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January 03, 2011 06:39 PM UTC

So You Want To Repeal Health Care Reform, Do You?

  • 26 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

As the New York Times reports:

Soon after the 112th Congress convenes Wednesday, Republicans in the House plan to make good on a campaign promise that helped vault many new members to victory: voting to repeal President Obama’s health care overhaul.

The vote, which Republican leaders pledged would occur before the president’s State of the Union address later this month, is intended both to appeal to the Tea Party-influenced factions of the House Republican base and to emphasize the muscle of the new party in power. But it could also produce an unintended consequence: a chance for Democrats once again to try their case in support of the health care overhaul before the American public.

Democrats, who in many cases looked on the law as a rabid beast best avoided in the fall elections, are reversing course, gearing up for a coordinated all-out effort to preserve and defend it. Under the law, they say, consumers are already receiving tangible benefits that Republicans would snatch away.

House Democrats will get help from allies in the Senate, who can stop any repeal, and at the White House, where officials hope to transform the law from a political liability into an asset, a centerpiece of President Obama’s expected bid for re-election.

The Times quotes Colorado’s Rep. Doug Lamborn talking about how many freshmen Republicans in the new Congress campaigned on a platform of repealing health care reform, so a vote to repeal will “fulfill” their campaign promise. But a vote in the GOP-controlled House will in all probability be as far as wholesale repeal efforts in Congress can go, as such a measure will be DOA in the Senate–before President Obama would ever need to veto it.

On the other side, Democrats are looking forward to defending health care reform in a way that they didn’t seem to have the nerve to do prior to the elections. With benefits of the reform bill slowly starting to kick in, the case for repeal will increasingly require taking things away from the public, instead of making hypothetical, and in many cases factually deficient arguments.

So, you know, make the “Tea Party” happy while you can.

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26 thoughts on “So You Want To Repeal Health Care Reform, Do You?”

  1. a chance for Democrats once again to try their case in support of the health care overhaul before the American public.

    Yeah, because that worked soooo well last time.

    1. Because the public just isn’t worn out enough on the subject and will simply love watching the new House majority accomplish absolutely nothing while they play politics. That goes over so well with the American voter. Look at whose numbers went up when the lame duck Congress got its ass in gear. And watch whose numbers drop when Republicans tie up anything meaningful.

      Bring. It. On.  

      1. Republican’ts have NO interest in actually repealing the Health Care law, they just want to hoot and shriek about it for the next two years. Speeches on the floor, combined with some bullshit “oversight hearings” presided by Rep Issa.

        That whole “permanent campaign” thing, y’know. Gotta make it an issue in the 2021 presidental election….

        If Dems were smart (an oxymoron, I know) they’d put out a Health Care Bill 2.0 the DAY they Repubs do this resolution. It would have changes in it that fixes most of what the Repubs are hooting about – cost control, removal of the insurance mandate in exchange for a mandatory Health savings account, dumping the $100+ billion for medical records in exchange for making VistA open source code and distributed by Mozilla, and deregulating the industry so Wal-mart and Target can run health care clinics.

        But it won’t happen.

      2. Tell the world that the status quo is the way to go. Turn a blind eye to all the problems of health care. Expose the fact that you had no plan of your own to offer when this was going down a year ago – and that you have no alternative to offer NOW.

      1. LB would LOVE this to be the big issue for the 2012 elections.

        With the economy improving, it would be beyond dumb to focus on this rather than reducing unemployment. Both strategically and policy-wise.

    3. Since they didn’t defend PPACA (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) since the time that it was signed into law, this is A chance to support it now and they would do well NOT to flub it up.

      I would feel better if I had come across any talking points that most Dems could push together.  Apparently they are afraid to do anything individually, for the most part.  

      Anyway, they,and we, need to push back on the lies and negativity.

      If anyone hasn’t visited the Kaiser Family Foundation, it is a great source of information on health care.

      http://healthreform.kff.org/ti…

      The timeline breaks the provisions down by year.  I would be willing to bet that there is at least one provision scheduled for 2011 that hits home with every individual.  That is/are the provisions that that individual could talk passionately about.  If there is one provision that affects you positively, write a letter to the editor (and to OfA) about how you will be helped.  Then find other ways to publicize positive provisions.

      1. Republicans won in 2010 in large part because of the way they were able to exploit people’s feelings about HCR, among other things. Right now it’s not too likely the Republicans will actually be able to repeal (as Ajb pointed out above) some or most of the aspects of it–unless they get rid of Obama and his veto pen. The best way to protect the work we did in 2009-10 on HCR is to ensure Obama wins another term. The best way to ensure Obama gets another term is to focus on increasing the pace of economic recovery.

        1. … that when you say that the GOP was “able to exploit people’s feelings about HCR,” they had a huge assist from Obama and the Dems who did nothing to support it. It’s easy to win the debate when the other side doesn’t show up.

