Tis the season to kick millions of people off their healthcare.
Senate Republicans already planned to use reconciliation to bypass a filibuster and vote on the House bill to repeal Obamacare, but it wasn't clear if they could use reconciliation to defund Planned Parenthood.
The Senate Parliamentarian has now told Senate Republicans that using reconciliation to defund Planned Parenthood is permitted under Senate rules.
"Today the Senate Parliamentarian advised us that [the House] ObamaCare repeal bill can proceed under the rules of reconciliation,” said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
“The Parliamentarian also confirmed that the restrictions on payments to certain health care providers in section 201 of the House bill can be accomplished consistent with the Byrd rule,” Stewart added, referring to language defunding Planned Parenthood.
Given that President Obama obviously won't sign this into law, I feel like we should thank congressional Republicans for writing their own attack ads.
How will GOP presidential candidates Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz vote? Will they go on record voting in a favor of kicking millions of people off their healthcare? Doing so may polish their conservative bona fides among GOP primary voters, but everything the GOP does today will become an issue in the general election.
I say with complete confidence that there's no way America will elect a Republican running on a platform of repealing Obamacare. Anyone who tries to do so will find themselves campaigning against the man himself as the president will not stand by and let it happen. He doesn't have to be on the ticket to become a major force in the election.
Republicans may have fooled themselves into thinking the president is a great liability to Democrats, but they couldn't be more wrong.
Obamacare isn't the only healthcare policy the GOP will run against in 2016. We can expect to see them run against Medicaid and Medicare as well. Also living wages, regulations, education, voting rights, civil rights, immigrants, black people, and anyone who isn't straight, white, and rich.