Revealed: Letters From Republicans Seeking Obamacare Money

[Synthaholic]

Revealed: Letters From Republicans Seeking Obamacare Money



It’s the height of hypocrisy: They call for repeal of the law but plead for its dollars on behalf of constituents.






Even before President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, Republicans were vowing to repeal it. It’s no wonder, because polls showed that the basic elements of the ACA were quite popular, and there was a real danger that it would become more so as people found out that the plan denounced as a “monstrosity” by the National Republican Senatorial Committee would not trample on their liberties so much as help protect their health. Desperate to avoid this, the GOP-controlled House has voted no fewer than thirty-seven times to repeal Obamacare in the three years since it was enacted.


Now letters produced by a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that many of these same anti-Obamacare Republicans have solicited grants from the very program they claim to despise. This is evidence not merely of shameless hypocrisy but of the fact that the ACA bestows tangible benefits that even Congress’s most extreme right-wing ideologues are hard-pressed to deny to their constituents.


As I reported here last September, Congressman Paul Ryan, who as Mitt Romney’s running mate in 2012 called for its repeal, sent a letter requesting ACA money for health clinics in his district two years earlier. The Nation has obtained documents revealing that at least twenty other Obamacare-bashing GOP lawmakers have similarly pleaded for ACA funds on behalf of constituents. Among them are Kristi Noem, a Republican lawmaker from South Dakota likely to run for the Senate next year, as well as Ohio Senator Rob Portman, who has been touted as a potential GOP presidential candidate in 2016.


In one of two letters sent by Portman to the Department of Health and Human Services, the senator requested ACA funds to help a federal health center in Cleveland, where the money could help “an additional 8,966 uninsured individuals” to receive
”essential services,” in his words. In Noem’s case, the congresswoman requested ACA funds to construct a community health center in Rapid City to provide primary services to the uninsured. Both Noem and Portman won office in 2010 campaigning vigorously against the law and have since worked to repeal it.


Though notably less transparent, the behavior of these GOP lawmakers parallels that of GOP governors like Arizona’s Jan Brewer, who blast the president’s health reform package while embracing the millions in Medicaid funds that it provides.


The letter writers include GOP rank-and-file Congress members, leaders and committee chairs, all of whom have supported the repeal effort. David Valadao, for example, a freshman representative who campaigned last year on his opposition to Obamacare, requested funds in a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius two years ago for a program to improve “the general health” of the Fresno County area, which he then served as a California assemblyman. Congressman Jeff Denham, a two-term GOP lawmaker who won his seat with support from Tea Party activists, penned a letter recommending the same application for Fresno County. The county Department of Public Health won the grant. Valadao’s and Denham’s offices declined to comment.


*snip*


Texas Senator John Cornyn, the Republican whip, wrote to the Centers for Disease Control to recommend a grant for Houston and Harris County. Congressman Michael McCaul, a Republican and the chair of the Homeland Security Committee, wrote a letter praising the same grant request, calling the effort a “crucial initiative to achieve a healthier Houston/Harris County.” Senators Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Mark Kirk of Illinois and Thad Cochran of Mississippi also recommended grant request approval for public health or health clinic funding.


House Republicans and the Senate Republican Policy Committee have trashed the ACA’s Community Transformation grants as an Obamacare “slush fund.” In the letters seeking these grants, however, GOP lawmakers have heaped praise on their potential. Cornyn writes in his letter that the grant would help “improve the health and quality of life of area residents.” Congressman Aaron Schock, a Republican from Illinois, congratulated a local nonprofit for winning a Community Transformation grant, noting that the program will give “people the tools to live healthier and longer lives.”


*snip*

 

[Synthaholic]

It goes on and on.

These Republicans are some of the most dishonest people to ever hold elective office in this country.

 

[Political Junky]

Love it, all at the trough.

 

[martybegan]

It goes on and on.

These Republicans are some of the most dishonest people to ever hold elective office in this country.

Thier consituients are paying into it via taxes, so they should get the benefit. It would only be hypocrisy if they wanted to keep it for themselves and repeal it for anyone else.

But of course you knew that, and yet still had to post your twatty leftist drivel.

 

[Synthaholic]

It goes on and on.

These Republicans are some of the most dishonest people to ever hold elective office in this country.

Thier consituients are paying into it via taxes, so they should get the benefit. It would only be hypocrisy if they wanted to keep it for themselves and repeal it for anyone else.

But of course you knew that, and yet still had to post your twatty leftist drivel.

Really? What Obamacare taxes are you talking about, and how much had people paid in these taxes in 2010?

