
December 25, 2014


Gingrey Vows to Repeal Obamacare in First Term or Go Home

(Chris Maddaloni/CQ Roll Call File Photo)

Rep. Phil Gingrey, one of more than a half-dozen Republicans running for Georgia’s open Senate seat in 2014, vowed to repeal Obamacare in his first term as a senator or “go home.”

The six-term Georgia Republican made the promise in a television advertisement released Tuesday. Gingrey, a physician, is backing the 30-second spot with a six-figure buy to run for 10 days in Georgia’s four largest media markets, according to his spokesman.

“As a doctor, I took an oath to do no harm. And Obamacare is so harmful, I voted to repeal or defund it over 40 times,” Gingrey, wearing his white doctor’s coat, says in the ad. “But our efforts die in the Senate. I’ll help repeal Obamacare in my first term, or go home.”

Gingrey’s ad marks the first television spot in the race to replace retiring GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss.

Gingrey is one of at least eight GOP candidates seeking the seat. Other top Republicans in the race include Reps. Jack Kingston and Paul Broun, former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel and businessman David Perdue.

Whichever Republican emerges from the primary will face likely Democratic nominee Michelle Nunn in November 2014.

Georgia’s Senate race is rated a Republican Favored contest by Rothenberg Political Report/Roll Call.

  • E_in_Houston_TX

    Repeal ACA and replace with what? This begs the question. Will even poor people vote for this guy on repealing the healthcare law?

    • teapartyidiots

      It’s Georgia, so yeah, probably.

    • mabramso

      Nothing. I don’t see as the ACA has really helped many people at all. And it is ticking off millions of middle class voters who are getting cancellation notices from their insurance companies. Furthermore, your question assumes that the poor intend on staying poor. There are plenty of poor people who want to be middle class, and this makes it more difficult to become so.

      • PictouGene


        Well, of course, it hasn’t helped many people: it’s only been in existence for a little over a month.

        As to insurance cancellations, those can’t be blamed on the President or on the legislation: it is that the companies that are doing the cancellation were putting out schlock policies in the first place.

        Of course the poor don’t intend to stay poor. The problem is that there are no jobs for them. The ACA has nothing to do with the poor not being able to become middle class.

        Finally, there is a difference between “being poor” and being in the lower class”. You seem to conflate the two, which is an error People can still be “middle class” and also be poor. “poor” has to do with amount of money a person has. “Middle class” has to do with station in life. Example; many artists are “poor”, but have middle class values because of education and training

        • mabramso

          Granted, it’s only been in place for month. But your comments about the cancellations are absolute BS. The insurance companies were putting out policies that THEIR customers were satisfied with; otherwise, they would not have purchased them. Many do NOT want to pay for coverages they don’t need, especially at 2-3 times what they were paying before in premiums. The ACA was specifically designed to apply financial pressure to achieve EXACTLY what is happening now with respect to cancellations, and everybody knows this! The administration knew this in 2010. This IS a direct consequence of the law, and the GOP has been screaming about this for 3 years or so, because they KNEW this would happen. I certainly did.

          There are no jobs for the poor because Obama’s economic policies are crap, and much of it is because of Obamacare. 29-hour work weeks, usually with no benefits, are becoming the norm for non-skilled labor.

          I don’t make crass distinctions about people — never have. I refer ONLY to one’s income. And most people want to increase theirs.

          • PictouGene


            You are making a lot of assumptions:

