Issue: H.R. 6079 To repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and health care-related provisions in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act 2010.  Sponsor Eric Cantor (R–VA).

Result: Passed in House, 244 to 185, 2 not voting. Died in Senate. Democrats scored.

Bill Summary:  Repeals the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), effective as of its enactment. Restores provisions of law amended by such Act.

This measure also repeals the parallel, but not so often mentioned, health care provisions of the Health Care and Education and Reconciliation Act of 2010, effective as of the Act’s enactment. Restores provisions of law amended by the Act’s health care provisions.

Analysis:  It is good that the House GOP is keeping opposition to Obamacare alive. This was the second time in 18 months that the House voted on a total repeal (see Roll Call 14, 1-19-11). 31 other votes have been to defund or defang portions of the statute.

However, Americans need to recognize that the opposition of the GOP leadership to Obamacare is merely an attempt to maintain its image as the champions of conservatism in the face of powerful public concern over this federal power grab. The opposition of the leadership is not a serious attempt to repeal it.

In fact, following the 2012 reelection of President Obama, Speaker of the House John Boehner briefly sounded like the GOP might throw in the towel over the law. On November 8, 2012, John Boehner was interviewed on ABC News. When asked whether repealing ObamaCare was still his mission he replied:

“Well I think the election changes that.  It’s pretty clear that the President was re-elected, Obamacare is the law of the land.  I think there are parts of the health care law that are going to be very difficult to implement and very expensive and at a time when we’re trying to find a way to create a path toward a balanced budget, everything has to be on the table.”

Of course, the speaker makes no mention of returning the federal government to its constitutional limits, only of creating a balanced budget (always years in the future).

Never discussed in the Establishment-controlled media are the origins and real objectives of the drive to put the federal government in charge of access to healthcare.   The forces behind this power grab got their first victory with King-Anderson (Medicare), successfully pushed through Congress as the result of the license given to President Johnson in the immediate wake of the Kennedy assassination.

Socialist forces, inside and outside of government had for decades been working toward total federal control. During the 1960s, Fabian Socialist Walter Reuther, head of the United Auto Workers, dominated the Democratic Party and led much of the action. Revolutionary leaders knew that their power grab would have to be accomplished in stages. President Obama’s present to the plan’s Insider backers in 2010 was just one step.

It is naive to expect any major retreat from this victory of Establishment Insiders as long as they dominate the leadership of both parties and as long as voters depend on the Establishment-controlled media for information and analysis.

Politicians in general regularly deceive the American public by ignoring the agenda and forces driving our decline, refusing to highlight the scope of our problem, and by arguing that the solution lies in partisan politics and a balanced budget far in the future.

We do not score the GOP on this posturing roll call, but highlight the public supporters of Obamacare among the Democrats and the five who bucked their party’s leadership.

We have assigned (good vote) to the Ayes and (bad vote) to the Noes. (P = voted present; ? = not voting; blank = not listed on roll call.)