Answer: none.

Why are the same Republicans who are trying to repeal it and vilify it in their press briefings also praising it when asking for the funding?

 

[martybegan]

It goes on and on.

These Republicans are some of the most dishonest people to ever hold elective office in this country.

Thier consituients are paying into it via taxes, so they should get the benefit. It would only be hypocrisy if they wanted to keep it for themselves and repeal it for anyone else.

But of course you knew that, and yet still had to post your twatty leftist drivel.

Really? What Obamacare taxes are you talking about, and how much had people paid in these taxes in 2010?

Answer: none.

Why are the same Republicans who are trying to repeal it and vilify it in their press briefings also praising it when asking for the funding?

Taxes in general, and again, you knew that.

Again, no hypocrisy here, as if something is availible, they should benefit from it. Working to repeal it, and using it when it is the law are seperate items.

And any funding request has to suck up to those who authorize it. Again nothing new here, especially your hack twattling.

 

[Synthaholic]

Thier consituients are paying into it via taxes, so they should get the benefit. It would only be hypocrisy if they wanted to keep it for themselves and repeal it for anyone else.

But of course you knew that, and yet still had to post your twatty leftist drivel.

Really? What Obamacare taxes are you talking about, and how much had people paid in these taxes in 2010?

Answer: none.

Why are the same Republicans who are trying to repeal it and vilify it in their press briefings also praising it when asking for the funding?

Taxes in general, and again, you knew that.

Again, no hypocrisy here, as if something is availible, they should benefit from it. Working to repeal it, and using it when it is the law are seperate items.

And any funding request has to suck up to those who authorize it. Again nothing new here, especially your hack twattling.

You're admitting that conservatives are fake, phony hypocrites, without the personal integrity to live the words they speak to others?

I agree with that!

 

[Greenbeard]

That's encouraging. The ACA is intended to make life better--good on these GOPers for recognizing that potential and facilitating it.

 

[squinch]

Thier consituients are paying into it via taxes, so they should get the benefit. It would only be hypocrisy if they wanted to keep it for themselves and repeal it for anyone else.

But of course you knew that, and yet still had to post your twatty leftist drivel.

Really? What Obamacare taxes are you talking about, and how much had people paid in these taxes in 2010?

Answer: none.

Why are the same Republicans who are trying to repeal it and vilify it in their press briefings also praising it when asking for the funding?

Taxes in general, and again, you knew that.

Again, no hypocrisy here, as if something is availible, they should benefit from it. Working to repeal it, and using it when it is the law are seperate items.

And any funding request has to suck up to those who authorize it. Again nothing new here, especially your hack twattling.

Why did it take the Freedom of Information Act to make their actions public? How is this any different from Ayn Rand applying for Medicare under a fake name?

 

[Mac1958]

.

Certainly predictable.

Once the goodies start flowing from Central Planning, you have to take them or you're out. We've passed the tipping point.

.

 

[martybegan]

Really? What Obamacare taxes are you talking about, and how much had people paid in these taxes in 2010?

Answer: none.

Why are the same Republicans who are trying to repeal it and vilify it in their press briefings also praising it when asking for the funding?

Taxes in general, and again, you knew that.

Again, no hypocrisy here, as if something is availible, they should benefit from it. Working to repeal it, and using it when it is the law are seperate items.

And any funding request has to suck up to those who authorize it. Again nothing new here, especially your hack twattling.

You're admitting that conservatives are fake, phony hypocrites, without the personal integrity to live the words they speak to others?

I agree with that!

What part of "any" don't you get?

Again, it would only be hypocricy if they wanted it for themselves and not for others...

Asshole.

 

[Black_Label]

It's happening with the recent disasters in GOP states as well. The right wing pieces of shit bitch and bitch about "cut spending!" "stop the handouts!" but when it benefits them and the checkbook is open, the GOP trash are the first ones in line with their hands out and mouths open going "gimme gimme gimme!!!"

 

[DiamondDave]

Politicians are all about power.. and REP politicians are not exempt from it.. they will take what they are offered... does not mean I will start voting for left wingers though, just because they take while not preaching not to take... I will continue searching for and supporting those who talk the talk and walk the walk of fiscal conservatism

 

[martybegan]

It's happening with the recent disasters in GOP states as well. The right wing pieces of shit bitch and bitch about "cut spending!" "stop the handouts!" but when it benefits them and the checkbook is open, the GOP trash are the first ones in line with their hands out and mouths open going "gimme gimme gimme!!!"

Once the money is budgeted and allocated, you would have to be a fool not to try to get some of it for your consitutents.

