Obamacare as the “Law of the Land” in 2016 and 2017

March 28th, 2017

In January 2016, Speaker Paul Ryan offered these remarks after enrolling the bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act through the budget reconciliation process:

“This is the closest that we have come to repealing Obamacare. And now we are sending that repeal to the president’s desk. And we have now shown that with a Republican president, there is a clear path to repealing Obamacare without 60 votes in the United States Senate. We are confronting the president with the hard, honest truth. Obamacare does not work. It has to go.

“Higher premiums, fewer choices, restricted access—these are not signs of success. These are signs of failure. And the American people deserve better.

“So we are asking the president to reverse course. Don’t give Washington bureaucrats more control over our health care. Put patients in control. Put them back in charge. If there is one story that is being told here today, it is this: the idea that Obamacare is the law of the land for a long time is a myth. We will see this law either collapse under its own weight, or we will see this law, in the next session of Congress as we’re proving here today, be repealed and signed and replaced by a Republican president.

 

On Friday, after the decision to pull the vote on the American Health Care Act, Speaker Ryan offered these remarks:

SPEAKER PAUL RYAN: I don’t know what else to say other than Obamacare is the law of the land. It’s going to remain the law of the land until it’s replaced. We did not have quite the votes to replace this law. And so, yeah, we’re going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future. I don’t know how long it will take us to replace this law.

My worry is, Obamacare is going to be getting even worse. Actually, I think we were probably doing the Democrats a favor. I think we were doing the architects of Obamacare a favor by passing this law before it gets even worse. Well, I guess that favor is not going to be given to them and it’s going to get worse.

So, I don’t think the architects of Obamacare, I’m sure they may be pleased right now, but when they see how bad this thing gets, based on all the projections we’re being told by the plans that are participating in Obamacare, I don’t think they are going to like that either.

Of course, the phrase “law of the land” stretches all the way back to Magna Carta.

No Freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseised of his Freehold, or Liberties, or free Customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any other wise destroyed; nor will We not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his Peers, or by the Law of the Land.