ATR President Grover Norquist today sent the following letter to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.):
On behalf of Americans for Tax Reform, I am pleased to support H.R. 1213, a bill which would repeal Obamacare’s unlimited slush fund of taxpayer money to set up health insurance “exchanges.” I would urge all Members of Congress to vote for this pro-taxpayer legislation. According to the Congressional Budget Office, H.R. 1213 saves taxpayers $14.4 billion over the next decade.
Under the terms of the Obamacare law, the Secretary of Health and Human Services has a virtually-unlimited pool of money to be used for the establishment of health insurance “exchanges” in the states. An “exchange” is a government-created market for government-controlled and regulated health insurance plans which would be sold to the public and subsidized with government (i.e., taxpayer) dollars. The money available in this section of Obamacare is little more than a bribe to states to comply with the new law, and a way to make selling health insurance products unprofitable outside this “government sandbox.”
No government bureaucrat should have a blank check with taxpayer dollars—least of all for the purpose of implementing the most destructive elements of the jobs-killing Obamacare law. H.R. 1213 is a key step toward our common goal of repealing Obamacare, and anyone supportive of that effort should be supportive of this bill.