Again the issue would be if they cancelled the funding for everyone else and kept it for themselves.

You seem to suffer from the same strain of stupidity as synthetwat.

 

[The Rabbi]

Revealed: Letters From Republicans Seeking Obamacare Money



It’s the height of hypocrisy: They call for repeal of the law but plead for its dollars on behalf of constituents.

That old "Republicans are hypocrites" thing is so last year. Do you take every deduction on your income taxes, regardless of whether you agree with it or not? Of course you. Or did if you actually paid income taxes.
Fail.

 

[Little-Acorn]

Obamacare is presently the law of the land. Insurance rates are going up, taxes are going up, etc. to support it.

It takes a liberal to find something "wrong" with the people who are paying all that extra money, using legal means to get some of it back. The libs are trying to pretend that means the people who paid, must have approved of the plan in the frist place.

What will we hear next from the liberal hysterics? Next time a conservative gets mugged, and demands that the thief give him his money back, will the liberals announce that this means the conservative approved of the mugging in the first place?

 

[Stephanie]

brother, this is kind of CRAP you get from these left wing sites

it keeps their sheep entertained and they can scream about, hypocrisy...if they want to see hypocrites they should look in a mirror

these left wing site ARE WORTHLESS for informing people of the REAL problems going on..just stir up hate is their mission

 

[Sunshine]

Revealed: Letters From Republicans Seeking Obamacare Money



It’s the height of hypocrisy: They call for repeal of the law but plead for its dollars on behalf of constituents.






Even before President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, Republicans were vowing to repeal it. It’s no wonder, because polls showed that the basic elements of the ACA were quite popular, and there was a real danger that it would become more so as people found out that the plan denounced as a “monstrosity” by the National Republican Senatorial Committee would not trample on their liberties so much as help protect their health. Desperate to avoid this, the GOP-controlled House has voted no fewer than thirty-seven times to repeal Obamacare in the three years since it was enacted.


Now letters produced by a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that many of these same anti-Obamacare Republicans have solicited grants from the very program they claim to despise. This is evidence not merely of shameless hypocrisy but of the fact that the ACA bestows tangible benefits that even Congress’s most extreme right-wing ideologues are hard-pressed to deny to their constituents.


As I reported here last September, Congressman Paul Ryan, who as Mitt Romney’s running mate in 2012 called for its repeal, sent a letter requesting ACA money for health clinics in his district two years earlier. The Nation has obtained documents revealing that at least twenty other Obamacare-bashing GOP lawmakers have similarly pleaded for ACA funds on behalf of constituents. Among them are Kristi Noem, a Republican lawmaker from South Dakota likely to run for the Senate next year, as well as Ohio Senator Rob Portman, who has been touted as a potential GOP presidential candidate in 2016.


In one of two letters sent by Portman to the Department of Health and Human Services, the senator requested ACA funds to help a federal health center in Cleveland, where the money could help “an additional 8,966 uninsured individuals” to receive
”essential services,” in his words. In Noem’s case, the congresswoman requested ACA funds to construct a community health center in Rapid City to provide primary services to the uninsured. Both Noem and Portman won office in 2010 campaigning vigorously against the law and have since worked to repeal it.


Though notably less transparent, the behavior of these GOP lawmakers parallels that of GOP governors like Arizona’s Jan Brewer, who blast the president’s health reform package while embracing the millions in Medicaid funds that it provides.


The letter writers include GOP rank-and-file Congress members, leaders and committee chairs, all of whom have supported the repeal effort. David Valadao, for example, a freshman representative who campaigned last year on his opposition to Obamacare, requested funds in a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius two years ago for a program to improve “the general health” of the Fresno County area, which he then served as a California assemblyman. Congressman Jeff Denham, a two-term GOP lawmaker who won his seat with support from Tea Party activists, penned a letter recommending the same application for Fresno County. The county Department of Public Health won the grant. Valadao’s and Denham’s offices declined to comment.


*snip*


Texas Senator John Cornyn, the Republican whip, wrote to the Centers for Disease Control to recommend a grant for Houston and Harris County. Congressman Michael McCaul, a Republican and the chair of the Homeland Security Committee, wrote a letter praising the same grant request, calling the effort a “crucial initiative to achieve a healthier Houston/Harris County.” Senators Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Mark Kirk of Illinois and Thad Cochran of Mississippi also recommended grant request approval for public health or health clinic funding.


