225.5 - The little Thing: House GOP admits Obamacare is good for the federal budget

The little Thing: House GOP admits Obamacare is good for the federal budget

Okay, one of our occasional features this time. It's called The little Thing, and it's when some little point in a story that gets glossed over or mentioned in passing is the one that makes me go "wait - what?"

In this case, it's an AP story about the latest attempt by the right-wing jackasses in Congress to undermine both Planned Parenthood and the Affordable Care Act.

It marked the 62nd time the House GOP has voted to pull down part or all of the ACA.

Whether it can pass the Senate or not remains a question, even though it used a streamlined procedure called reconciliation that would prevent a filibuster. The reactionary GOPpers in the Senate say they're against it because it doesn't go far enough in that it doesn't entirely revoke the ACA.

And here's where the little thing comes in. It was a single sentence buried midway through the article, mentioned in passing, with no comment as to its significance.

Quoting now,

The House bill's GOP authors said they were constrained by procedural hurdles: legislation receiving the filibuster protections cannot increase the deficit - which repealing the entire health care law would do.

Uh - hold it. Doesn't that mean that the GOPper leadership in the House has just admitted that the ACA is saving the government money? That it actually is reducing the deficit?

I was not a big fan of the ACA when it was being debated; I was among that roughly 10-15% of Americans who opposed the law because it doesn't go far enough, it has a misplaced focuses on access to health insurance rather than on access to health care, and it amounts to government subsidies of the private health insurance industry that only make that industry more powerful and have even more say over health care.

Nonetheless, it's what we've got and yes, I agree, that now that we have it, now that it's what we've got, it's better to keep it than to get rid of it. But it's still not good enough.

Be that as it may, seeing the GOPpers being forced to admit the the ACA is actually good for the federal budget is just delicious. Unfortunately, no one seemed to notice - because it was the little thing.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.aol.com/article/2015/10/23/gop-bill-would-gut-health-law-halt-planned-parenthood-money/21253180/