Obamacare Must Be Repealed

COMMENTARY Health Care Reform

Obamacare Must Be Repealed

Mar 23, 2010 3 min read
COMMENTARY BY

Policy Analyst

As senior fellow in government studies at The Heritage Foundation, Brian Darling...

Conservatives are demanding the repeal of Obamacare.

Simply, it’s an intolerable act by government that’s inconsistent with freedom and liberty. Sen. Jim DeMint (R.-S.C.) has pledged to work for repeal of ObamaCare and even put out a news release after House passage of the Senate bill demanding immediate repeal. “This bill is unconstitutional and it cannot be fixed. It must be repealed,” he wrote. “The battle for healthcare freedom is not over and I will introduce legislation this week to repeal this healthcare takeover.”

This weekend’s actions by Congress and the President should remind us of the British colonists who tossed tea in the Boston Harbor in an act of defiance against their faraway monarch. Americans need to repeal the idea of ObamaCare, sue the federal government to get back individual freedom and use the federal elections of 2010 to replace members of Congress who don’t listen to constituents.

Ed Feulner, president of The Heritage Foundation and my boss, writing about the House vote sending ObamaCare to the President, said that “the American love for liberty prevailed in our founding, and will prevail once again.” Feulner puts ObamaCare in the context of the Boston Tea Party. “In December of 1773, to protest unjust taxation, a group of American colonists dumped tea in Boston Harbor. The punishment for that first Tea Party was a series of intrusive laws passed by Parliament that were so oppressive that they could only be described as the ‘Intolerable Acts.’”

A majority of Americans agree with Feulner. “Just as the colonists banded together to enact change after those acts were passed, so should America respond to Obamacare. This law must be repealed.” Anything less would be ideological high treason.

Legal attacks on the mandates and other unconstitutional provisions of the bill are underway. Attorneys General in Florida, South Carolina and Virginia are ready to challenge the constitutionality of ObamaCare. They will argue that individual citizens of those states are having their rights violated by the federal government. Washington lacks constitutional authority, under either the Commerce Clause or the Taxing Clause, to force residents to purchase health insurance.

DeMint and other members of Congress will also fight the long battle for repeal. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich declared in HUMAN EVENTS that “this will not stand. No one should be confused about the outcome of Sunday’s vote. This is not the end of the fight, it is the beginning of the fight.” Tens of millions of Americans will support a legal and legislative strategy to kill ObamaCare.

Extraordinary Provision


The left so wanted to head off this repeal effort that Section 3405, Subsection C of ObamaCare flat out states: “it shall not be in order in the Senate, or the House of Representatives to consider any bill resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.”

The subsection deals with the controversial Independent Medicare Advisory Board, something many conservatives derisively call a “Death Panel.” The law states that if an Independent Medicate Advisory Board decision is contested by Congress, members would need 3/5 of the members of the House and Senate to challenge a decision of that board. This is yet another potentially unconstitutional provision in ObamaCare.

It is shocking that Congress wrote a law to insulate the law from repeal and to change the laws of Congress to prohibit repeal. DeMint raised an objection to this provision and the Senate leadership did not allow a vote on the constitutional objection . This was an apparent violation of the clear letter of the Standing Rules of the Senate.

Any effort for this Congress to attempt to forbid future congresses from repealing ObamaCare is unconstitutional, of course, yet this shows the arrogance of liberals who will do anything to grow government and attempt to thwart attempts to repeal ObamaCare

The American people need to replace members who ignore the clear will of the American people. In response to the Boston Tea Party the British Parliament passed several acts that became known as the “Intolerable Acts.”

We have a new Intolerable Act. ObamaCare, including intolerable provisions that should be subject to legal, legislative and electoral attack. The effort is underway.



Brian Darling is director of U.S. Senate Relations at The Heritage Foundation.

First appeared in Human Events

Donate to The Heritage Foundation

Our more than 100 policy experts and researchers are invited to testify before Congress nearly 40 times a year

DONATE TO HERITAGE