Rep. Kelly Blasts Obama Administration’s ‘Dangerous’ Implementation of Obamacare at Oversight Subcommittee Hearing
Questions how private sector can operate when president can
unilaterally change, not enforce laws
Rep. Kelly: ‘It’s not about the health care law. It’s about the
health care of our Constitution.’
WASHINGTON — U.S. Representative Mike Kelly (R-PA) – a member of the House Ways and Means Committee – participated in this morning’s hearing by the Subcommittee on Oversight on the use of administrative actions in the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).
Highlights of Rep. Kelly’s remarks:
“This really has nothing to do with the health care law, but it does have to do with the health care of our Constitution, and I think this is the thing that probably bothers us more than anything else.”
“There’s an old saying out and it goes something like this: ‘If you can’t convince them, confuse them.’ And I’ve looked at what’s happened. … I’m an automobile dealer, and I have to follow laws as they are written. I don’t have the ability to say, ‘You know what? I don’t particularly care for this part of the law so I’m just not going to follow that.’”
“Here’s another law that I don’t know what [those who wrote it] were thinking about. Obviously they didn’t look far enough, and they certainly didn’t look at the private sector, but then again, I have to run a profitable business to stay in business and they don’t.”
“It is so difficult for those of us in the private sector to look at this and to think that this president or any future president can decide at his whim what parts of a law he is going to enforce or not enforce. So the question then becomes how do you prepare a business model when the rules change every day?”
“My question is: Why does this president start to establish a precedent that is so dangerous for every president to follow? Because law is based on precedent. And if we can go back in the future and say, ‘Yeah, but let me tell you how it happened back when we had the Affordable Care Act, and this is what we decided to do,’ how in the world would anybody living in this country look at any law and really look at it as a law … if it’s not going to be enforced?”
“If [Obamacare]’s not enforced, it truly is just words on paper. It means absolutely nothing."
Rep. Kelly: “Let me just ask you one question, because maybe there’s some confusion in the Office of the President, but what did the president do before he was elected president? My understanding is that he came from the academic world, right?”
Grace-Marie Turner, President, The Galen Institute: “Constitutional law instructor at the University of Chicago.”
Rep. Kelly: “So there really wouldn’t be much cloudiness on his idea of what the Constitution is or what it contains?” I thank you all for being here.”
NOTE: In February 2014, Rep. Kelly authored and submitted a letter co-signed by 20 Members of Congress to then-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder requesting an explanation of the constitutional authority under which the Obama administration intends to carry out President Obama’s pledge to use his “pen” and “phone” to “take executive actions and administrative actions” affecting existing laws without congressional involvement. The inquiry specifically pertained to the administration’s repeated decision to unilaterally halt the implementation of the employer mandate provision of Obamacare.
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