A dumb question, but: If the House didn't want Obamacare, how were they fools enough to fund it?

[landolfi]

That seems like a huge mistake to fund it to the point of even allowing it to start. Was it HHS that ensured it had enough to launch through its own budget?

[Roland99]

1. The Dems controlled the House when it was passed in 2010

oh, and it was introduced to the House as Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009. It ended up with a unanimous Yea vote.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:H.R.3590:

[PoliticAverse]

2. The PPACA passed without a single Republican vote in the House or Senate. n/t

[dkf]

3. Wow dude...where have you been? This was passed by Nancy Pelosi etal remember?

[landolfi]

5. First of all, I said it was a dumb question, but

is that "special money" that they can't touch from 2010? They Tebaggers seem to have found a way to screw up everything else that has a budget...

[dkf]

6. They've voted to repeal the ACA 47 times (or is it 48 by now?). The Senate keeps blocking it.

The Teabaggers WON their seats largely based on campaigning against the ACA. That in turn allowed Rs to re district leading to gerrymandering their seats for the 2010 decade.

[sammytko]

12. NYTimes explained it in this article

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2013/09/21/us/politics/21reuters-usa-healthcare-shutdown.html?hp

Independent experts believe that "the effects of a government shutdown on the implementation of the ACA (Affordable Care Act) are likely to be pretty small," said Paul Van de Water, a policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington-based non-profit think tank.

The main reason, he said, is that the money flowing to the 16 states and the nation's capital that are running their own ACA exchange is what's called a "permanent appropriation," enshrined in the 2010 healthcare reform law. Because the funds are not subject to annual appropriations, they will continue to be available to states that need to pay employees and contractors and buy equipment and supplies.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

4. How many House members are stockholders in the health insurance companies, directly or indirectly?

[frazzled]

7. Hello? You don't undo an enacted law by defunding it

I mean, you could ... and that is precisely what they have been trying to do, after 42 unsuccessful attempts to repeal it through legislation.

The democratic process demands that an enacted law be undone only by repealing it with another law. Not by circumventing the process and trying to get what you couldn't get through legislation by blocking funding to it. That is rule by the minority. That's a coup.

[ellenfl]

10. it's been working with other laws . . . like dodd/frank and consumer protection. eom

[malaise]

8. Because it is the fugging law

and nothing they try will change that.
I heard one of them spinning that the law was having problems with legitimacy - damn they are fucking dumb.

[Enrique]

9. not a dumb question imho

here's a document that lays out how the appropriations process relates to the ACA. It's not simple unfortunately.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43246.pdf

[lumberjack_jeff]

11. Also because it was unnecessary to "fund" it.

The law was written in such a way that it was revenue neutral, and in fact lowered the deficit.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/04/09/official-sources-agree-affordable-care-act-reduces-deficit

Congress would have to borrow $200 million to "defund" it.