ACA Supporting Business Owner Trounces Obamacare Bashing House Republican At Town Hall

By: Jason Easley/politicususa

In a must see video, a business owner takes ACA repeal supporting House Republican Rep. Joe Heck to task for wanting to repeal Obamacare. House Republicans might want to rethink running against the ACA in 2014.

Video:

Q9: ACA. I hear reps from GOP say it’s going to hurt business, hurt business, hurt business. But I am a business person, and I have been paying a living wage with benefits for decades. When I pay a living wage with insurance for decades, I pay for the people who don’t have insurance. People with insurance pay $600 every year for people who don’t have insurance when they go to the emergency room. You mentioned, it would get people that are not insured, insured. It’s also suppose to better the cost curve, and it has been saving me costs. It has put money in my pocket. I received tax credits for doing what I’ve always done; giving my employees access to health care and pay for that. No co-pay for wife’s well woman exam. No co-pay for child check-up. The insurance exchanges are ready to rock on the first [of January]. I already looked. Same company I’m buying insurance now, I’ll be able to buy the same policy, 90% less and still get my tax credit. Having people buy and insurance instead of go to the emergency room, If that’s going to foul up the system because people are getting health care that’s just wrong. Why would you oppose the ACA if it was passed by congress, passed by the senate, signed by the president, upheld by the supreme court and re-affirmed by the reelection of the President of the United States who won your district? Why would you revoke something that’s helping me now? It’s bending the cost curve and it’s going to bend the cost curve in the future? Why Congressman? Why?

Rep. Heck: First let me start off with the actual passage of the ACA. Again I wasn’t there. It passed in a Democratically controlled House and a Democratically controlled Senate. [Follow-up comment: Thank God] Passed in middle of night. Just like Immigration Senate bill, nobody had chance to read it. Democrats that drafted it say it’s a train wreck. There are good things in the bill to keep and there are bad things. The president’s re-election wasn’t an affirmation of the ACA. The President won by 8/10ths of a point. I won by 8 points here, more than President, and I ran on fixing ACA. The help you’re getting through those small business tax credits, what are you going to do when those go away? They are not there forever. [Follow-up comment: the cost curve is being bent.] The cost curve isn’t being bent. [Follow-up comment: the cost curve is being bent for me sir.] You might be the exception. Some people benefit. The vast majority aren’t. You talked about the $600 everybody was paying for the uninsured, there’s no such thing as free preventative health care. You might not be pay for it but somebody’s got to pay for it. And that payment is going to be spread across everybody that’s insured. It goes from group ratings to community ratings. Big businesses, those with over 50 FTE, are those that are truly impacted by the health care. Those with less than 50, there are good things in this bill that will help them. [Follow-up comment: And that's most of the businesses in this country.] Not really. Not less than 50. Once you have more than 50 employees. [Follow-up Q: And that's if you employee more than 50 without health insurance?] No. They have to meet the requirements the government as set. That’s going to increase your costs.

This exchange is similar to one that happened to fellow Obamacare bashing House Republican Patrick McHenry of North Carolina at a town hall earlier this month:

House Republicans are finding out that it isn’t 2009 anymore. They can’t just make stuff up to scare people about the ACA. People are experiencing some of the benefits of the new law, and just like the constituent in the video (Ron Nelson), they want to know why Republicans want to take away the good things that the ACA is doing?

Interestingly, the first response of Rep. Heck’s office was to label Nelson an OFA plant. Nelson admitted that he has attended some OFA meetings, but he is not an organizer for OFA, and he does live in Rep. Heck’s district. The problem that House Republicans all over the country are facing is that they can offer no practical truthful reason for repealing the ACA.

The mood is changing on Obamacare, and House Republicans may have made a fatal blunder by assuming that what worked in 2009-2010 will still work in 2013-2014. Now that people are experiencing the law for themselves, it is more difficult for Republicans to lie about it.

The Obamacare issue could end up working against House Republicans next year. If this happens it might be a tough election night for John Boehner and his crew of destruction by obstruction House Republicans.

Congressman Considers Gabby Giffords A ‘Prop’ For Gun Regulations

By Annie-Rose Strasser/Think Progress

Congressman Joe Heck (R-NV) on Tuesday agreed that he considers former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ), who was a victim of an assassination attempt two years ago, a “prop” in the debate over gun regulations.

Jon Ralston of Ralston Reports, uncovered the audio of Heck, speaking with conservative radio talk show host Alan Stock, agreed that Giffords was nothing more than a “prop” at the State of the Union:

STOCK: At the end of the president’s State of the Union when he said have a vote for Gabby Giffords, have a vote for this and that. I found that to be nauseating and you know what else is nauseating too is putting Gabby Giffords up there, who can’t even clap her hands, as a figure of somebody being — having shot her. I think it’s a shameful act putting her up there as a prop. I’m sorry. I really do.

HECK: Yeah, no I agree. I think again in the cloud of emotion surrounding Connecticut those who are anti-gun want to use that to limit their Second Amendment rights.

Listen to it:

Giffords has made a remarkable recovery since she was shot through the head at a town hall in a parking lot in Tucson, AZ, two years ago. In fact, the experience has prompted Giffords, along with her husband Mark Kelly, to found an organization called Americans For Responsible Solutions, devoted to combating gun violence.

UPDATE

Heck’s office release this statement on the incident:

My statement was in reference to the idea of gun control grab coming out of Washington DC. Of course there is no way that I think that Gabby Giffords is a prop… Should I have come to her defense? You know, in a fast-moving interview, in retrospect, I should have said something but I didn’t. I was just looking to get past that and talk about gun control in general.

GOP Response To Town Hall Backlash: Ban Recording Devices And Censor Citizen Journalists

By Scott Keyes 

The premier political story of the past few months has been the Republican plan to dismantle Medicare and the resulting voter backlash. Intown halls across the country, voters are expressing their anger at the GOP priorities ofending Medicare, extending tax breaks for the wealthy, and protecting subsidies for oil companies.

ThinkProgress has reported extensively from town halls in Florida, Wisconsin, Arizona, and elsewhere. In addition, citizen journalists have attended town halls and reported about them online, allowing others who couldn’t attend in person to see the event.

However, some congressmen are concerned about what could happen if citizen journalists repost their town halls on the Internet. At least two members of Congress have taken extraordinary measures to shut down the spread of information.

ThinkProgress readers passed along the following photos, taken outside town halls held by Rep. Lou Barletta (R-PA) and Rep. Joe Heck (R-NV). Barletta specifically barred citizen journalists and other non-credentialed media from recording the event, while Heck took a more encompassing approach of “no recording devices” at all:

 

When Republicans won back the House in 2010, one of their central promises was “to make Congress more transparent.” However, when it comes to their own congressional events, the same standard apparently does not apply.

Indeed, with members like Lou Barletta and Joe Heck barring citizens from recording the events and preventing those who couldn’t attend from seeing what the congressmen had to say, one has to ask: what are they trying to hide?

UPDATEAt his town hall, Heck reportedly faced a rowdy crowd upset about his vote for the Medicare-ending House Republican budget. When pressed, he backed away from the plan a bit, saying, “I’m not saying it’s the best idea, but it’s the only one and the best being proposed now."