In the wake of this presidential election it has become abundantly clear that the American people have overwhelmingly rejected Obamacare time and time again. Now that Republicans have control of the House and the Senate as well as a Trump presidency, we should take swift action to fulfill our promise to We the People by first repealing this unconstitutional and egregious law passed by hook, crook and legislative shenanigan.
Since the botched implementation of Obamacare, the President has unilaterally ignored the law to delay mandates, rewritten the bill’s language related to exchanges and moved to bailout co-ops and insurance companies without oversight or Congressional input. He then ignored both Congress and the will of the People by vetoing a bill that partially repealed Obamacare while millions of people had their health insurance plans cancelled because their grandfathered plans were in violation of its ‘essential health benefits.’
In addition to these significant flaws, Obamacare is and continues to be unconstitutional at its core, a fact that our courts have ruled on time and time again. In 2014, the Supreme Court made a resounding landmark decision against Obamacare in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. when Hobby Lobby argued their religious convictions would not allow them to provide to their employees sterilizations, abortion causing drugs, or certain contraceptives.
Hobby Lobby asserted, appropriately, that the federal government had no right to tell those who own a business that they must violate their most deeply held convictions or face a fine from the IRS that would eventually bankrupt the company. The majority opinion written, by Justice Alito, concluded the Constitution actually means what it says and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 also means what it says.
House of Representatives v. Burwell is another case in which President Obama’s executive actions regarding Obamacare were found in direct violation of the Constitution. Judge Rosemary Collyer of the U.S. DC District Court declared the “Risk Corridors,” or the cost-sharing subsidies given to insurance providers, could not be funded without Congressional appropriation. Falling in direct conflict with Section 1402 of Obamacare, Judge Collyer found that such an appropriation cannot be inferred since it violates Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 of the United States Constitution.
The ruling in House of Representatives v. Burwell was not only a blow to Obamacare, but it also stood in opposition to executive overreach and in support of restoring the Rule of Law and Article I authority back to Congress. President Obama’s actions in spending unappropriated funds to pay bailout subsidies to health insurance companies is a primary example the modern abuse of domestic executive power.
The bottom line is all revenue generating legislation must start in the House. The Senate violated that principle in the very creation of Obamacare by tearing a bill number off an unrelated, non-revenue generating bill from the House and pasting it onto the 2000 page Obamacare legislation.
As Thomas Paine once so eloquently put it, “A constitution defines and limits the powers of the government it creates. It therefore follows, as a natural and also a logical result, that the governmental exercise of any power, not authorized by the constitution, is an assumed power, and therefore illegal.” It is time all three branches of government adhere to the power and the lack thereof as outlined for us by the supreme law of the land, our Constitution. Obamacare should be repealed in its entirety, ripped out by the roots “as if such Act had not been enacted.” The American people have spoken. Congress is compelled to repeal.