HILLYER: Derail Obamacare before it derails Alabama’s economy

Why would conservatives use taxpayer dollars to bankroll something they know will fail?

That’s what we must ask ourselves in the debate over whether or not defunding Obamacare should be on the table in the latest budget compromise in Washington.

Only in Washington does it make sense to use someone else’s money to pay for something you already know is on the wrong track.

I’ve long denounced Obama’s central accomplishment (if one can call it that) as an unwarranted monstrosity that’s just warming up when it comes to the havoc it can wreck on our healthcare system, and on our entire economy.

Democratic Senator Max Baucus – an architect of the law – called it a “train wreck.”  As I’ve written before, many of his colleagues went on the record in voting to repeal the medical device tax, a tax thatpunished innovators like our small medical manufacturers.

The administration itself followed that up by delaying the employer mandate, clearly showing its own woeful lack of preparedness as well as the law’s fundamentally flawed design.

And the issue of the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) still remains. The potential there for near-unlimited power handed on a platter to a panel of 15 bureaucrats is astounding, and it’s even caused Howard Dean to take to the pages of The Wall Street Journal to bemoan its issues.

“However, rate setting—the essential mechanism of the IPAB—has a 40-year track record of failure,” he wrote. “The IPAB will cause frustration to providers and patients alike, and it will fail to control costs,”

Unelected bureaucrats handed a seat of power will still fail to achieve their goals, instead employing unchecked power for the sake of unchecked power? Who knew; it almost makes you want to scream.

IPAB alone is reason enough for Republicans to stand in a single-file line voting to defund Obamacare, but it doesn’t stop there.

Individual state studies have repeatedly shown that premium costs will be hijacked and shot through the roof by Obamacare’s implementation, directly contradicting the repeated claims of Nancy Pelosi and other left-wingers.

An alarming, though hardly surprising, slew of polls report that small business owners aren’t prepared for the regulatory deluge coming with the law, and the likelihood of middle-class families losing their current coverage for the sake of government overreach increases by the day.

That leaves the American people footing the bill for higher costs, less access to healthcare, fewer jobs, and all-out regulatory overload. As for the political consequences of defunding the law, well, it’s more unpopular than ever.

The law itself is an unmitigated train wreck, but we can’t count on it to collapse under its own weight. I’m proud to stand with the House members and senators fighting for defunding Obamacare. The people of my district can’t wait any longer, nor can the middle-class families and small businesses across the country facing uncertainty and a still-stagnant economy.

Quin Hillyer is a candidate for Congress in Alabama’s 1st district. Read more here and follow him on twitter @QuinHillyer.