Morning Bell: Get to Work Repealing Obamacare
Conn Carroll /
During his post-election press conference Wednesday, President Barack Obama was asked: “As you’re well aware, obviously, a lot of Republicans ran against your health care law. Some have called for repealing the law. I’m wondering, sir, if you believe that health care reform that you worked so hard on is in danger at this point, and whether there’s a threat, as a result of this election.” The President replied:
Well, I know that there’s some Republican candidates who won last night who feel very strongly about it. I’m sure that this will be an issue that comes up in discussions with the Republican leadership. As I said before, though, I think we’d be misreading the election if we thought that the American people want to see us for the next two years relitigate arguments that we had over the last two years.
The President just doesn’t get it. According to the national exit poll just 16% of voters want to leave Obamacare as is. A full 48% of voters want to see it outright repealed and another 31% want to see it changed in some way. Americans do want to relitigate Obamacare. Yesterday, here at The Heritage Foundation, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell promised to do just that:
On health care, that means we can — and should — propose and vote on straight repeal, repeatedly. But we can’t expect the president to sign it. So we’ll also have to work, in the House, on denying funds for implementation, and, in the Senate, on votes against its most egregious provisions. At the same time, we’ll need to continue educating the public about the ill-effects of this bill on individuals young and old, families, and small businesses.