            1: you’re assuming the people who had the sub standard policies bought them because they liked them. Maybe, maybe not. More than likely they bought them because it was the only thing they could get policies in Texas, for example, have been notorious for being skimpy on coverage, and then dropping the policy holder if a a claim were submitted. I speak from experience
            2: As to paying for coverage they don’t need, that’s the way insurance works. A standard policy is designed to cover a major portion of the population. As a result, some people will get coverage they feel they  don’t need. My current policy (for an individual, which I’ve had since I retired 22 years ago) has maternity and delivery coverage. Yet at my age, I don’t anticipate needing it. But the carrier (UHC) doesn’t have separate policies for males and females: one size fits all. If you’ve bought a car recently it probably has air bags and a rear seat tie down for an infant seat. My 2001 car does. I don’t plan on having an accident or needing an infant seat, but the manufacturer put those items in anyway.
            3:  The ACA was almost a photocopy of the Romney Care plan in Massachusetts, which is the plan designed by the Heritage Foundation (a Republican think tank) and first proposed back in 1995 as a counter to Hillary Care. n my opinion the reason the GOP has been screaming for three years is the same reason they screamed at President Clinton: he took their policies and called them his own. President Obama took some policies proposed by President Bush, changed the name, and promoted them as his own. The GOP, which had been for them a few months earlier, suddenly oppose them.
            Given your ability to foresee the future,  I suspect you have a great future as a fortune teller. Don’t quit your day job, yet, though.
            4: The economic policies are due to a failure of Congress, mainly the House, to pass jobs legislation. The President has been promoting such legislation since he took office, but the House to date has failed to budge.Apparently you don’t understand that for legislation to become law and go into effect, it must pass bot houses and then be signed by the President. To blame the President for the failures of Congress is to demonstrate ignorance of how the government works.
            5: 29 hour work weeks have been around for a long time, and have long been a dodge for employers to avoid paying benefits. Back in 2001, following retirement from an aerospace firm, I worked for a local office supply company. The owner tole me I could not work more than 29 hours, because he couldn’t afford benefits for me. That was not a problem for me, because I had benefits from the company I retired from. To blame the President for the behavior of micro-economic players is disingenuous at best, and ignorant at worst.
            Seems to me you might profit from studying economics, micro and macro, and stop channeling Fox News.

          • mabramso

            1. People buy insurance policies because they judge them to be a better alternative to not having insurance. But it is WAY better than having to pay twice as much money for a policy that covers less of their expenses.

            2. Yes, but most people want CHOICE. What the government is doing is dictating that every insurance policy have tons of unneeded coverages at absurd cost levels. Same with your car analogy. Car companies add things because they believe that most customers WANT them or will not object to them. The government is adding things because they want you and me to may for other people’s expenses.

            3. Really? You are going to claim a GOP origin for ObamaCare because some guy at an ivory tower think tank suggested it in the 1990s? Perhaps we ought to have a debate over whether or not the Democrat Party is a bunch of racists because they loved ex-KKK-member Robert Byrd of WV. They are equally absurd. And if you want to claim the same about Romney, go ahead. The political reality in Massachusetts was that with veto-proof majorities in both both houses of the state legislature, health care of that type was going to get passed with or without Romney. So Romney joined the bandwagon. Big deal.

            4. REALLY???? You want to argue that the health of the economy is based entirely on whether or not the GOP House chooses to pass a Democrat jobs bill? The so-called jobs bills that there Democrats talk about passing won’t even scratch the surface That’s pathetic. The health of the economy is dependent on the health of the private sector, which is currently being bludgeoned by Obamacare requirements on businesses.

            5. I never said that reduced work weeks were never there. I only assert that Obamacare is accelerating it. And if I were running a business, I would certainly look into doing it, rather than failing to turn a profit. Most businesses operate on pretty small profit margins, and Obamacare makes the cost of hiring MUCH higher, and that results in businesses holding back on hiring because they have to be sure that the person they hire will be able to produce enough in company profit to justify hiring them.

            6. I wouldn’t know about Fox News content. I neither watch TV nor subscribe to cable. But it must really eat at you to know that they simply crush the likes of MSNBC and CNN and the big 3 in terms of ratings and viewership.

            7. And you liberals always want to insinuate that because some of us don’t agree with your worldview, it is because you are more educated. In this case, you are not. Trust me, you don’t want to go down that road. :-)

  • nycguy

    The heading and what he actually said are two different things. “I’ll HELP repeal Obamacare” is saying nothing. Just a non-promise promise from a GOPer who knows the law isn’t going anywhere.

    • Hobbes

      Yep. I’ll make a token effort or quit. Quite the commitment he’s making there.

      • mabramso

        I would hardly characterize a Tea Partier’s efforts to repeal this particular law as “token”.

    • mabramso

      He is protecting himself against things he cannot possibly control. Repeal will require a GOP Senate and President.

  • teapartyidiots

    Please God, let Broun win. I need the comedy.

  • johnblack45john

    See ya Phil

  • ted lotring

    Dr of what? Voodoo?

  • ex-Republican

    Close your eyes people imagine you have lost your job through no fault of your own and you are a single mother with two children to feed. You have pounded the pavement sent out 100′s of resumes and have had no job offers, you have gone through your savings etc. etc. Regardless of what the GOP candidate says and promises. The Republican would cut her economic life line off, make her walk the plank, feed her to the sharks, and put her children in social services. I have learned that the party I voted for my whole life, would call her lazy. Vote for the Democrat, because plain and simple, the Republican party can not be trusted to do the right thing for honest hardworking unemployed citizens, they could care less.

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