OPINION:
There’s no doubt that the president’s health care law is hurting our economy. Even before the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling on Obamacare, the president’s law was driving up health costs and making it harder for small businesses to hire. The court’s ruling underscores the urgency of repealing this harmful law in its entirety, which House Republicans stand ready to do.
After enacting his massive “stimulus” spending bill in 2009, President Obama spent more than a year trying to push the health care law through Congress over the objections of the American people, who wanted the president to focus instead on policies that would remove obstacles to private-sector job creation. During that time, the president angrily denied that the penalty the health law would impose on Americans who fail to comply with the mandate was a tax, dismissing the charge as politically-driven rhetoric from his critics.
On June 28, the Supreme Court confirmed that the centerpiece of the president’s health care law does not violate the Constitution because … it is a tax. The president and his allies celebrated the ruling. But when you look at the impact the law is having on our economy, there is nothing to celebrate.
A recent report by Bloomberg News noted that the president’s health care law will impose an estimated $813 billion in new taxes on job creators and middle-class families, based on data from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
A U.S. Chamber of Commerce survey showed that 74 percent of small businesses contend that this law will make job creation at their companies even more difficult. In my home state of Ohio, private-sector job creators are speaking out on the harmful effects of the law. Jamie Richardson, vice president of government and shareholder relations for White Castle, warned in a recent article in the Columbus Dispatchthat the law “will be a cost burden for employers and [will] negatively impact job creation.”
There’s a lot of resolve among my House colleagues, and among the American people, to stop a law that’s hurting our economy, driving up the cost of health care and stunting job growth. Public opinion research consistently shows most Americans not only oppose Obamacare, but support fully repealing it.
At my direction and that of our majority leader, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the U.S. House of Representatives on July 11 will vote on legislation that would fully repeal the president’s health care law to stop it from inflicting further harm on our economy. The House passed a similar bill last year, but it died in the Democratic-controlled Senate. By passing our repeal bill in July, we will give the Senate and Mr. Obama a second opportunity to follow the will of the American people.
What Americans want is a common-sense, step-by-step approach to health care reform that will protect Americans’ access to the care they need, from the doctors they choose, at a lower cost. House Republicans want families to be able to make their own choices in health care, visit the doctors of their choosing, and receive the health care they and their doctors feel is best.
House Republicans understand that Obamacare is bad for our economy and we will act, on behalf of the American people, to repeal it in its entirety. We are ready to work with a president who will listen to the people and will not repeat the mistakes that gave our country this harmful law.
Rep. John Boehner, Ohio Republican, is speaker of the House of Representatives. He was first elected to Congress in 1990.
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