The biggest victory for the law’s opponents came on Thursday, when 79 senators — including all Republicans and 34 Democrats — voted to strike the law’s tax on medical device-makers. The Senate also passed by voice vote a measure to repeal the law’s $2,500 cap on flexible spending accounts and eliminate the requirement that consumers get a doctor’s prescription before using FSA or health savings account money on over-the-counter prescriptions.”
As Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) told Politico, “It’s the beginning of the unraveling of the Obama health care law. . . . Now that the Supreme Court has ruled and the president has been reelected, Democrats are being honest with the fact that this law is loaded with flaws.”
It’s worth remembering that these are not the only pieces of Obamacare that there is bipartisan support for repealing. In fact, two majorly problematic aspects of the law have already been repealed: the CLASS Act, which, after being demonstrated to be unworkable was finally repealed in the fiscal cliff legislation in January, and the onerous 1099 reporting provision that would have crushed small businesses with paperwork requirements.
Though Republicans have been eager to dismantle some of the worst parts of this law, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and others continue to work for the law’s full repeal. As he said last week, “Members of the President’s own party have begun sounding the alarm about the law’s tax hikes, including its tax on medical devices. His union allies are concerned the law will make them less competitive too. Well of course it will. Perhaps some of those union bosses should have more thoroughly considered the wellbeing of their members before supporting Obamacare’s passage in the first place. . . . In my view, Obamacare is a colossal mistake for our country. There’s just no way to fix it. It needs to be pulled out by its roots and we need to start over. This bill needs to be repealed and replaced – not with another unreadable law or another 20,000 pages of regulations – but with common-sense reforms that actually lower health care costs. And anyone who thinks we’ve given up that fight is dead wrong.”