On-No-Bamacare!
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October 26, 2013 |
By Congressman Raul Labrador
It’s just one thing after another. The Obamacare
rollout keeps getting worse and worse. The
website is so dysfunctional ninety-nine percent
of applications aren’t being processed. When
President Obama finally acknowledged the problem
– three weeks after it started - he encouraged
people to use the phone.
What happened? The phones went down. One man who
finally got through spent four and half hours on
the phone, and still wasn’t able to sign up!
“It’s screwed up,” Rep. Charlie Rangel, a
Democrat, frankly admitted.
Under Obamacare, every American is required to
buy health insurance by March 31, and if you
don’t, you will be taxed.
For the first time in American history, you will
be taxed if you refuse to buy something. But how
is it fair to tax someone for not buying
something, if they can’t buy it in the first
place?
This fall, Republicans in Congress united behind
the idea that we should have a one-year delay in
the health insurance requirement (better known
as the “individual mandate”). We wanted to
repeal all of Obamacare, but we were willing to
accept a one-year delay in the mandate.
The President was so opposed to this idea that
he shut down the government for 16 days, rather
than negotiate with us on how to fix his broken
health care law.
Now that the shutdown is over, Democrats are
becoming more candid about the law’s failures.
On Tuesday, one of the President’s closest
allies, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), said the
President should move the enrollment deadline
past March 31. Why? Because, she said, it was
unfair to tax people for not signing up on the
website, when the website itself doesn’t work.
Needless to say, this was – and is – the
Republican position. And yet, when Republicans
advocated for it, they were denounced as
“arsonists” and “anarchists” with “bombs
strapped to [our] chests.”
This week, the Administration – for the first
time – refused to rule out a delay in the
individual mandate – a shift from their
no-changes-no-way position during the shutdown.
Keep in mind, this is a website that cost $634
million to build, more than it cost to build
Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. And the
Administration had more than three years to
build it!
It’s simply amazing the Administration allowed
the most vital component of its signature health
care law to become such an unmitigated disaster.
And it’s even more amazing that the
Administration – even now – is playing politics
with the law, rather than bend to reality.
As the reality of Obamacare intrudes ever
further into our lives, opposition will continue
to grow. For those who say the fight is over,
and the cause is lost, I say, “We have only
begun to fight!” |
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