The real reason republicons want to repeal Obamacare. How awful.

[Maraya1969]

"Republicans have feared not that health care reform would fail the American people, but that it would succeed. Along with Social Security and Medicare, successful health care reform would provide the third and final pillar of Americans' social safety net, all brought you by the Democratic Party. To put it another way, the GOP was never really concerned about a "government takeover of health care", "rationing", "the doctor-patient relationship" or mythical "death panels," but that an American public grateful for access to health care could provide Democrats with an enduring majority for years to come.

But what Utah Senator Orrin Hatch called a "holy war" to block health care reform didn't start when Barack Obama took the oath of office in January 2009, but instead when Bill Clinton was inaugurated in 1993. It was then that former Quayle chief of staff and Republican strategist William Kristol warned his GOP allies that a Clinton victory on health care could guarantee Democratic majorities for the foreseeable future. "The Clinton proposal is also a serious political threat to the Republican Party," Kristol wrote in his infamous December 3, 1993 memo titled "Defeating President Clinton's Health Care Proposal," adding:

"Its passage in the short run will do nothing to hurt (and everything to help) Democratic electoral prospects in 1996. But the long-term political effects of a successful Clinton health care bill will be even worse--much worse. It will relegitimize middle-class dependence for 'security' on government spending and regulation. It will revive the reputation of the party that spends and regulates, the Democrats, as the generous protector of middle-class interests. And it will at the same time strike a punishing blow against Republican claims to defend the middle class by restraining government."

"The first step in that process must be the unqualified political defeat of the Clinton health care proposal. Its rejection by Congress and the public would be a monumental setback for the president; and an incontestable piece of evidence that Democratic welfare-state liberalism remains firmly in retreat."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/11/1230529/-The-real-reason-for-the-GOP-s-all-out-war-on-Obamacare#

[Mojorabbit]

1. K and R nt

[awoke_in_2003]

2. And what is crazy...

is that it is exactly what the Heritage Foundation and Mitt Romney proposed in the past (which should make dems leery)

[yurbud]

6. that's why I'll be pleasantly surprised if it works for average Americans

More than insurance companies.

[Hydra]

7. Ya, so this is more political gamesplaying

They may well fear that this could succeed, but in my mind what they really want is to strip away the few good things that ended up in the bill(like the max out of pocket cost) while keeping all of the crap...and then blaming it on the Dems for "socializing" medicine and they'll float something even more right wing in return.

[ProSense]

8. No,

"And what is crazy...is that it is exactly what the Heritage Foundation and Mitt Romney proposed in the past (which should make dems leery)"

...it's not. Republicans would never have expanded Medicaid. Never. Also, Romney vetoed the best parts of the MA plan, which were then enacted after an override of his veto.

The Spite Club

By PAUL KRUGMAN

House Republicans have voted 37 times to repeal ObamaRomneyCare — the Affordable Care Act, which creates a national health insurance system similar to the one Massachusetts has had since 2006. Nonetheless, almost all of the act will go fully into effect at the beginning of next year.

There is, however, one form of obstruction still available to the G.O.P. Last year’s Supreme Court decision upholding the law’s constitutionality also gave states the right to opt out of one piece of the plan, a federally financed expansion of Medicaid. Sure enough, a number of Republican-dominated states seem set to reject Medicaid expansion, at least at first.

And why would they do this? They won’t save money. On the contrary, they will hurt their own budgets and damage their own economies. Nor will Medicaid rejectionism serve any clear political purpose. As I’ll explain later, it will probably hurt Republicans for years to come.

<...>

And as I said, it doesn’t even make sense as cynical politics. If Obamacare works (which it will), millions of middle-income voters — the kind of people who might support either party in future elections — will see major benefits, even in rejectionist states. So rejectionism won’t discredit health reform. What it might do, however, is drive home to lower-income voters — many of them nonwhite — just how little the G.O.P. cares about their well-being, and reinforce the already strong Democratic advantage among Latinos, in particular.

- more -

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/07/opinion/krugman-the-spite-club.html

[Kablooie]

3. If Bush had passed this health bill would the Dems all be against it?

Would Dems be threatening to shut down the government in order to force Bush to kill the bill and go back to the old system?

Actually a lot of us would be against it because its a pale solution compared to single payer.
But we would be fighting to push it into a single payer system, not trying to restore the previous horrible system.

[Puzzledtraveller]

5. yes

same as the NSA stuff

[freshwest]

4. Both parties the same? Sorry, I'm sticking with this one. Your article proves it:

They can see the doom of their regressive vision with this man in office. That's the source of the hatred, that he is effective. One is better known by one's enemies than friends.

The ones you are noticing are more terrified than anything else. They are lashing out because they are comfortable; and to acknowledge what is happening is a threat to that comfort.

Ignore them, for they are not the voices that will rise in the coming days, months and years. They are not the voices of our collected humanity. They are the old voices of fear and impotence.

~ Anonymous