Obamacare … to defund or not to defund? UPDATE: Revolution on the right?

OK … here’s your chance to hear both sides of the argument … from conservatives. I love CK and he makes a great point. But Stephen Hayes respectfully disagrees. Roll the dice my little hostage takers. Time to make a stand.

As we enter the new year the Republicans have two big big really big items on the agenda. Somehow control an out of control exploding budget which will be a little like herding cats … and how to put the breaks on a simply horrible health care government take over. I won’t detail it all here … but just type Obamacare into our search engine and there’s enough there (all sourced) to get your mind straight.

Two videos to chew on. First there’s CK, who makes the case that defunding would cause chaos because the rules would still be on the books and Republicans would get blamed for the chaos.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-y_lmj80yI

Video number two comes from Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard. You must defund, says Hayes, or Obamacare will become too entrenched to stop.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmOCNBVlcJU

Hayes makes a great point. As people learn more about the bill they will begin to loath it, not just hate it and the health savings account changes are a case in point. Under the new system, you can’t use your health savings account money any longer to buy over the counter drugs, even aspirin, without a prescription from a Doc. Now where would Obamacare get that idea … hmmm?

Sally Melcher Jarvis, a correspondent for a Pennsylvanian newspaper who went to Cuba in November of 2007 accompanying a humanitarian mission organized by a local museum, found out about the apartheid that regular Cubans are suffering since Castro turned them into second class citizens in their own country.

Here is part of what she wrote: “It wasn’t much of a cold; just the kind that would get better by itself in a week. In the meantime it was a nuisance with a cough and stuffy nose. A little over-the-counter remedy would help…..There were no over-the-counter remedies to be had. I asked the guide what Cubans did if they had a cold. The guide said that a Cuban would go to the doctor — a visit free of charge — who would write a prescription for aspirin. However, there would be no way to fill the prescription. We visited a pharmacy later in the trip. Behind the counter five well-dressed Cuban women waited to serve, but the shelves were empty. The only items in sight were the monthly ration of sanitary napkins, 10 permitted per Cuban woman per month.

Meanwhile Gateway Pundit highlights an article in the WSJ debunking last nights PBS special on “Gee, ain’t that Cuban system great”.

Dissent is spreading in Cuba like dengue fever because daily life is so onerous.One of the best documented sources on this subject is the Botín narrative (“Los Funerales de Castro,” 2009, available in Spanish only), which pulls back the curtain on “the Potemkin village” that foreigners see on official visits to Cuba. Behind the façade is desperate want. Food, water, transportation, access to health care, electricity, soap and toilet paper are all hard to come by. Even housing is in short supply, with multiple families wedged into single-family homes. The government tries to keep the lid on through repression. But in private there are no limits to the derision of the brothers Castro.

OK you mobsters … where do you stand?

UPDATE: Just saw this … and I think makes a lot of sense too. From AP at Hot Air.

Two obvious problems with Krauthammer’s scheme, though. One, as Steve Hayes suggests in the clip, you’re taking a major risk by funding the program even for a few years, even with the expectation built in that it’ll be defunded if it misses its targets. Dependencies develop quickly; if you want to kill a bad entitlement, kill it quickly before expectations calcify. Two: As a purely political matter, there’s no way the GOP could refuse to defund it. It would be taken as proof that Republicans have already lost their nerve; the base would be equal parts crushed and enraged, to the point where you probably would start hearing chatter about a third party in earnest.

Third Party? Really? Hmmm.

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Jim Vicevich

Jim is a veteran broadcaster and conservative/libertarian blogger with more than 25 years experience in TV and radio. Jim's was the long-term host of The Jim Vicevich Show on WTIC 1080 in Hartford from 2004 through 2019. Prior to radio, Jim worked as a business and financial reporter for NBC30 - the NBC owned TV station in Hartford - and as business editor at WFSB-TV in Hartford for 14 years while earning six Emmy nominations and three Telly Awards.

7 Comments

  1. under5cents on December 28, 2010 at 5:21 am

    Starve the Beast: The Republican Plan to De-Fund the Health Care Law

    House Minority Leader John Boehner is thinking, "Just you wait…"Republicans have made absolutely clear what they intend to do to block the new health care law — starve it. (Jim Angle – Fox News)

     

    There is going to be an extra inning in this health care ball game.

     

    Read my article at http://www.under5cents.com/2010/12/starve-beast-r



  2. RoBrDona on December 28, 2010 at 5:23 am

    For a system that runs – we must de-fund.

    I disagree that there will be major chaos. If the various moving parts are quickly chipped away the unfunded mandates should easily be demolished by the courts. As a practical matter this is social engineering at its Communist worst. It must be nipped in the bud.  



  3. mynoc3 on December 28, 2010 at 7:24 am

    I agree with the other opinions, we must defund it.  What are the liberals going to say: "The Republicans didn't spend enough."?  Seriously, they used that argument for the stimulus already.  Maybe they are just phasing out the "It's Bush's fault" for something new.



  4. Lynn on December 28, 2010 at 11:34 am

    Defund of course and hold hearings, why can't you do both? But another point has to be made, CK totally surprises me here. His opinion smacks of too much political gamesmanship. Honestly,…. Enough. It is time for Congress to do what is right. We electors are smart enough to figure it out! When the founding fathers were writing the Declaration of Independence, they knew they were committing treason! They knew chaos would result. They did not stop and hold endless hearings, they acted. Obamacare needs to have every single effort made to cut it out. It is written to be like a cancer that has metasticized so we have to cut off the blood to every part of it. The intent was to make health care affordable and available to those with pre-existing conditions. There were far simpler and better ways of doing it and Congress just plain FAILED. Defund and give to states to figure out!



  5. sammy22 on December 28, 2010 at 11:34 am

    CK is the only Conservative who makes sense to me. He is thinking clearly and pragmatically.



  6. winnie888 on December 29, 2010 at 1:09 am

    After reading this post and viewing the CK & Hayes videos, all I have to say is THANK YOU to the contributors to this blog who stayed on top of this stuff from the beginning.  Because of the post by Steve McGough earlier this year addressing the changes in FSA/HSA rules, we killed ours for good.  We won't be shocked when we go to the pharmacy to buy (ick) NyQuil. As far as de-funding goes, I say do it, consequences be damned.  Eventually, equilibrium will be achieved after the initial chaos abates.



  7. OkieJim on December 29, 2010 at 4:23 am

    I think we have to defund before they start hiring people under the auspices of the Obamacare act. Once people start defending this act because they're defending their jobs, the opposition to repeal/reform/defunding is going to get louder. Quick. Get this over with.



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