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The first battle of the next Tea Party wave — December 5 rally in Nashville against Obamacare exchange

The first battle of the next Tea Party wave — December 5 rally in Nashville against Obamacare exchange

Opposition to Obamacare fueled the Tea Party wave of 2009-2010.  The next wave will include continued opposition to Obamacare, along with other fiscal issues, The Tea Party tsunami at the gates.

The fight over Obamacare as a law ended when Chief Justice John Roberts enganged in mental gymnastics to uphold the law under Congress’ taxing authority, and then again when Obama’s reelection removed any possibility of complete repeal.

The fight over Obamacare now is over implementation.  There are inherent problems in the law itself which will raise popular ire, but the battle now is over exchanges and other aspects of implementation.

One of the first orders up is whether states will implement the Obamacare exchanges, or let it default to the federal government, which will have a difficult time doing so.

Only 13 states have taken steps to set up the exchanges, and 17 state governors have declared an intention not to set up exchanges.

One state where there is a disconnect between the population and the governor is Tennessee, where Governor Bill Haslam is wavering.  The Lt. Governor has come out against implementation.

In response, a variety of groups led by local Tea Party organizations are organizing rallies for December 5, as reflected in this announcement being circulated by e-mail and on the web (h/t Linda in Tennessee):

SURG logo

Please Join us at the JUST SAY NO RALLY Wed Dec 5, 12 Noon at the Capitol

Your help is needed to stop an  Obamacare State Exchange in TN. Governor Haslam must make a decision by  December 14 and reports indicate he is still undecided. Please join us as we raise our voices together  and petition the Governor to JUST SAY NO to an Obamacare State Exchange.  We will have a petition for you to sign at the Rally.

Here is a map link: http://goo.gl/pQXUl. We will Rally on the East Side of the Tennessee State Capitol Building at 12 Noon on Wednesday, December 5.

Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/events/386327168116347/

Additional Resources

Why Tennessee Should Not Creat an Obamacare Exchange [pdf]

Cato Institute: The Road to Repeal Starts in the States [pdf]

No Obamacare Exchanges by Michael F Cannon [pdf]

Obamacare Section 1311 State Exchanges [pdf]

Additional Volunteer Needs:  We are looking for someone who can update all of our online presences with events like these (Facebook, FreedomWorks, and our own website calendar).  Email [email protected] if you are interested.

Here is the form letter Gov. Haslam sends in response to letters on the topic:

Subject: Responding to your message

Dear Friend:

Thank you for contacting me regarding your concerns about the federal health care legislation and healthcare exchanges. Listening to and learning from Tennesseans is very important to me, and I am committed to better understanding your concerns.

I believe there is a need for real, market-based healthcare reform in America that will increase accessibility while working to control the costs that place an unfair burden on so many Tennesseans. I have actively opposed the unfunded mandates that resulted from the healthcare bill President Obama signed into law on March 23, 2010. The law is an incredible overreach by the federal government that will be costly, and it does nothing to solve the crisis of the cost of healthcare in our country. Earlier this year, I joined with other conservative governors in signing an amicus brief to the Supreme Court opposing this law.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court upheld the majority of the law this summer, including the provision that requires states to either participate in a federal exchange or establish a state-run exchange. Because of this, there is not an option to “opt-out” of this law. If that option existed, the decision would be easy.

If Tennessee decides not to set up an exchange, one will be set up for us by the federal government and run out of Washington, DC. There are still a lot of unanswered questions out of Washington about the level of flexibility and control the state would actually have in running an exchange. These and other questions must be answered by the US Department of Health and Human Services before a decision can be made.

I have heard concerns that a state-run exchange could potentially violate the Tennessee Healthcare Freedom Act. That act specifically addresses agents of the state enforcing a requirement to buy health insurance. Because purchasing from the exchange is optional and no one is required to purchase from the exchange, it is not affected by our state law. As far as the exchange is concerned, Tennesseans are still free to purchase their own insurance from the insurer of their choice, or their employer where provided. The individual mandate in the ACA is enforced by the IRS, not the State of Tennessee.

