Debt deal could cut funds to ObamaCare

**Posted by Phineas

You see? I told you there were good points to this Satan Sandwich! It turns out that, if the forthcoming “super-committee” can’t find the required $1.2 trillion in cuts and sequestration (automatic cuts) takes place, ObamaCare is not immune:

β€œThere are at least 15 provisions of the Obama health care law that will find themselves subject to this trigger if the committee is not able to come up with other cuts,” said Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.). β€œWhen I look at these, I think it gives a huge incentive to the Democrats to find cuts. What would be triggered if we can’t find other cuts would cut right into the Obama health care law.”

Senate Republican leadership aides identified the potential funding cuts shortly after the law passed and are talking with the Congressional Budget Office to determine what parts of the law would be subject to sequestration.

The fact that the programs are vulnerable at all means Obama and congressional Democrats did not succeed in their attempts to shield the health reform law from the debt-deal trigger.

Obama had resisted efforts by congressional Republicans to make the law’s individual mandate a part of the trigger during earlier debt-limit negotiations. But while the final deal doesn’t directly target the health care law, the cuts to specific programs could still happen because of the way the law is written.

The debt ceiling law exempts several programs for the poor and those with low incomes, as defined by the 2010 Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act, called PAYGO. That law exempts Medicaid, Social Security and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, among other programs.

But it doesn’t protect the health law’s provisions because the definitions became law a month before the health law was passed.

β€œIf you’re not on the list, you wouldn’t be protected,” said Edwin Park, vice president for health policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

This is going to endear The One to his already-cranky progressive base even more. Darn.

Of course, what really needs to be done is the total repeal of ObamaCare for economic, health, and political reasons; it’s a threat to the nation’s fiscal health, the individual’s physical health, and the citizen’s liberty.

But, until there’s a Republican-controlled Congress and a Republican president in 2013 that will enact the “Repeal Every Dumb Idea of the Last Four Years Act,” we’ll have to make do with whatever monkey-wrenches we can throw into the statist works.

And smile when we get the other side to help throw them in.

via Lance Thompson

(Crossposted at Public Secrets)

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