It’s not on the calendar for consideration until January 12, but House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) has drawn up a nice, short, easy-to-read bill that would do something very important for the nation’s fiscal and physical health: repeal Obamacare. A pdf of the bill can be accessed here; its full text is also included in this post below the fold.
While it remains to be seen what, if anything, will come of it, Cantor certainly doesn’t waste any space in this brief (two-page) bill, as he very succinctly (but definitely not subtlely) channels the American people’s opposition to the massive government power grab that Obama perpetrated, with the assistance of several Democrat Political Suicide Bombers, with the passage of his massive (and largely unread) health care law.
If this bill faces any problems in the House, going unread should not be one of them. Prefaced “A bill to repeal the job-killing health care law and health care related provisions in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010,” Cantor has given his legislation the title of “the ‘Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act'” — a mouthful, to be sure, but you see what I mean about the lack of subtlety. The rest of the bill — all of two paragraphs (which, again, you can read for yourself below the fold) — simply states that, upon passage of this legislation, Obamacare will be fully repealed; it will become, to crib some millennia-old phraseology, like that which has never been.
I can’t say how much actual consideration this bill will get, though with so many new Republican freshmen who were elected largely on a return to fiscal sanity and a serious reduction in the size of government, it seems likely that such a black-and-white repeal effort, rather than the ridiculous “repeal and replace” line that so many establishment Republicans have been parroting for the last several months, could gain some significant support among members of the House GOP at very least. Russell Berman from The Hill seems to think it has a shot:
[T]he House vote to repeal Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement less than a year after its enactment will resound as a clear symbol of the altered balance of power in the new Congress. With 242 members, House Republicans should be able to pass the bill easily. There are 12 Democrats returning for the 112th Congress who opposed the healthcare [sic] bill last March, but two of them — Reps. Collin Peterson (D-Min.) and Daniel Lipinski (D-Ill.) — told The Hill on Monday that they would not vote to repeal the law.
The bill is up for procedural vote this Friday, and is scheduled to be considered by the Congress next Wednesday. Let’s hope that it at least gets a shot in the House during this Republican/Tea Party-led Congress.
112TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSIONH. R. __
To repeal the job-killing health care law and health care-related provisions
in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Mr. CANTOR (for himself and [see ATTACHED LIST of cosponsors]) introduced
the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on
____________
A BILL
To repeal the job-killing health care law and health care related provisions in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act’’.SEC. 2. REPEAL OF THE JOB-KILLING HEALTH CARE LAW AND HEALTH CARE-RELATED PROVISIONS IN THE HEALTH CARE AND EDUCATION RECONCILIATION ACT OF 2010.
(a) JOB-KILLING HEALTH CARE LAW.—Effective as of the enactment of Public Law 111–148, such Act is repealed, and the provisions of law amended or repealed by such Act are restored or revived as if such Act had not been enacted.(b) HEALTH CARE-RELATED PROVISIONS IN THE HEALTH CARE AND EDUCATION RECONCILIATION ACT OF 2010.—Effective as of the enactment of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (Public Law 111–152), title I and subtitle B of title II of such Act are repealed, and the provisions of law amended or repealed by such title or subtitle, respectively, are restored or revived as if such title and subtitle had not been enacted.
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