The federal government has extended the deadline for states to declare their intentions until December 14, 2012. While we are waiting for Washington to answer our questions and address our concerns, we will use this time to continue to listen to constituents and consult with legislators and other conservative governors around the country to make sure we have as much information as possible to make the best decision for the people of Tennessee.

Warmest regards,

Bill Haslam

If any readers attend the rally, please send me photos, video and reports.

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Comments

Unless we find some way to stop it, ObamaCare will cause the end of America.

That is NOT hyperbole. EVERY POSSIBLE MEANS SHOULD BE TRIED.

What about recent report that Obama is fining red states who refuse the exchanges? (in Newsmax headline.) Did HHS just come up with this out of thin air?

    Midwest Rhino in reply to raven. | December 2, 2012 at 5:13 pm

    it seems they did, and if they can’t use Medicare to punish the states (per SCOTUS), how can they now impose this penalty?

    Perhaps the whole of Obamacare should be challenged again on grounds that it was passed without being written. Is a law imposing Queen Sebelius on us constitutional?

Resist every way possible. Opt out where opting out is possible. Drag your feet implementing it. Challenge every aspect in court.

GOP House-listen up. Don’t fund it. Don’t fund the hiring of IRS agents or of any other aspect of it.

There are myriad ways to sabotage its implementation. Get creative.

I did NOT vote for Governor Haslame.

The left thrives on crisis management, even if they have to create the crisis. Between the EPA proclaiming life giving CO2 a pollutant, and Obamacare being passed without being read or even fully WRITTEN, the fiscal cliff may be the smaller problem.

Obama requesting removal of the debt ceiling is tantamount to a request to become dictator. He already acts like one, and the sycophant media treats him as one.

I do agree Obama has a mandate … to do what he was elected to do his first term. When he made the promise to halve the deficit, the deficit was at $550 billion. At the same time he said he’d keep out the lobbyists and open negotiations to C-Span.

Obama instead found crisis intervention, with a complicit “sensationalism gets ratings” media, to be the more direct route to their fascist dreams.

When the RNC agreed to have all the debates run by the left, and Justice Roberts sides with the far left, and Romney goes timid on Benghazi … I begin to wonder how deep the rabbit hole goes.

The most heated rage seems reserved for the Tea Party. The whole Occupy movement was essentially an organized counterattack. From the right, the Santelli fiscal reform Tea Partiers were marginalized by the evangelicals.

    Midwest Rhino in reply to Midwest Rhino. | December 2, 2012 at 11:05 am

    The big tent Tea Party has to focus on fiscal reform and self reliance only, the break down of which is how the country is being defeated. The biggest tool used against Republicans was the fear that they would be Nanny State government when it came to early abortion.

    No matter how cleverly Ryan answered the questions (as opposed to Akin et. al.), the Republican platform HAD to include the belief that a two cell sperm and egg was a citizen that would be given full constitutional rights, more radical than the Bible itself. Romney was FORCED into that position, being “radical” only in that he made an exception for rape.

    So with Obama given four more years to makes his unions and bankers even richer and stronger, are we going to keep destroying the Tea Party movement with that radical insistence? From the responses I get here, it appears the answer is yes, and I will move to the LIB category for the next election, with MANY others tired of fighting the evangelicals that impose their religion.

    We really need a good Rasmussen poll on exactly what percent support imposing that radical belief on the populace. For the next election, we should be clear on what the big Achilles heal really is. Government imposed religious ideals is a fundamental element that our constitution defends AGAINST. The Tea Party has to resolve that issue, since the RNC can’t.

      Ragspierre in reply to Midwest Rhino. | December 2, 2012 at 12:12 pm

      “We really need a good Rasmussen poll on exactly what percent support imposing that radical belief on the populace.”

      You keep carping on that, and it is essentially a lie.

      You seem compelled to adopt the position of the Collective. A reversal of Roe would not mean “imposing that radical belief” on any FLUCKING body.

      All it would do is return the matter to the states, where it resided Constitutionally before a few unelected elitists in black robes cut a new “right” out of whole cloth.

        Midwest Rhino in reply to Ragspierre. | December 2, 2012 at 4:24 pm

        … and Ryan should have said that (returns to states) in the debate when the issue came up, but he just said “life begins at conception, Romney makes an exception for rape”.

