July 13, 2012. Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) cast her thirty-second vote today in the House of Representatives to repeal, defund, or dismantle the President’s job-crushing health care law. The Repeal of Obamacare Act (H.R. 6079) passed the House of Representatives by a bipartisan vote of 244 – 185. The repeal legislation will cancel Obamacare – its twenty-one imminent tax increases, myriad new regulations, higher health care premiums, and $1.76 trillion price tag.
“Obamacare fails at its basic objectives and makes it harder for small businesses to create jobs,” Congresswoman Foxx stated. “Defending the taxes and failures of Obamacare places jobs at stake. In an economy that’s already struggling, and in an era of unprecedented big-government debt, the American people cannot afford Obamacare. We owe it to the American people to start fresh on real health reform – with the people leading that discussion. Passing the Repeal of Obamacare Act will give us that opportunity.”
Some of the failed objectives of the President’s law are listed below:
· The President’s health law promised to create jobs immediately. In reality, the Congressional Budget Office estimates there will be 800,000 fewer jobs by 2021 because of Obamacare.
· The President’s health law promised not to raise taxes. In fact, Obamacare includes twenty-one separate tax increases – twelve of which will impact the middle class.
· The President’s health law promised not to add to the deficit. However, it will add at least $340 billion to the deficit and its overall cost projections have ballooned to $1.76 trillion over ten years.
· The President’s health law promised to allow patients the option to keep their current coverage. Today, twenty million stand to lose their current coverage and the doctors they “like.”
· The President’s health law promised to make health care more affordable. But family premium costs have already increased more than $1,000.
The Repeal of Obamacare Act now proceeds to the Senate for consideration.
Op-Ed from Virginia Foxx:
Defending Obamacare Failures Places Jobs at Stake
By Representative Virginia Foxx
The President put the economy on notice when he signed Obamacare into law in 2010 with zero bipartisan support, and over the objections of the vast majority of Americans.
Though not fully implemented, Obamacare has already proved crushing to the economy and broken its promises to spur immediate job creation, lessen the deficit, not raise taxes, allow people the choice to keep their current health plans, and reduce health care costs for individuals and families.
Today, premium costs are up over $1,000 per family, 20 million are at risk of losing their current health insurance (i.e. the Doctors they “like” and would prefer to keep), 48% of businesses aren’t hiring to brace for rising health care costs and latent tax increases – which will amount to an $813 billion hit on middle class families and job creators, and by 2021, the Congressional Budget Office estimates there will be 800,000 fewer jobs because of the President’s health law. In addition, Obamacare’s cost projections have ballooned from $938 billion to $2.6 trillion over the next decade.
Republicans in the House will not stand by and let this happen, nor tolerate the defense of such epic failure. We have voted time and again to repeal, defund, and dismantle Obamacare, and we’ve been successful in halting three of its programs and cutting $305 million from the IRS’s budget to implement some of the law’s tax provisions. And we must not stop in this effort until the remainder of the law is sent to the ash heap of history where the American people, and future generations, will be shielded from its costs.
The Supreme Court definitively ruled last month that Obamacare’s unprecedented individual insurance mandate is, in fact, a tax, despite promises to the contrary and assurances that the middle class would be spared from any such increases under an Obama Administration. To levy this middle class tax increase in the middle of a recession is mind-boggling since the President rightly said in 2009, “the last thing you want to do is raise taxes in the middle of a recession because that would…take more demand out of the economy and put businesses in a further hole.” As if to prove his point, June’s unemployment figures show the effect imminent taxes have on an already ailing economy and provide every incentive to scrap Obamacare and begin fresh with real health care reform that recognizes the importance of a strong job market in ensuring health security for the American people.
Obamacare helped bring us the longest stretch of high unemployment since the Great Depression. Therefore, should we not take a different tack? The plurality of Americans who believe Obamacare will hurt the economy and the 53% of all political persuasions who favor the repeal of Obamacare certainly seem to think so. Add to them the twenty-six states that challenged Obamacare’s constitutionality and Florida, Texas, South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Wisconsin that have already indicated their unwillingness to shoulder the law’s cost burdens by implementing its prescribed state Medicaid expansion.
Health care reform is critically important, but the federal government has failed as its champion by attempting to supplant the role of doctors and patients in the health care relationship in naming itself and its bureaucrats as the unquestionable arbiters of patient care. It is out of respect for this relationship and for the hard-fought earnings of taxpayers that I cast my 32nd vote to repeal Obamacare this week. If we are serious about removing barriers to job creation, growing the economy, and sparing the American people the weight of massive new taxes, supporting the full repeal of Obamacare is critical.
Republicans in Congress are still committed to working with the American people to find patient-centered health care solutions that improve the quality and affordability of care and ensure more Americans have access to the best health services the free market can provide. Obamacare, as we have already seen, is not that solution. Only those committed to defending failure would argue otherwise.
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