Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) believes that new revelations regarding taxpayers who have elected to pay a penalty instead rather than sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act show that the law needs to be repealed.
A report from the National Taxpayer Advocate, an independent organization the IRS, released on Wednesday showed that 6.6 million taxpayers paid a fine—on average, $190 per individual—for not having health coverage imposed this year under the Affordable Care Act. The figure exceeded the Obama administration’s initial estimate by 10 percent.
"It just shows why Obamacare is so bad," Jordan said in an interview on Capitol Hill on Thursday.
Jordan, one of the founders of the House Freedom Caucus, mentioned the possibility of repealing the Affordable Care Act using reconciliation, a budget maneuver that would require both chambers of Congress to agree on a budget resolution.
"We should do what we talked about doing, we use the reconciliation process to once again repeal it," Jordan urged. "Put it on the president’s desk and make him veto it."
From Jordan’s perspective, a veto from Obama of such a measure would not be a loss. "That keeps the issue front and center for the 2016 campaign," Jordan said.
Like the Supreme Court’s decision in favor of the sweeping healthcare law last month, Jordan said, such a veto would allow GOP presidential candidates to emphasize to voters the importance of electing a Republican president in order to do away with the Affordable Care Act.
Jordan said that Republicans should draw up plans for their own "replacement model," which he would design as a "patient-centered, family-centered" format that would empower the taxpayer to make his or her own healthcare decisions without such grave intervention by the federal government.
Under such a model, Jordan suggested, 6.6 million individuals wouldn’t choose to forgo health coverage and pay a fine.
"Almost everything they’ve told us about this law has turned out to be false," Jordan explained. He pointed to the administration’s broken promises regarding an individual’s ability to retain his or her health coverage, enjoy lower deductibles and premiums, and navigate a streamlined, secure online health exchange as reasons for which taxpayers are demonstrating their dissatisfaction with Obamacare.
"You don’t have to take my word for it," Jordan continued. "You can take the guy who was the architect of it, Jonathan Gruber, who couldn’t keep his mouth shut and ... [said] we lied to you, we weren’t transparent. And now we wonder why 6.6 million haven’t signed up and we wonder why Americans hate this law."
Jonathan Gruber, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist and Obamacare consultant, infamously declared that the law’s "lack of transparency" and the "stupidity of the American voter" were "critical" to its passage.
"It’s a mess and you have to put in place a model that empowers individuals to make healthcare decisions," Jordan declared.
The National Taxpayer Advocate report also said that 300,000 of the 6.6 million taxpayers who paid the penalty to the IRS overpaid the government by a total of $35 million.
The IRS has not confirmed whether it will return the money to the taxpayers.