        The left has 50% (just making up numbers for my point) that believe in 9th month abortion and 50% that support the Muslim Brotherhood more than Israel, but you don’t see them put that political loser in their platform.

        Republicans have 20% that think abortion at any stage should be illegal, yet that is required in the platform, or the righteous right will perform a suicidal bombing of the candidate if they do not support that plank.

        That has to be understood, that plank must be removed, candidates must be trained to say if Roe v Wade ever happened to come up again, it would only return to the states, but they are only concerned with saving our nation, NOT fighting to change abortion law.

        If it comes up down the road, fine … return it to the states would be great. But let’s be as smart as the left is about some of their less than worthy intentions, and not force political losing positions into the plank.

        Simple enough … but we are still shooting ourselves in the foot every time. If Romney had kept his marginal pro-choice position, perhaps he would have won. It was a BIG deal.

      Agreed, but if there was going to be some kind of tea party second wave, it would have happened on November 6th.

      It didn’t happen.

      All the information known today was known prior to November 6th, yet the crowds that profess so much opposition to Obama and his agenda simply didn’t materialize. So, I say again to all who call for this second rally, where is it supposed to come from? Is this not too little, too late?

      If there was energy out there for a fiscal reform tea party second wave, we would have seen it on election day, and we didn’t.

      I agree there was a kind of evangelical capture of the tea party moniker after the initial rallies, and the centrists, independents and Democrats that responded to Santelli got confused. Was this thing about social issues, or the debt, budget, fiscal matters and role of government? The social issues being associated with the tp provided an easy target for the left, which proceeded to taint that label until no one wanted to be associated with it.

      I still think there’s a broad center out there, a mainstream that worries mightily about the budget, spending, government overreach and civil liberties in an age of terrorism. But they want to be as far away from the Mourdocks and Aikens as possible. Hate to be a wet blanket but fighting the media culture, Democrats, White House and more than a few Republicans to address this will take a strategic vision and tactical brilliance I have yet to find.

        Ragspierre in reply to jordan. | December 2, 2012 at 3:00 pm

        “Was this thing about social issues, or the debt, budget, fiscal matters and role of government?”

        This is the same false dichotomy I see here sometimes.

        What, of all the things Conservatives support, CANNOT be cast as a “social issue”?

        Helping people? Social issue.

        Spending to “invest” in our society? Social issue.

        Gun control? Social issue.

        Health care? Social issue.

        Climate crisis? Social issue.

        Please… Stop with this nonsense. The Collective LIES about everything. You do nobody any favors when you adopt their lies.

          jordan in reply to Ragspierre. | December 2, 2012 at 6:07 pm

          I’m using the terms as current debate would have it, i.e., separating the financial and spending issues (fiscal and budgetary) from the social (abortion, gay marriage). Immigration is both an economic and cultural, and conservatives can see a problem with it from any angle.

          But I was at that first large rally on the Hill, when staffers waved a Gadsen flag out the window, and grandparents sat in lawnchairs passing around sunscreen, and rode with mobs of suburban moms back on the metro. I went with a die-hard Democrat and large ACLU donor. It was all about Obamacare, relationship of the citizen to the state, the proper role of government, and the insanity of new entitlements during recession and with crippling debt (now even higher.) Yes, we cleaned up after ourselves. Later, what people were calling “tea party” seemed to expand into religious areas that may have shed some initial supporters.

          I’m not complaining, just pointing out the downside of an organic and spontaneous movement that springs forth because many people arrive at the same judgment, and act in concert, but that has no single point of leadership.

          But I still have to ask, where are all those people? Why didn’t they come out and vote, when the issues remain as dire and intense now as they were then?

        Midwest Rhino in reply to jordan. | December 2, 2012 at 4:46 pm

        hey Jordan …

        the real Tea Party big tent has the broadest support. I think the hard core evangelicals have the least broad. Things under Obama will probably get worse, and not much blame can be placed on smaller government Tea Party. When Whoopi attacked Palin, she went right for separation of church and state. (and I’m guessing she was coached)

        Regardless of the clarity Palin or any Tea partier has on the issue, the “right to life” issue needs to be separate to broaden the tent. It’s not an active issue really, so why advertise it at ALL?

