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Responsibility

At no point since it's passage, has the Affordable Care Act ever been approved of by a majority of the American people.  When it was passed, a majority of the American people didn't want it.  And while the numbers have fluctuated somewhat, it's always been majority against.

The House of Representatives recently passed a Continuing Resolution to fund every aspect of government but the Affordable Care Act.  The Senate added an amendment restoring funding.  When sent back to the House, they compromised.  They delayed the implementation of the individual mandate for a year.  The Senate is saying they will table the bill, and the White House is saying if it passes the Senate it will be vetoed.  

Who would be responsible for shutting down the government?

By all measures of sanity and logic, it would appear that it is the Senate and the White House, not the House, that is perfectly happy to let the government shut down all over a health care bill that a majority of the American people have never wanted.  And all those horror stories?  They appear to be true.

People said the employer mandate would cost jobs.  The Administration said that was hogwash.   But as the date for that mandate to kick in drew closer, companies across America started dropping full time employees to part time employees.  Other companies froze hiring to stay below the 50 employee threshold.  So the President, in a move that was nothing but political to anyone with half a brain, delayed the employer mandate for year.  To right after the mid term elections.  

We were told if we liked our doctor and insurance we could keep them.  However, over the last few weeks, pictures cropped up all over the internet.  Pictures of letters, sent to people by their insurance companies, telling them that their plan is not compliant with the Affordable Care Act.  They will have to purchase a new plan, and that new plan, which includes a lot of extra stuff, will cost them more money.  For some it's more than twice what they were paying for a plan that did what they needed it to do, but might not cover birth control and in vitro fertilization.  

Howard Dean recently admitted that Sarah Palin was right about those death panels.  Death panels was a term coined to describe the Independent Payment Advisory Board, who would decide whether your life was really worth that life saving treatment.  Or did everyone forget the President himself mentioning that controlling health care costs might mean giving granny the red pill instead of the blue pill, that was more expensive, but that she really needed to you know...live.  

You might be interested to know how much control of our healthcare resides in the hands of one person.  The Secretary of Health and Human Services.  The bill has this to say about the powers of this one person:  700 references to the "Secretary shall", 200 reference to the "Secretary may" and 139 references to the "Secretary determines".   So, in a 2,000 page bill that no one read before they passed it (Nancy Pelosi:  We have to pass the bill so we can find out what's in it), 1,039 times it is determined that one person, not elected, and with no Constitutional check on their powers, can determine the outcome of YOUR healthcare.   

The truth is the bill was never really written, and for it to work in any manner, whether good or bad, it will need to be amended hundreds of times over.  It was 2,000 pages of open ended government control over your very life, and by life I mean, the breathing, heart beating, brainwave thing.

And it is this law, this one little law, this one train wreck of a law (according to Max Baucaus), that is going to be the reason the Democrats shut down the government.  They are so tied to a law they passed (and which they then exempted themselves from, big surprise there), that they will allow every other government service shut down.  Oh, except their pay.  In 1992, when they were still in charge of the legislative body of the government, they suckered us into passing an amendment which doesn't allow them to give themselves pay raises, but it also ensures they still get a paycheck in the event the government shuts downs.  Congress needs their pay more, than say granny needs her social security.

So who is responsible for shutting down the government?  




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