Midwest Voices

Barb Shelly

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The rap on Republicans has always been that their ideas for reforming health care are either simplistic or nonexistent.

So what does the House GOP do to disprove that notion? Well, it puts forth a page-and-a-half-long bill with the juvenile title, “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.”

Any suggestions for improving the broken health care system that has left 50 million Americans uninsured and millions more saddled with unsustainable medical costs? Why, no. How about ideas for how to stop insurers from denying coverage to sick people? Nary a word.

But surely, the sponsors of this bill have data to back of the “job-killing” claim? Not that I’ve seen. But the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which supports the Affordable Care Act, has released an analysis predicting that the law will reduce premiums of businesses with more than 50 workers by up to 3 percent in 2016. Smaller businesses are eligible for tax credits to provide insurance for their employees.

As the think tank points out, the Affordable Care Act will remove much of the insecurity about health insurance, enabling people to start businesses and seek new jobs without worrying about keeping their coverage.

But facts and data have never stood in the way of mindless blather about the health care bill, and today was no exception.

Case in point, new GOP Rep. Vicky Hartzler of Missouri. In a tweet, she crowed about voting against the “job-killing, deficit-increasing, unconstitutional govn. takeover.”

It’s hard to fit three myths into 140 characters, but Hartzler has done it. Numerous analyses have debunked the job-killing myth. The Congressional Budget Office says that repeal of the Affordable Care Act will increase the deficit, not the act itself. And how can a law be a government takeover when it was designed to get more people covered by private insurance companies?

As for unconstitutional, I assume Hartzler is talking about the insurance mandate. I guess we’ll have to let U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy decide that.

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