Now is the time

We respectfully disagree with the view of U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, who believes a looming budget battle is not the time to defund and/or otherwise kill the federal healthcare law commonly known as Obamacare.

Editor’s update:
An upset Rep. Womack responded Tuesday afternoon to say this editorial was “way misleading” of his position on Obamacare.

Womack noted that he believes “now is always the time” to defund the law, but believes that attaching it to a Continuing Resolution (CR) – a Congressional action soon to be necessary to fund the federal government – is a “flawed political strategy.” He also repeatedly reminded during a phone call that he is a co-sponsor of House legislation to defund Obamacare.

“I’m all over defunding Obamacare,” he emphasized, and added later in a text message that The City Wire editorial, like Obamacare, should be killed.

The bottom line is that Womack does not believe “threatening a government shutdown” to defund the law is an effective political strategy because it will not receive approval in the U.S. Senate. It’s a “gamble we should not take,” Womack explained, because it will leave the U.S. House politically vulnerable in the 2014 elections because a government shutdown “will hurt a lot of people” and the shutdown will be effectively blamed on the GOP. If the House falls to Democratic control after 2014, Womack said, the country would be fully exposed to “more socialism” from President Obama.

Womack is correct on several aspects. Primarily, we were not clear on the distinction as to when and where the effort should be made to defund the law. The opening line of the editorial and other edits throughout the editorial now reflects that distinction.

Also, he indeed has been a consistent sponsor of House efforts to repeal the law.

However, we disagree with the notion that a CR battle should necessarily be avoided. There are valid differences of opinion on how and when to defund or repeal the law, and we simply disagree with the conventional wisdom as put forth by the House leadership.
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In a pre-Labor Day interview with Talk Business Editor Roby Brock, Womack, the Republican 3rd District Congressman from Rogers, said the best political move is to focus on the debt ceiling issue and funding government operations beyond October.

“I just don’t think it’s a wise political strategy,” Womack said of defunding Obamacare. “I think the potential political outcomes could be really, really hard on our party and that’s just not what I’m willing to risk right now.”

We’re certainly not naive about Womack’s position. He’s quickly moved up the U.S. House leadership ladder. To continue the upward GOP path he has to follow orders from U.S. House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

Defunding and/or repealing the Affordable Care Act signed by President Barack Obama in March 2010 is not about being for or against the President. It’s not about being for or against a political party. It’s not about being for or against a certain size and scope of government. Defunding and/or repealing the federal healthcare law ASAP is broadly necessary for three reasons:
• Economic certainty
Unless you crawl under a rock on the Moon, it’s not likely one can avoid a day in which there is not some mention in the news of business uncertainty related to the implementation of the health care law. In the past few years, there have been countless stories of businesses holding off on hiring and/or investment decisions because of the uncertainty. And those are the good stories. There also have been too many accounts of businesses making decisions to not hire or not invest because of the uncertainty.

Yesterday was the best time to defund and/or repeal the law. Today is the second best time.

• The country needs a intelligent approach to healthcare
Obamacare may have been well-intended and it certainly attempted to address a real problem, but it’s on a path to missing the mark. If or when the law is fully implemented, we’ll likely have traded one set of problems for another. And in a few years, we’ll have to pass another major piece of legislation to fix those new problems. And so on and so forth. The good news is that we don’t have to settle for this one-size-fits-all monstrosity that is possibly too unwieldy to effectively implement. One may think it reasonable to step back from the ledge and consider alternatives from the many good healthcare proposals that have been posited.

Now is the time to defund and/or repeal the law.

• Awareness that the law is a bad solution to a real problem is becoming non-partisan
Some of the more interesting criticism is coming from Democrats and groups who once supported the law.

Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean recently said the so-called “death panel” (Independent Payment Advisory Board) should be removed from the law.

“The IPAB will cause frustration to providers and patients alike, and it will fail to control costs. When, and if, the atmosphere on Capitol Hill improves and leadership becomes interested again in addressing real problems instead of posturing, getting rid of the IPAB is something Democrats and Republicans ought to agree on,” Howard wrote in an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal.

But the IPAB is a key part of the law, and its removal would vastly change estimates of Medicaid costs and, thusly, overall “savings” predicted when the law was passed.

Now is the time to defund and/or repeal the law.

One of the most powerful unions in the country is not happy with the law. James Hoffa, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said recently that the law “will shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class.”

Hoffa was particularly concerned about potential law changes in which a company may not be able to keep a health plan and the physicians who go with it. He’s concerned for good measure. Remember when President Obama said, “If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period.” That language, according to a government website providing information on the plan, has changed to: “Depending on the plan you choose in the Marketplace, you may be able to keep your current doctor.”

And then a delay was announced with another key provision of the law; the so-called penalty provision in which businesses and individuals were required to sign up. In late June, more than three years after the legislation was signed into law, federal officials said they would provide another year before implementing the penalty portion of the law.

The feds have had three years to figure this out, and they can’t make happen a key – if not THE key – part of the law. It was a clear sign that the bureaucratic weight of the bill may be even too much for D.C. to support. (By way of an historical comparison, in a little less than three years, this country moved from the disaster of Pearl Harbor to destroying the offensive capability and most of the defensive ability of the Japanese Imperial Fleet.)

Thousands of small, medium and large business owners in the 3rd District don’t have the lobbying power of the large hospital or insurance companies, nor hold the potential to advance a House career like Speaker Boehner or Majority Leader Cantor. But they do vote in the District, and it’s likely that a majority of them care more about getting this monkey off their back now than in some “wise political strategy” out of D.C.