Obama Will Choke on Obamacare in November

If you think President Obama says strange things when addressing foreign affairs questions, consider how he can butcher almost any domestic US policy commentary - especially Obamacare. Tuesday, Obama appeared in the White House Rose Garden to crow like a rooster in saying that 7.1 million Americans have enrolled in Obamacare. But, his moment in the Washington sun was short-lived. Republicans were quick to tear apart Obama's comments. Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn labeled the Affordable Care Act a "botched law that has caused millions of Americans to lose their healthcare." And Senator Cronyn ought to know - he lost his own cancer care doctors when he enrolled in Obamacare. Cronyn also pointed out to Newsmax that Obamacare has forced individuals to sign up for more expensive health insurance or face a penalty." Cornyn said that Obamacare : "has resulted in cancer patients losing access to their doctors - and it is slashing full-time jobs across the country. At 1600 Pennsylvania, that’s cause for a celebration....On Main Street, it’s a tragedy." Cornyn added that the GOP is "operating in reality" by keeping up the pressure to end Obamacare. "We’re committed to getting rid of this failed law and replacing it with common-sense reforms that will truly bring down healthcare costs and boost access for all Americans." Cornyn was just one of many Republicans to blast Obama's April 1st announcement, which came a day after the first open-enrollment period ended. Representative Louie Gohmert trashed it as "the ultimate April Fools' Day joke." Gohmert said if Obamacare is not stopped, it will do even more damage to America. "Healthcare should not be about pushing a government agenda or spending millions of healthcare dollars on registering people to vote as Democrats," he said. "It should be about preserving precious lives and providing Americans with the best options available." Target enrollment numbers have been lowered by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, while the President himself has given constitutionally questionable delays to nearly 40 congressional mandates in Obamacare. Millions of Americans have lost their health insurance since the individual mandate took effect - despite promises from Obama that they could keep their plans and doctors if they desired - or have faced skyrocketing premiums or lower-quality coverage. The botched rollout has been a key reason for Obama's disintegrating approval ratings - and Republicans see the deeply unpopular Obamacare as critical to their taking the Senate in November's mid-term congressional elections. The GOP already has its first victory in the election of Florida Republican David Jolly, who won a special election to fill a vacant seat in the House by campaigning against Obamacare. The GOP-controlled House has voted more than 50 times to repeal, defund, or scale back Obamacare. Despite Obama's bravado, administration officials caution that they're still compiling the data needed to determine the ultimate success of the six-month enrollment period : how many enrollees were previously uninsured and whether enough younger, healthy people signed up to offset the costs of covering older, sicker consumers. Still, Obama taunted the GOP and Americans opposed to Obamacare during the Rose Garden ceremony : "The bottom line is this: Under this law, the share of Americans with insurance is up, and the growth of healthcare costs is down. And that's good for our middle class, and that's good for our fiscal future....As messy as it's been sometimes, as contentious as it's been sometimes, it's progress." Obama then attacked Republicans for their efforts to stop the healthcare law. "I don't get it," he said. "Why are folks working so hard for people not to have health insurance? Why are they so mad about the idea of folks having health insurance? Many of the tall tales that have been told about this law have been debunked. There are still no death panels. Armageddon has not arrived. Instead, this law is helping millions of Americans, and in the coming years it will help millions more. The debate over repealing this law is over," President Obama declared. "The Affordable Care Act is here to stay." ~~~~~ Not so fast, said Republicans, who quickly vowed to re-double their efforts to get rid of Obamacare. According to Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner : "Despite the White House 'victory lap,' this law continues to harm the American people....Every promise the President made has been broken: healthcare costs are rising, not falling. Americans are losing the doctors and plans that they like - especially seniors suffering under President Obama’s Medicare cuts. Small businesses are afraid to hire new workers, hobbling our economic growth....That’s why we must replace this fundamentally flawed law with patient-centered solutions that will actually lower healthcare costs and help create jobs." Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, head of the House Republican Conference, said that the continuous Obamacare delays were : "an admission of the law’s fundamental failure. The success of the President’s healthcare law cannot be measured by his words and unconfirmed numbers, but by the real-life stories of Americans from coast to coast," she told Newsmax. Senator Orrin Hatch, the upper chamber's longest-serving Republican, said that Obama "failed to tell Americans the full story" with Tuesday's announcement. Noting other CBO reports, Hatch told Newsmax : "the same number of people could actually lose access to their employer-based coverage. And, he failed to mention how many Americans signing up for Obamacare used to have insurance they liked and doctors they trusted before they lost them due to this law....The President can continue to ignore the harsh side-effects of his health law, but the American people have to live with these realities." Meanwhile, Representative Tom Price, a physician, raised several questions about President Obama's figures : "How many of those who have 'enrolled' in the Obamacare exchanges have paid their premiums, the actual step necessary to attain coverage? How many of these folks were previously insured but had their plans cancelled because of Obamacare? By failing to answer these questions, the Obama administration is simply trying to seek political cover by hiding behind the headlines," he said. And Mac Zimmerman, policy director for the conservative political action committee Americans for Prosperity, charged Obama with "choosing politics over people. He doesn't want to admit it, but millions of Americans are being hurt by Obamacare. Individuals and families across the country have lost the healthcare plans and doctors that they've come to depend on. Their premiums are rising, and it's only going to get worse," Zimmerman said. "This administration will say and do anything to avoid admitting that their signature healthcare law is a terrible deal for millions of Americans across the country." ~~~~~ But, dear readers, the most incisive comments came from former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who reacted to Obama's claim that "Armageddon has not arrived." "His Armageddon is coming in November [with] these midterm elections and then again in 2016," DeLay told Newsmax TV. "The American people have lost all confidence in this President, they've lost trust in him. He has no credibility. The reason people are against Obamacare is they don't want the federal government to be involved in their healthcare, or in their lives. He just doesn't get it," DeLay charged Wednesday. DeLay said Obama made "a fool of himself" on Tuesday. "They're all proud of the fact that 7 million have signed up....Well, that leaves 23 million uninsured that haven't signed up, or as much as 43 million, as some people have said,....Those signing up...[are signing up] to the entitlement portion of this program because [they] were cancelled. So, you've got the insured that have policies that are being cancelled, the others are being subsidized, plus the huge increase in Medicaid," Delay said, noting that, in addition, entitlements and welfare costs are skyrocketing. "It's going to cost us trillions of dollars. That's what we ought to be focused on - not that they signed up 7 million people," he said. "And then the Obama administration is going to control our healthcare. They already are by setting standards, by saying who can be on and who can't be on, it's just absolutely amazing, but the American people are figuring it out." ~~~~~ There it is - the reality of Obamacare vs the fantasy that Barack Obama has created to prove to America, and himself, that the monster created by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, following instructions from Obama and the White House staff, actually works. It doesn't. It is not too late to scrap it. But November is the key - vote Republican and send home Pelosi and all the Democrats who supported Obamacare.