          Personally, I believe this anti-HCR  crap is just that – crap. They are posturing for their base and doing what they do best – deflect debate away from the economy, keep the Dems off balance, and then blame everything on them in 2012. And it will work if the Dems keep on playing the GOP’s game. They need to go on the offensive, point out that this is empty posturing, and focus on the economy. They have to have their ideas, and hammer the GOP for their lack of them (and ask why, since massive tax cuts preceded the great recession, more tax cuts would get us out).

          Do the Dems have what it takes to win these debates? So far they haven’t shown it, but maybe the loss of so many blue dogs will result in less restraint. You don’t play mister nice guy with bullies. Time to hit back.

          1. It was the many rallies, town halls, and other public forums where Democrats were trying to sell HCR to people that turned into the best weapons for the Tea Partiers.

            I’ll give you the fact that they ran away from it during the 2010 election, but the lead up to the bill’s passing was wrought with failed Democratic messaging. That, combined with the scare tactics that were used by every Republican–with the help of FOX News–to create the campaign against HCR, was the reason Democrats couldn’t get any traction.

            I see no reason to believe that repeating the same exact scenario will play out any differently.

            1. It’s a totally shitty law that will increase costs, had to be passed in the middle of the night with bribes and gamed numbers from the CBO.

              Other than that, I think it’s a huge feather in the Dems’ cap.

              1. …when your kid is coughing in the middle of the night and miserable, and you can have the choice to go to the urgent care clinic next to your house and get her treated in 15 minutes, or you can go to the Kaiser ER and spend 4 hours waiting to be seen while you kids cries the whole time.

                HCR gave you the right to choose your treatment options…enjoy.  

                1. Unfortunately, because of this law, I probably won’t be able to afford it much longer.  When the costs of this pig start setting in, people are going to lose their minds.

                  1. How will we be able to tell the difference between the double-digit annual increases before HCR passed from any that might occur after HCR was passed?

                    2. If the CBO says it, its ‘gamed.’  If Kaiser says it, I guess it’s credible.  

  3. And for some, that will ensure re-election.

    It may well make the 20-25% of the electorate such folks represent, shine up their muskets in eager anticipation.

    However, most are already solidly wingnut and quite likely highly motivated as it is to vote in the next election. Turn out probably won’t be a problem for the crazies, convinced as they are that some perfect Tea Party union existed in some fantasy past, guided by a mythological Constitution they swear allegiance to (when it suits their preconceived beliefs and not so much when it doesn’t), and which they imigine their sacred duty to ‘restore,’ declining demographic though they are.

    But how well will the Party of No (to last years lost cause) sell with the middle-ground voter?

    A Quixotic push for repeal of old (contentious) business–with even more Americans out of work and in need of coverage, and real problems affecting real Americans (like the ‘Donut Hole’ and the ratio of health care premiums spent on actual health care vs. ‘overhead’) now being addressed–will be seen as the cynical political theatre it is.  

    The lesson from 2010, nationally, isn’t that the voters wanted the GOP in charge, it’s that the electorate is very volatile in these difficult times.  For all their talk of ‘adult’ conversations, the Republicans are acting quite adolescent.  Time will tell if the voters will be fooled (again), but I wouldn’t count my biscuits before the tea is served.  

    Throwing rhetorical bombs and creating procedural obstacles being the easy part, the GOP now has to govern. Based on the party’s many failures at that in the past, the likelihood of success there is–at best–a long shot.

    Good luck ‘Patriots,’ may your government-funded scooters drive you mightily to a new dawn.  

  4. As RSB and others have mentioned, Democrats weren’t very successful in explaining the health care bill. But I don’t think that’s because we’re terrible at messaging (well, not just because we’re terrible). Look at Social Security privatization, which was actually more popular before Republicans started doing something about it than after. The Iraq war was never terribly popular except right after 9/11 (that is, before it happened). Even when it started, only a bare majority supported it as I recall.

    I think people are just cautious by nature. They want problems solved but they don’t want things to change, and this contradiction seems to be resolved by fighting changes until they happen, and then fighting the process of changing back as well. Kicking and screaming all the way.

    Republicans are now in the position of proposing a change in health care, and they’re going to have to make a case for it. And they’re terrible at that. You’re going to see House Republicans split between the repeal-and-replace crowd and the just-repeal crowd. Old-school Republicans think the teabaggers are batshit crazy morons, and teabaggers think old-school Republicans are corrupt, self-serving, and incompetent. (Of course, they’re both right.) There are going to be schisms.

    Obviously, the whole party has pushed itself off the right ledge already, so there are no real moderates left in the party, but the effect of that isn’t to get unity. It’s to make people want to cleave even finer distinctions between the far-far-right and the far-far-far-right.

    Remember, people obsessed with purity tend not to stop when things are “good enough.”

    Long story short, I think Democrats will finally start looking good now that they’re able to make clear distinctions with the crazies in the House.

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