How Republicans Could Block Healthcare Reform

[Elmore Furth]

Get ready for gridlock.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans could keep their promises to stop healthcare reform even if they cannot repeal it, simply by blocking legislation needed to pay for it, one expert argued on Wednesday.

Control of one house of Congress could give the Republicans power to cripple the law, creating "zombie legislation," healthcare expert Henry Aaron of the Brookings Institution wrote in a commentary in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The Affordable Care Act passed in March without a single Republican vote. It is supposed to get health insurance to 32 million Americans who currently lack it, help set up local clinics to help provide needed care, set new standards for health insurance and, eventually, begin to transform the fragmented U.S. healthcare system.

The legislation authorizes spending, but the actual cash must be appropriated in a second process. The ACA has more than 100 separate authorizations calling for spending of well over $105 billion between now and 2019.

How Republicans Could Block Healthcare Reform

[tritsofme]

1. I hope people don't get too overconfident about government shutdown politics

based on Clinton's great success in winning the message battle in 1995.

Forcing Obama to repeatedly veto the "Emergency Government Shutdown Prevention Act" multiple times is not an assured winning message.

[PruneJuiceMedia]

4. I'm still confused...

...as to why the Republicans are blocking all parts of the legislation. Do they not have to pay these RIDICULOUS premiums every month? It's sickening. There is no way they can justify the high prices, lack of options, and 50 million people uninsured as the BETTER way forward. Something is just not adding up.

[Warren Stupidity]

2. It will then become the absolute worst parts of the bill alone.

Mandates to purchase with no subsidies. Yeah Team!

[iamjoy]

3. Worse Still

Mandates with no caps on what insurance companies can charge for pre-existing conditions (and no subsidies).

[Name removed]

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