Top 2 Myths About Defunding Obamacare

by Amy Payne, Heritage Foundation, August 19, 2013

Critics are giving the wrong answers to these questions. Watch our new video to hear these myths debunked.

Myth #1: Congress cannot defund Obamacare.

Congress defunds mandatory spending on appropriations bills every year. In fact, it has even defunded part of Obamacare already—billions of dollars in “mandatory spending” for the co-op program.

>>> See our fact sheet: Can Appropriations Bills Defund Obamacare?

Myth #2: Obamacare opponents are trying to shut down the government.

This isn’t true, either.

As Heritage health care expert Chris Jacobs says in the video above, “Conservatives want to keep the federal government open—we just want to shut down Obamacare.”

Legal expert Hans von Spakovsky explains how this could be done. Funding the federal government—with the exception of Obamacare—“would force the President and his supporters to explain why they would shut down the government to fund an unfair, unaffordable, and highly unpopular law that is so unworkable that the Administration has itself admitted it cannot manage to implement major portions on time such as the employer mandate to provide insurance.”

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Quick Hits:

• Why the “young invincibles” won’t participate in the Obamacare exchanges—and why it matters.
• Republicans are getting an earful about defunding Obamacare from constituents at town halls this month.
• A certain show about duck hunting officially became the most-watched non-fiction series telecast in cable TV history.
• Mercedes-Benz is experimenting with a new kind of navigation—using Google Glass.
• It turns out that under Obamacare, the government may fund abortion coverage for federal workers, despite a ban.
• Independent bookstores are getting creative in multiple ways to avoid going out of business.