Deroy Murdock‘s latest column at National Review Online explains why he believes Republicans in Congress should move forward with efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
The new Republican Congress should move full speed ahead to repeal and replace Obamacare. It would be unwise to wait for the Supreme Court to perform this service for the American people.
With GOP command of Capitol Hill starting tomorrow, Republicans should use their hard-won mandate to obliterate Obama’s medical Godzilla. A record 58 percent of registered voters want to junk Obamacare, according to a December 10 Fox News survey. As well they should. Among other recently revealed shortcomings — according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Employer Health Benefits, 2014 Annual Survey (“Employee Cost Sharing” chapter) — the average deductible for individual plans has climbed from $826 in 2009 to $1,217 in 2014. This is an average annual increase of approximately 8.1 percent on Obama’s watch. Also, a Commonwealth Fund survey discovered that 40 percent of working-age adults have skipped medical treatments because they cost too much.
So much for Obama’s promise of “quality, affordable health care.”
Some nervous Republicans may prefer to let the Supreme Court neutralize Obamacare through King v. Burwell, which it will hear on March 4. This case will determine the legality of subsidies that Obamacare pays enrollees in 36 states that rely on federally established exchanges, rather than their own.
Who knows what SCOTUS might do? It could delight Obamacare fans, as happened in 2012. A painfully narrow decision could specify how many nurses can dance on the tip of a hypodermic needle but otherwise leave people perplexed. A decisive victory for Obamacare foes could transform this debate into three dozen distinct conversations, as governors and legislators in states without homegrown exchanges decide their next steps. If Washington Republicans expect to maintain a coherent message amid such chaos, they should start popping stronger antipsychotics.
At best, a wait-for-SCOTUS strategy could banish this vital issue to a judicial back burner until the Supremes adjourn in late June.
The Court will do what the Court will do. And so should Congress.
