If some people need waivers from Obamacare, then everybody needs one, according to Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint.
“Either we should all live under it or no one should,” DeMint told Fox Business Channel’s “Varney & Co.” on Tuesday.
Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges open on October 1, but the Obama Administration has granted waivers to Members of Congress and their staffs.
If Members of Congress shouldn’t be forced to comply with Obamacare’s dictates, why should anyone else? DeMint said the time is now to stop further implementation by defunding the bill.
“The strategy I’ve heard from some Republicans is, ‘Hey, let’s fund it, then Americans will see what a mess it is and we can repeal it later,’” DeMint said. “You can’t repeal it once the private insurance market dries up, once employers drop their plans. There’s nowhere to go but a single-payer system, and Harry Reid has already said that.”
Senate Majority Leader Reid (D-NV) told PBS’s “Nevada Week in Review” this month that Obamacare is “absolutely” a step toward abolishing private insurance-based health care.
“All you have to do is look at Britain to see how this thing evolves over a few years,” DeMint said.
“If Republicans in the House of Representatives pass a bill that funds the government in its entirety except for funding Obamacare, then the President is going to have to decide whether to accept that funding or shut the government down,” he explained.
“Oct. 1 is when people are enrolled in this program. That’s less than two months, and so now is the time to bring this to the attention of the American people,” DeMint said. “That’s what we’re going to do on our nationwide tour.”
DeMint will answer questions on the effort to stop funding Obamacare at town halls in nine cities starting with Fayetteville, Arkansas, on Monday, August 19.