[UPDATE]- January 31, 2011- Florida Judge becomes the second Judge to rule the individual mandate as unconstitutional and that Congress exceeded it's authority.Story here. [End Update]
As the House of Representatives brings the Obamacare repeal debate to the floor, setting the scene for the House vote which will no doubt pass with a Republican majority in the House, the battle in the media, blogosphere and even the courts continues to rage across the country.
The House is expected to vote on the repeal and pass it today.
Headline news first shows that six more states have joined the 20 states already suing over Obamacare, bringing the total to 26 states, which is now more than half the country opposing Obamacare in the courts.
Six more states joined a lawsuit in Florida against President Obama's health care overhaul on Tuesday, meaning more than half of the country is challenging the law.
The announcement was made as House members in Washington, led by Republicans, debated whether to repeal the law.
The six additional states, all with Republican attorneys general, joined Florida and 19 others in the legal action, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said.
"It sends a strong message that more than half of the states consider the health care law unconstitutional and are willing to fight it in court," she said in a statement.
The states claim the health care law is unconstitutional and violates people's rights by forcing them to buy health insurance by 2014 or face penalties.
Government attorneys have said the states do not have standing to challenge the law and want the case dismissed.
Lawsuits have been filed elsewhere. A federal judge in Virginia ruled in December that the insurance-purchase mandate was unconstitutional, though two other federal judges have upheld the requirement. It's expected the Supreme Court will ultimately have to resolve the issue.
Senate Majority leader Harry Reid is refusing to bring the House repeal bill to the floor of the Senate for a vote, once again pitting himself against the majority of Americans opposed to the Obamacare health law.
Interestingly, Reid tries to claim that he is not bringing it up because it has no chance of passing the Senate which has a small Democratic majority, but with 23 Democratic Senators up for reelection in 2012, that is debatable.
Reid’s office rejected the idea.
“Not only would repeal not pass, but according to a poll by AP over the weekend, three out of four people don’t want it to,” Reid spokesman Jon Summers said. “Why? Because full repeal means raising taxes on small businesses, reopening the Medicare donut hole, and putting insurance companies back in charge of your health care.”
Polling evidence actually shows that the majority of Americans are still opposed and the AP poll Reid is quick to mention is the only outlier claiming otherwise.
Recent polling:
Bloomberg finds 55 percent opposed with only 40 percent in favor of Obamacare.
ABC News/Washington Post finds 52 percent opposed with only 43 percent in favor of Obamacare.
CNN/Opinion Research shows 50 percent opposed with only 42 percent in favor of Obamacare.
Rasmussen shows 55 percent opposed with only 40 percent in favor of Obamacare.
Reid's cherry picking of one single outlier shows the desperation and fear he has of allowing a straight vote in the Senate, which would force Democratic Senators to publicly go up against the majority of Americans or pass the repeal law which would force Obama to veto it as he has already said he would.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor calls out Reid on his obvious misleading statements by issuing a public challenge to Reid "If Harry Reid is so confident that the repeal vote should die in the Senate then he should bring it up for a vote if he’s so confident he’s got the votes."
Cantor knows Reid cannot do that because then he would be forced to try to twist arms and force his Democratic Senators to commit political suicide once again over Obamacare.
A Wapo article breaks down more numbers which contradict Reid's statements.
...Some 45 percent of those polled support the law, and 50 percent oppose it, numbers that exactly match their averages in Post-ABC polls going back to August2009.
The question of repeal is also addressed:
Those who do not support the law are split about evenly between advocating for its complete repeal (33 percent), a partial repeal (35 percent) and a wait-and-see approach (30 percent).
After the House passes the Obamacare repeal and the Senate, led by Reid, refuses to even bring it to the floor for a vote, then House Republicans will continue to try to repeal the most unpopular portions of the bill, continuously forcing Reid and Senate Democrats to publicly go up against the majority of Americans by refusing to bring those to the floor of the Senate as well.
House Republicans also hold the purse strings and have already stated they will not appropriate funds to the implementation of the most egregious parts of the Obamcare law.
For Republicans this vote, followup votes and refusing to fund anything the public does not like about Obamacare that is within their control, is a win/win situation politcally. Fighting for the majority of Americans and making it as public as possible will guarantee that Obamacare haunts Democrats in the Senate and Barack Obama all the way up to the 2012 elections.
When Republicans took won the largest gain of seats for a party in 70 years in the House of Representatives at midterm elections, they promised repealing Obamacare and/or defunding it in campaigns across the board and they are keeping that promise.
Conservatives by and large said, including myself, that we needed to make Democrats stand up and take responsibility over and over for going up against the majority of voters and show the constituents of this country who is fighting for what they want and who is blocking their wishes.
Harry Reid knows Republicans in the Senate only need a handful of Democrats votes to repeal Obamacare in full and start over by passing legislation that would keep the popular parts and weed out the unpopular parts and with so many Moderate Democrats in the Senate and vulnerable coming into 2012.
Reid also knows he would lose this fight in the Senate so he is refusing to even allow it a vote on the floor because then Barack Obama's head would be on the chopping block by having to publicly veto Obamacare repeal against the wishes of the American majority.
America is watching and all of this will be held against Democrats as a whole in 2012.
Related:
The Fix with "Five members to watch on health care repeal"
NYP with "The damage has already begun"
Repeal of ObamaCare can't come soon enough -- as several damaging provisions are set to take effect this year.
For starters, it has effectively stopped the construction of physician-owned hospitals throughout the country.
More:
Of course, patients may have trouble finding not just a hospital, but a doctor. A Physician's Foundation survey revealed that 40 percent of doctors plan to "drop out of patient care in the next one to three years." Sixty percent said ObamaCare will "compel them to close or significantly restrict their practices to certain categories of patients" -- typically those on Medicare or Medicaid.
Health reform will force many folks to give up their current insurance, too.
Still more:
Other measures kicking in are petty -- but punitive. For example, people can no longer use tax-free Health Savings Accounts on basic over-the-counter drugs. Instead, they must pay for a doctor's appointment -- and then get a prescription for a pricier pharmacist-dispensed drug.
Each of those are explained in detail, so head over and read.
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