Americans who are sick and tired of Washington gridlock are in for yet another Republican-forced Congressional showdown that threatens to shut down the government and grind economic growth to a halt. Protect Your Care is calling out Colorado Republican House Members, Speaker Boehner and the Tea Party economic saboteurs in Congress for their votes to hold government services and the full faith and credit of the United States hostage until their fantasy of defunding Obamacare and leaving all Americans susceptible again to the worst insurance industry practices becomes reality.
It begs the question: Why are Congressional Republicans trying to shut down the government just as Coloradans are looking for federal assistance on flood recovery? This is the wrong move at the wrong time.
The Affordable Care Act helps thousands of Coloradans across the state, including those in the districts of the Republican delegation. For example, in Rep. Coffman’s CD6, 217,000 individuals in the district – including 56,000 children and 83,000 women – now have health insurance that covers preventive services without any co-pays, coinsurance, or deductible. Up to 48,000 children in CD6 with preexisting health conditions can no longer be denied coverage by health insurers.
For a complete list of how the Affordable Care Act helps Coloradans in all seven Congressional Districts, you can go here:
http://democrats.energycommerce.house.gov/index.php?q=news/new-reports-show-the-benefits-of-health-care-reform-in-every-congressional-district
Congress must soon pass a continuing resolution approving the federal resources needed to keep the U.S. government open past September 30. Failure to do so would mean a government shutdown that would disrupt critical services for millions of people. Unfortunately, House Republicans see this deadline as an opportunity to play partisan games with people’s lives.
House GOP’s Plan A: Despite poll after poll after poll showing that the American people reject Republican efforts to defund Obamacare and instead want Congress to do everything they can to make the law work, House Republicans voted for a continuing resolution that requires Obamacare be defunded, risking a government shutdown as the Senate and the President will never support such a radical proposal.
Plan B: When the defund bill goes nowhere in the Senate, House Republicans’ “back-up” plan is to tie another vital vote – raising the debt limit to pay the nation’s bills already approved by Congress – to derailing Obamacare. When House Republicans held the debt ceiling hostage in 2011, it led to a downgrade of U.S. credit and “major disruption in global markets”. If they go through with it again, it will not only put at risk the full faith and credit of the United States government, but threaten to raise interest rates “through the roof” and hurt businesses and families, and according to leading economists, “could tip the economy back into recession.”
But if Republicans won’t listen to economists, facts and historical precedent, will they listen to Ronald Reagan who warned about the severe economic consequences of defaulting on the nation’s debt obligations when he was President?
Maybe Colorado Republicans should listen to the majority of Coloradans, who are practical and common-sense, and not the Tea Party extremists. They need to pass a clean continuing resolution to keep the government open, pass a clean bill to raise the debt limit, give up the ridiculous obsession with leaving people uninsured at the mercy of the insurance industry, and move on to the people’s business that’s been neglected.
When it comes to flood recovery, we are all in this together, and shutting down the government doesn’t help.
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I really hate when people play games with the fate of the US economy at stake. As I recall, the Republicans in the House blinked last time.
In Pueblo at the army chemical depot, we've got drums and projectiles with WWII mustard gas slowly rotting away while the scientists who are supposed to monitor and neutralize them have been furloughed 1-3 days a week. Sequestration cuts, thanks to our budget hawks.
Now this stupid face-off will continue, just so insurance companies and big pharma can continue to make record profits in healthcare.