The message from the GOP on Obamacare today is a simple one: Just because the Supreme Court ruled that the individual mandate is constitutional doesn’t mean Obamacare is a good law.
“Obamacare was a bad policy yesterday; it’s a bad policy today. Obamacare was bad law yesterday; it’s a bad law today,” GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney said at a DC press conference this afternoon held near the U.S. Capitol at 101 Constitution Avenue.
After the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision this morning to uphold the individual mandate portion of the health reform bill as constitutional under the government’s power to tax, Republicans were quick to call for full repeal of the law. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) tweeted within an hour of the landmark decision that the House would hold a symbolic vote to repeal Obamacare in two weeks on on July 11. While the vote will accomplish nothing legislatively, as there is zero chance Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will let similar legislation on the floor of the Senate, and it would fail even if he did, the vote will reaffirm House Republicans’ promise that they will accept nothing less than full repeal of the law.
Romney said in his speech that he agreed with the dissent, written by Justices Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
“In our view, the act before us is invalid in its entirety,” Kennedy said writing on behalf of the dissent.
Romney said he would act to repeal the law if elected, saying, “What the court did not do in its last day in session, I will do on my first day in office if I become President of the United States.”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bNkcAgq1Jo]
Speaking from the floor of the Senate just after the Supreme Court’s announcement, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ken.) reminded Americans that “Republicans won’t let up whatsoever in our determination to repeal this terrible law and replace it with the kind of reforms that will truly address the problems it was meant to solve.”
“The American people weren’t waiting on the Supreme Court to tell them whether they supported this law. That question was settled two and a half years ago,” he said.
Since Congress passed the law in March 2010, a consistent 54 percent of Americans have said they would like to see the law repealed, according to Rasmussen Reports. Likewise, in a poll last week, 52 percent of Americans said they wanted to see the Supreme Court strike down the health care reform law. Respondents have been mostly divided by party lines on the question of health reform throughout the last two years indicating a deep divide among Americans over the direction of the country.
The Republican National Committee had already launched it’s repeal campaign by 11:15 am – only 45 minutes after the decision, launching a website called PeoplevObamacare.com and a video called “The Final Verdict” calling for full repeal of the law.
In his speech Romney said Americans needed to make a choice. Do you want “a larger and larger government, more and more intrusive in your life” or do you “you want to return to a time where Americans have their own choice in healthcare,” he asked, calling Obamacare a “job killer” that “adds trillions to the national debt and pushes those obligations onto future generations.”
Romney said the only true way to get rid of Obamacare would be to get rid of Obama.
“My mission is to make sure we do exactly that.”
