.  If the medical device tax is as bad as it is, I wouldn’t want that changed either.  Then you’re making the law more palatable so that it never changes.  Does that make sense?

Mike:  There are a couple things in there, if there is to be a grand bargain, ought to be part of it.  One of them is, Boehner and company ought to say: All right, we’re going to lose on the whole defund thing.  You guys are going to wait and see.  It’s going to be so bad that we’ll be right back here one year from now and we’ll have an election over this.  If we get returned back to this House, we’re going to shut you down again and defund it again.  The people are going to be louder in screaming for relief from it.  Two, in the meantime, we’re not going to let your union buddies get off the hook.  They’re going to have to pay fines and live life just like everyone else is.  I’ll tell you what else ought to be in there.  There ought to also be the exclusion for members of Congress and congressmen’s staffs.  If the rest of us are going to have to suffer under the edicts that are handed down, then they ought to have to suffer and they ought to have to see what it’s like.

AG:  That’s what Vitter is pushing, right?

Mike:  There are a couple people that are proponents on this.  The pushback on that is going to be: Well, why should we give them those two points when our point has been we don’t want any of it to go into effect?  This is where Ross Douthat’s column and some of the other people that are protesting mightily that I was referencing earlier, where they actually do have a point.  Since the GOP and Republican Party have married themselves as the party of not-so-big government, it’s very difficult to argue that the party that wants Bluntcare or Boehnercare or Ryancare or any other form of federally-run and federally-administered health insurance programs, it’s pretty hard to argue [mocking] “By all means, we must get government out of healthcare.”  You guys haven’t been trying to get government out of healthcare your entire careers.  You have been aiding and abetting the government getting into healthcare your entire career.  From that point of view, I wholeheartedly agree.  You guys have no leg to stand on.

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That does not cover Thomas Massie, Justin Amash, Louie Gohmert and others who have not been a party to this.  They are, sadly, or currently, members of that party.  There are a lot more of the Ryans and Boehners and Cantors than there are of the Gohmerts, Amashes, and Massies.  Legislatively speaking, you don’t have a leg to stand on.  The other part of this is, and I’ve been pointing this out for the last two and a half years: Why are people like Paul Ryan and others running around saying they have parts of the Affordable Care Act that they’re absolutely enamored with?  They’re love-stricken.  Big government cupid has shot an arrow right through their heart and they’re in love with the idea of kids being on their parents policies up to 26 years old, which, by the way, I don’t have a problem with provided that’s an idea that has been promulgated by the Aflac duck or by Cigna or Blue Cross.  As long as it’s Blue Cross’s idea, I don’t care if you stay on your parents’ plan until you’re 103.  When the government comes in and says: We ought to do this and you have to honor this, then you have distortions in the marketplace.  Of course, then you’re not dealing with the free market.

The other part they’re fans of is that we need to have a nationwide ban on preexisting conditions.  So what you’re saying is we ought to have a nationwide ban on actuarial tables.  We should have a nationwide ban on risk assessment.  The reason a preexisting condition gets denied from an insurance policy is because it is the opinion of the person that would have to pay the claim, namely the insurance provider, that there is a very likely chance that they’re going to have to pay claims in excess of what their pool of income is.  As a practice of doing business, it’s not smart business.  You listen to Cantor and all them and they’re all for it.  Under what authority do you compel?  If you’re going to tell me that the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate is unconstitutional because you cannot compel an American citizen to buy a product, then answer me this question: Under what constitutional edict can you compel the owner of an insurance company to buy a product?  That’s what you’re telling him he has to do.  He’s telling you it’s too risky a proposition to write a policy for someone with a preexisting condition and you’re telling me it isn’t.  It’s rife with inconsistencies.  This is why principled dedication, meditation, reflection, and devotion is necessary in our public affairs and the affairs of our statesmen, and why it is so painfully obvious that it is missing.  We can see that it’s missing simply by virtue of paying attention and looking through the proper colored glasses, not the rose-colored ones that we are instructed to look through as partisans all the time.

End Mike Church Show Transcript

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