Senate-Kills-House-Spending-Bill

[bonnie]

House Republicans said Monday they will try to pass a stopgap spending bill that will fund Obamacare, but will delay the individual mandate requiring all Americans to obtain insurance, and will cancel the taxpayer subsidies lawmakers use to pay for their own health plans.

The House was pushing to vote in the late evening on the new plan, which they said would keep government open past a midnight Monday deadline.

“We are not going to change Obamacare,” Mr. Reid told reporters minutes after he led his chamber to kill two other Republican plans, one of which would have been a full one-year delay of the Affordable Care Act and the other which would have repealed the law’s unpopular medical device tax

The Senate’s 54-46 vote broke along party lines, suggesting that despite the misgivings of some Republicans, they are still maintaining unity in the face of a government shutdown.

The latest House offer has been brewing for some days, as Republicans insist there be some conditions attached to the stopgap spending bill. Democrats have said they will not accept any condition.

Sen. David Vitter, Louisiana Republican, said that those in Washington deserve to feel the same pain as the American people if Obamacare is not repealed.

“If [the government shuts down] because Democrats won’t accept treating Washington like it treats America, I think that’s a message that’s important for all Americans to hear,” Mr. Vitter told reporters Monday afternoon.

“There should be no special treatment for the well-connected under Obamacare,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said. “Delaying the individual mandate and withdrawing special exemptions for Congress is the fair thing to do, and I encourage Senate Democrats to keep the government open, rather than close it in order to protect themselves and their friends.”

Earlier in the day Republicans complained that they weren’t getting the bill back from the Senate early enough.

“Senate decided not to work yesterday. Well my goodness, if there’s such an emergency, where are they?” Speaker John A. Boehner said as he opened Monday’s House session.

Some Republicans want the House to pass a new bill that would fund the government but also would require President Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden and all of the administration’s top political appointees to forgo their government health plans and join the health exchanges.

That measure would also strip out the government contribution that pays most of the premiums for federal workers who take government insurance. The loss of those premiums frightens many federal workers, who have said they would consider looking for work elsewhere.

Mr. Reid, though, said he will defeat that proposal and a specific delay of the individual mandate in Obamacare that required Americans to obtain coverage.

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013.../#ixzz2gPyzqSGQ

[joeb]

This makes it plain what the Democrats, including Obama, want. They want to punish the general public, give exemptions to big business, and exempt themselves from the morass that is Obamacare. Anyone who thinks Obamacare is for the betterment of this country is plain old nuts. The behavior Obama and the Democratic leaders shows exactly what they are up to.