        Immigration may be another area where the Newt options are agreed on, then we speak in a more united voice. Democrats do this, emailing each other to use the exact right words. We need to maybe agree that those here for years must get a biometric ID and pay taxes, I think not a voting right or citizenship. We bring in more that we need, make it harder for those without ID. There will be gradually increasing disincentive to come here illegally, those here don’t get amnesty, but if they are worthy get to stay as our version of dhimmis (Christians in an Islamic conquered land … ha).

        The country is regressing from individual freedom, BACKWARDS (not Forward) toward state ownership of the individual. With Obama requesting a no limit credit card, negating the House, it should be clear to many that his Forward is back to sate control. The Tea party is still the answer.

          Ragspierre in reply to Midwest Rhino. | December 2, 2012 at 5:18 pm

          “…the real Tea Party…”

          ALWAYS love that, when somebody has that level of conceit to co-opt “the REAL” anything and pretend to speak for them!

          Just love it…

          If individual human beings have no right to life, you are kinda screwed, seems to me… But then I don’t deny any member of the human family their humanity.

          You may be right, but I’m still vexed as to why all those people didn’t get to the polls to vote, when surveys still show a majority oppose Obamacare, high taxes and big government. Having a big tent is great, including evangelicals, fiscal conservatives and small government types, but THEY failed to show up, too. So I don’t know where the constituency for this is any more. I mean, is anybody out there?

          I saw November 6th as the big rally that mattered, and that would show huge numbers of Americans rejected Obama’s vision, just as they loudly declared at Romney’s last few rallies. But they just never materialized, and didn’t vote.

          There’s a time for pretty hope, and there’s a time for brutal reality, and now we need the latter, if only to understand how the majority of the population sees these fundamental issues, especially limited government, spending, and the relationship of the citizen to the state. All other issues spring out of those principles, and conservatives need to be realistic about whether we’re seeing a fundamental shift in what people want or a one time election fluke.

          Ragspierre in reply to Midwest Rhino. | December 3, 2012 at 7:41 am

          I don’t know where he got his information, but Bill Whittle reported that, among conservatives unregistered to vote, the leading reason was they wanted to avoid jury service.

          If that is correct, we are well and truly screwed.

          Also, I wonder about some of your suppositions. Evangelicals turned out and voted Romney rather well, as did Libertarians, and independents. Not enough, to be sure. But check your numbers.

    Well said.

“The fight over Obamacare as a law ended when Chief Justice John Roberts enganged in mental gymnastics to uphold the law under Congress’ taxing authority, and then again when Obama’s reelection removed any possibility of complete repeal.”

Since “we” re-elected the anointed one for more “free stuff,” don’t we deserve the government that “we” embraced?

O’bammyCare is the law of the land and that along with the other pie-in-the-sky functions of a big nanny government will eventually collapse, (after I’ve gone I hope), and the survivors will have to pick up the pieces and trudge on.

The ONLY escape hatch that I can see is a GOP absolute majority in the 2014 elections for congress critters or a takeover by the generals.

whatta mess!

First-time commenter but long-time reader; I understand and fully support the opposition to “Obamacare”; what I don’t understand is if the states all refuse to open up their exchanges and the “exchange” system falls back to the Federal Gov’t by default, then isn’t the result a single-payer(?) system controlled by the U.S. Gov’t, which is what the liberals wanted from the beginning? What if the refusal by the states to open exchanges is playing right into the hands of the single-payer system?

    richard40 in reply to sd. | December 2, 2012 at 4:15 pm

    It does not matter if the states implment the exchanges, or the fed gov does, the result is the same, since the feds dictate all the exchange rules, the state has zero voice. So if the state does the exchange, they do the fed gov dirty work for them, and end up taking all the complaints from angry citizens, with zero control over the outcome. Why should they do that?? If Obama wants to dictate our health care, let the feds impliment it, so when it fails it is absolutely clear the fed gov is failing, instead of the state exchanges. Implimenting an exchange as a state just gives them responsibility, with zero authority, and makes them a fall guy for obamas failure, bad deal.

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