House Republicans and the Senate Republican Policy Committee have trashed the ACA’s Community Transformation grants as an Obamacare “slush fund.” In the letters seeking these grants, however, GOP lawmakers have heaped praise on their potential. Cornyn writes in his letter that the grant would help “improve the health and quality of life of area residents.” Congressman Aaron Schock, a Republican from Illinois, congratulated a local nonprofit for winning a Community Transformation grant, noting that the program will give “people the tools to live healthier and longer lives.”


*snip*

Why should they not do both of those things? Now, no doubt, is how stupid libs are. A lot of people on Medicare currently opposed it back in the 70s.

 

[Stephanie]

Revealed: Letters From Republicans Seeking Obamacare Money



It’s the height of hypocrisy: They call for repeal of the law but plead for its dollars on behalf of constituents.






Even before President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, Republicans were vowing to repeal it. It’s no wonder, because polls showed that the basic elements of the ACA were quite popular, and there was a real danger that it would become more so as people found out that the plan denounced as a “monstrosity” by the National Republican Senatorial Committee would not trample on their liberties so much as help protect their health. Desperate to avoid this, the GOP-controlled House has voted no fewer than thirty-seven times to repeal Obamacare in the three years since it was enacted.


Now letters produced by a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that many of these same anti-Obamacare Republicans have solicited grants from the very program they claim to despise. This is evidence not merely of shameless hypocrisy but of the fact that the ACA bestows tangible benefits that even Congress’s most extreme right-wing ideologues are hard-pressed to deny to their constituents.


As I reported here last September, Congressman Paul Ryan, who as Mitt Romney’s running mate in 2012 called for its repeal, sent a letter requesting ACA money for health clinics in his district two years earlier. The Nation has obtained documents revealing that at least twenty other Obamacare-bashing GOP lawmakers have similarly pleaded for ACA funds on behalf of constituents. Among them are Kristi Noem, a Republican lawmaker from South Dakota likely to run for the Senate next year, as well as Ohio Senator Rob Portman, who has been touted as a potential GOP presidential candidate in 2016.


In one of two letters sent by Portman to the Department of Health and Human Services, the senator requested ACA funds to help a federal health center in Cleveland, where the money could help “an additional 8,966 uninsured individuals” to receive
”essential services,” in his words. In Noem’s case, the congresswoman requested ACA funds to construct a community health center in Rapid City to provide primary services to the uninsured. Both Noem and Portman won office in 2010 campaigning vigorously against the law and have since worked to repeal it.


Though notably less transparent, the behavior of these GOP lawmakers parallels that of GOP governors like Arizona’s Jan Brewer, who blast the president’s health reform package while embracing the millions in Medicaid funds that it provides.


The letter writers include GOP rank-and-file Congress members, leaders and committee chairs, all of whom have supported the repeal effort. David Valadao, for example, a freshman representative who campaigned last year on his opposition to Obamacare, requested funds in a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius two years ago for a program to improve “the general health” of the Fresno County area, which he then served as a California assemblyman. Congressman Jeff Denham, a two-term GOP lawmaker who won his seat with support from Tea Party activists, penned a letter recommending the same application for Fresno County. The county Department of Public Health won the grant. Valadao’s and Denham’s offices declined to comment.


*snip*


Texas Senator John Cornyn, the Republican whip, wrote to the Centers for Disease Control to recommend a grant for Houston and Harris County. Congressman Michael McCaul, a Republican and the chair of the Homeland Security Committee, wrote a letter praising the same grant request, calling the effort a “crucial initiative to achieve a healthier Houston/Harris County.” Senators Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Mark Kirk of Illinois and Thad Cochran of Mississippi also recommended grant request approval for public health or health clinic funding.


House Republicans and the Senate Republican Policy Committee have trashed the ACA’s Community Transformation grants as an Obamacare “slush fund.” In the letters seeking these grants, however, GOP lawmakers have heaped praise on their potential. Cornyn writes in his letter that the grant would help “improve the health and quality of life of area residents.” Congressman Aaron Schock, a Republican from Illinois, congratulated a local nonprofit for winning a Community Transformation grant, noting that the program will give “people the tools to live healthier and longer lives.”


*snip*

Why should they not do both of those things? Now, no doubt, is how stupid libs are. A lot of people on Medicare currently opposed it back in the 70s.

you think they'd be embarrassed to post this stuff...petty and worthless.. but stirs up the hate for others

the nation should change it's name to hatenation

 

[Greenbeard]

.

Certainly predictable.

Once the goodies start flowing from Central Planning, you have to take them or you're out. We've passed the tipping point.

.

"Goodies" like health clinics in underserved areas?

Sometimes I honestly can't tell if you people are fucking serious.