GOP Eyes Quick Repeal of New Healthcare Reform

[Jaepheth]

Republicans in the House of Representatives plan to hold a vote in January to repeal President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul and say they have nearly enough support to override a presidential veto of the repeal, a top lawmaker said on Sunday.

"Unpopularity numbers are as high as 60 percent across the country," Fred Upton, the incoming chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said of the healthcare law.

"I don't think we're going to be that far off from having the votes to actually override a veto," Upton said on "Fox News Sunday."

Democrats contend Republicans are wasting Congress' time by staging a healthcare repeal vote, saying it will die in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

But Upton said a big House vote for repeal could sway votes in the Senate "to perhaps do the same thing. But then, after that, we're going to go after this bill piece by piece," he said, by trying to block various parts of the law including an individual mandate for insurance coverage.

"We will look at these individual pieces to see if we can't have the thing crumble," Upton said.

But Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat, said on CBS' "Face the Nation" people are learning more about benefits of the healthcare law, diminishing chances it will be defeated.

"A constituent in my district came up to me a few weeks ago and thanked me for saving her $3,000 a year because she could put her two adult children back on her insurance. That's what the Republicans are going to be proposing to repeal this week. It's not going to happen," she said.

"I think you're going to see the fight on Obamacare across the board in the House and the Senate to try to defund the Obamacare bill and to start over," Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Graham said he would work "to allow states to opt out of the individual mandate, employer mandate and expansion of Medicaid."

(Reporting by Vicki Allen and Paul Eckert, editing by Todd Eastham)

Not the most competent reform in the first place; but at least it was a step in the right direction. Have enough people seen improved benefits for there to be outcry when the new benefits are taken away?

[HarrionGreyjoy]

Actually, the part of the strategy that I'm most willing to concede as possibly eleven-dimensional was the mandate bit. I'm not sure what happens if that most unpopular part of the bill gets repealed, but I'll bet the insurance companies aren't either.

[Jaepheth]

Actually, the part of the strategy that I'm most willing to concede as possibly eleven-dimensional was the mandate bit. I'm not sure what happens if that most unpopular part of the bill gets repealed, but I'll bet the insurance companies aren't either.

It effects the way premiums are calculated. If you're not forced to buy insurance when you're healthy, and the companies can't refuse to accept pre-existing conditions, then it gives an advantage to the consumer who can save their money till they're sick and then buy insurance until they get better. So then you have only sick people paying into the insurance, and EVERYONE is drawing funds out (or could be expected to be) Which means premiums for everyone are now sky high.

In order for the insurance concept to work, you have to have everyone paying in whether or not they're drawing out. If you remove the mandate that everyone have insurance, I think you'll find the rest of the bill unravels pretty quick. (mostly due to funding shortfalls)

[Flagg]

Not. Going. To. Happen. Dems still have the Senate.

This is just an attempt to tell the Tea Party loons that "Hey, we tried".

[Guardsman Bass]

I'm pretty sure the GOP knows that a full repeal won't happen. This is just a political stunt to satisfy their bases back home.

What I'd be more worried about, though, is piecemeal resistance. They might not be able to repeal health care reform, but they could do shit to mess it up, like refusing to fund parts of it (particularly the enforcement of the mandate to buy insurance).

[Simon_Jester]

Actually, the part of the strategy that I'm most willing to concede as possibly eleven-dimensional was the mandate bit. I'm not sure what happens if that most unpopular part of the bill gets repealed, but I'll bet the insurance companies aren't either.

It effects the way premiums are calculated. If you're not forced to buy insurance when you're healthy, and the companies can't refuse to accept pre-existing conditions, then it gives an advantage to the consumer who can save their money till they're sick and then buy insurance until they get better. So then you have only sick people paying into the insurance, and EVERYONE is drawing funds out (or could be expected to be) Which means premiums for everyone are now sky high.

In order for the insurance concept to work, you have to have everyone paying in whether or not they're drawing out. If you remove the mandate that everyone have insurance, I think you'll find the rest of the bill unravels pretty quick. (mostly due to funding shortfalls)

In which case if that, the unpopular part of the bill, gets repealed formally but the rest doesn't... well, the bill might unravel, but it'll unravel because the insurance companies have to abandon it or go out of business.

The one thing you can say with confidence about Obama-style health care reform is that the insurance industry's profit margin was secured by it. I don't think they'd like to see the bill repealed at this point, because the problems that made 60% of Americans support the public option back in the day haven't gone away. If we reset the clock on health care policy to 2008, it's going to become a major issue again in every election from now till doomsday.

And the insurance companies can't count on their shills being in a position to control Congress the next time someone decides to try and reform American health care. Sure, this time they managed to defeat the public option (which would undercut their profit margins) and single-payer (which would destroy them). But the poll results that emerged during the health care debate had to be worrying from their perspective, and the aging baby boomers are only going to make it a bigger issue over the next ten years.

I suspect a lot of insurance executives know that Obamacare is their best chance of dodging the much greater risk of the public option, because it provides some degree of reform and increased access while letting them keep making significant profits. Otherwise they may have to fight the same battle all over again in 2014, 2016, or 2020, and they can't be sure they'll come out of it as well then as they did this time.

EDIT: So I don't think the insurance industry will support GOP attempts to repeal the individual mandate. Any effort to bring that down will be the result of uncoordinated action by individual politicoes and relatively small groups, not a major party-wide push.

[CmdrWilkens]

I'm pretty sure the GOP knows that a full repeal won't happen. This is just a political stunt to satisfy their bases back home.

What I'd be more worried about, though, is piecemeal resistance. They might not be able to repeal health care reform, but they could do shit to mess it up, like refusing to fund parts of it (particularly the enforcement of the mandate to buy insurance).

The problem is the mandate and the other fund requisite bits don't really kick in until 2012 or so. Right now the only provisions that they can de-fund are things like the donut-hole coverage in Medicare (good luck winning Florida after you screw seniors out of millions). They also are set to face a LOT of procedural tricks to get them to vote on shit they don't want to...mostly lots and lots of votes to remind everybody that repealing the whole shebang would cost the government close to $150Bn over the next decade.