Cochran Backs Attempts to Defund Affordable Care Act

Press Release

U.S. Senator Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) this week participated in an effort to deprive federal funding for implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), specifically the health care reform law mandate for individuals to purchase insurance or be taxed.

Cochran cosponsored ACA-related amendments during the Senate Appropriations Committee markup of the FY2014 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (Labor-HHS) Appropriations Bill on Thursday. In the end, Cochran voted against the overall $783.4 billion bill following the party-line defeat of several amendments directed at halting implementation of President Obama's flawed 2010 health care reform law. The funding bill was approved on a 16-14 vote.

"Continuous reports of delays and exemptions, combined with complex new regulations and penalties associated with that law, are affecting how families and businesses view their economic future. We are beginning to see what many of us suspected when the law was enacted: its cost and scope are too great," Cochran said.

"The amendments offered were motivated by the proposition that more taxpayer dollars should not be directed toward the health care law if the administration cannot implement it in a manner that will not punish families, individuals and businesses," he said.

Cochran joined Senator Dan Coats (R-Ind.) in offering an amendment that would prohibit the use of federal funding for the insurance exchanges if those federal- or state-run exchanges are not ready to enroll American consumers by Oct. 1, 2013, as clearly mandated in the ACA. This amendment is closely related to the Exchange Sunset Act (S.1154) that Cochran cosponsored in June. The Coats-Cochran amendment was blocked on a partisan 16-14 vote.

The Government Accountability Office recently issued a report that said "the timely and smooth implementation of the exchanges by October 2013 cannot yet be determined."

Cochran, who serves on the Senate Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee, also supported the following amendments offered by the subcommittee's ranking Republican, Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.). Each amendment was cut short on party-line votes by the full committee.
* Individual Mandate -- Amendment cosponsored by Cochran to prohibit any funds to implement the ACA mandate that all individuals purchase health insurance
* Employer Mandate -- Amendment cosponsored by Cochran to prohibit any funds to implement the employer mandate requiring companies with more than 50 employees to provide health insurance coverage or be fined $2,000 per worker for each full-time employee without health insurance
* Health Insurance Exchanges -- Amendment to transfer $1.41 billion increase in the FY2014 Labor-HHS Appropriations Bill for health insurance exchange implementation to the National Institutes of Health to support biomedical research
* Medicare Cuts -- Amendment to transfer $15 million to the Children's Hospital Graduate Medical Education program from the Independent Payment Advisory Board that was created within the ACA to identify cuts to the Medicare program

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