Palmetto State Republican Jim DeMint, the Senate’s Tea Party Godfather and self-appointed Obstructionist in Chief, has been making headlines after recommending that states fight President Obama’s health care law using an unconstitutional, 130-year-old tactic called nullification. DeMint wants states to simply refuse to implement the law, and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley announced earlier this week that she’s standing by the state’s junior senator in blocking the Affordable Care Act.
Gov. Haley’s office released a letter on Tuesday announcing her intention to join forces with DeMint “to oppose [the Affordable Care Act's] implementation” and “oppose any creation of a state health exchange mandated under the president’s discredited health care law.”
It’s unclear how the governor considers the ACA to be “discredited” given that the Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality, and that most of the law’s provisions are broadly popular even with Republicans. But that’s beside the point, apparently.
“Bottom line? By refusing to implement state-based exchanges, the state is ceding nothing,” Gov. Haley wrote — because helping poor South Carolinians afford health insurance is totally nothing, right? “States opposed to ACA should not freely give up the leverage we now have to repeal and replace this bad law.”
In a July 4 editorial, Haley again repeated the factually-challenged argument that the individual mandate represents “one of the largest federal tax increases on the middle class in recent U.S. history.” As ThinkProgress Economy’s Travis Waldron reported a week earlier, that’s simply not true:
The mandate can indeed be characterized as a tax, as the court found. But it is not a massive tax hike on the middle class, much less the biggest tax hike in American history. The tax imposed by the individual mandate amounts to either $695 or 2.5 percent of household income for those who don’t have insurance and are not exempt based on income levels. It would hit a small amount of Americans — somewhere between 2 and 5 percent — according to a study from the Urban Institute.
The number could be even lower depending on the law’s success: in Massachusetts, the only state with an insurance mandate, less than 1 percent of the state’s residents paid the penalty in 2009. The majority of the Affordable Care Act’s other taxes, such as a payroll tax increase and a tax on high-cost health plans, are aimed at upper-income Americans.
In supporting DeMint’s unconstitutional nullification tactic, Gov. Haley also provides yet another example of tea partiers suddenly abandoning the rule of law the minute they don’t get their way. It also displays a radical collective flip-flop by the Republican Party on health care, as the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein described last week using DeMint as an example:
In 2007, Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina sent a letter to President George W. Bush. DeMint said he would like to work with Bush to pass legislation that would “ensure that all Americans would have affordable, quality, private health coverage, while protecting current government programs. We believe the health care system cannot be fixed without providing solutions for everyone. Otherwise, the costs of those without insurance will continue to be shifted to those who do have coverage.”
Read that closely. DeMint does not say he wants legislation that would ensure all Americans have “access” to coverage — the standard rhetorical dodge of politicians who don’t want to oppose universal coverage, but also don’t want to do what’s necessary to achieve it. He says that he wants legislation that ensures all American actually have coverage. He says that without making sure every American has coverage, “the health care system cannot be fixed.” For good measure, DeMint wants to achieve this “while protecting current government programs.”
Combined with DeMint’s past support for the individual mandate as recent as 2007, it’s pretty clear that his opposition to the Affordable Care Act has less to do with the policy itself than with the president who passed it.
The cynicism of ideologues and ideologue wanna-be’s (DeMint, Haley) can be breathtaking. And the danger to the common good presented by both even moreso. Indeed, one could argue that the wanna-be’s present more of a threat to the citizenry than the true believers, given that the former often think it necessary to go to the farthest extremes of obeisance in order to properly establish their ideological bona fides.
The rise of the ideology-based Tea Party has given DeMint—not that long ago a benign, little-known, do-nothing Senator from what those in Washington consider a backwater state which has historically paid a huge price for the farcical extremes of its “Ain’t nobody gonna’ tell me what to do” Gadsden-ism—a path to notoriety and power. And, hypocrisy-be-damned, it has become clear that notoriety and power and a place on the national stage are of much greater import to him than something as minor as representing the citizenry that elected him.
The same is the case with Haley, though she is so locally-laughable and so individually unimpressive that, as opposed to ascending the national stage on her own, she has had to hitch herself to whatever rising star was available at the time—Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal, Mitt Romney, Jim DeMint, etc.
History tells us that ideologues in public office seldom, if ever, accomplish anything on behalf of those they represent, sacrificing the public good on the altar of ideological purity. The discouraging response of DeMint and Haley to the ACA is a perfect example. Setting aside the apocalyptic lies of these two as to the impact of putting the ACA in place, I think we can safely say that few states are as needful of its benefits as our own. But of what consequence is that relative to a position of notoriety and power on the national stage? Apparently, for ideologue wannabe’s like DeMint and Haley, not much.
There are over 344,000 South Carolinians eligible for expansion of Medicaid under ACA. Maybe some of them should make their voice heard.
I wish for these recipients of taxpayer paid money to show how to fund this “eligibility” don’t look at me I’m tapped out
You already pay for them when they show up at the ER. If they can’t pay the bill either the hospital raises their fees thereby increasing costs for everyone or more likely the hospital goes to the state and ask them to pickup the check with taxpayer’s money. Thank the Gipper the for EMTALA.
I agree.
As for DeMint, I’m not surprised he is opposing the bill he once supported. He pledged to make the ACA the “waterloo” for President Obama. Haley is just his tool and both are being directed by the Koch Bros.
Guess since that isn’t working out, trying to nullify the law (and thereby the Constitution) is his only out.
Hey, Jimbo, we tried nullification once. It didn’t work out so well. Guess that puts him strongly in league with that great mind, Nugent, who says it might have been better if the South had won the Civil War.
It’s odd. I always thought DeMint was a true believer. I knew he was radical, but I thought he was a principled radical opponent. This proves he’s just as much a duplicitous opportunist as any other.
So its Constitutional, but its not a tax? Kinda talking out of both sides of your mouth there. They are enforcing the rule of law here, government can only give what it has taken from someone else, and they are choosing not to. Good for them, Texas, Louisiana and Missouri. Healthcare is not a right, you can’t force someone to treat you(ethically) nor can you steal from someone else to give them healthcare.