Health-care reform: Do Republicans stand to gain from repeal vote?

When the US Supreme Court recently upheld President Obama's health-care reform law, its surprise decision appears to have tilted a substantial number of Americans closer to supporting Republican challenger Mitt Romney when they vote in November.

That's the finding of a new poll conducted in the wake of the high court's ruling.

For political independents – the voters likely to cast the decisive votes this fall – 26 percent said the court's ruling makes them more likely to support Mr. Romney, according to a Christian Science Monitor/Investor's Business Daily/TIPP poll. By contrast, only 14 percent said the court ruling makes them more likely to support Mr. Obama.

RECOMMENDED: How much do you know about the health-care reform? Take our quiz.

But the politics of health care is nothing if not complex.

Even as the court ruling appears to help Romney's cause, that doesn't necessarily mean congressional Republicans stand to gain in public opinion from their decision to hold a "repeal Obamacare" vote this week.

Like Romney, House Republicans have pledged a "repeal and replace" approach to the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA). But as conservative lawmakers seek to move down that path, they face two discomforting facts: Many Americans don't want the law repealed, and many are skeptical of whether Republicans have a good "replace" plan to offer.

Some Americans wholeheartedly reject the ACA, but many are more ambivalent. They may like core provisions of the law even as they worry about its impact on health-care costs and on the size of an already large federal bureaucracy.

A new ABC News/Washington Post poll finds a rise in support for the ACA since the court ruled. Its July poll finds 47 percent of US adults supporting the law, and an equal number opposed. Back in April the "opposed" camp led by 14 percentage points.

When it comes to repeal, the poll also finds division within that opposed camp. About one-third of them say they'd repeal the whole law, one-third say they'd repeal part of it, and the rest chose a "wait and see" option.

House Republicans plan to vote on repeal Wednesday. This wouldn't be the first time they've gone on the record to undo what they call Obamacare. But it would be their first effort to do so after the Supreme Court solidified the act as constitutional, in a decision that dashed conservative hopes.

The ruling's political impact cuts both ways, says Raghavan Mayur, president of TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, which conducted the Monitor/TIPP poll from June 28 through July 6.

For many Democrats, the ruling adds luster to Obama's signature legislative achievement. But it also galvanizes the law's opposition. Overall, 29 percent of Americans in the Monitor/TIPP poll said they'll be more likely to vote for Romney because of the ruling, while 20 percent said it tilts them toward Obama. The rest said the ruling would have no impact, or that they were unsure.

And as already noted, the ruling tips two independent voters Romney's way for every one prodded toward Obama.

"Most people did not expect the result from the Supreme Court," Mr. Mayur says. Rather, surveys conducted prior to the ruling found Americans generally expecting the justices to strike down the law's mandate on individuals to purchase health insurance or pay a fine.

"The opponents of the health-care reform are people who do not subscribe to the big-government philosophy," Mr. Mayur says. The ruling "helps them to gravitate more towards Romney."

The Monitor/TIPP poll also found the presidential contest tightening into essentially a neck-and-neck race.

The poll also found that, although the economy is the election's major issue, health care will remain an important topic on voter minds.

Some 61 percent of Americans rank a candidate's view of the ACA as a high concern, compared with 80 percent who rank policies on jobs and the economy as a high concern.

RECOMMENDED: How much do you know about the health-care reform? Take our quiz.

Related stories

Read this story at csmonitor.com

Become a part of the Monitor community

View the original article here

Cracks Appear in Republican Unity on Health Law Repeal

Instead, the House on Wednesday will take up the repeal measure after the Affordable Care Act’s constitutionality was upheld, and amid growing misgivings that relitigating the issue now will make Republicans seem out of touch — especially when party leaders are still without an alternative.

“Anytime Republicans are debating taxes and the economy, we’re winning,” said a veteran Republican campaign consultant who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid publicly crossing his party’s leadership. “Anytime we’re debating health care, they’re winning.”

The tally on Wednesday may be largely unchanged from the first full-repeal vote in February 2011, but the run-up to the vote is shaping up as far different. Republicans will keep fanfare to a minimum, while Democrats try to mount the attacks.

No doctors in white lab coats will be paraded before the television cameras pleading for repeal. The rhetoric is likely to be less about socialized medicine and government takeovers of health care and more about the health care law’s impact on the real issue driving the election — jobs and the economy.

Moreover, divisions are emerging over the wisdom of pulling the law out, root and branch. Some Republicans, facing re-election in swing districts, are openly suggesting that some measures should remain.

Others worry that the Republican leadership has yet to detail what the party would replace the health care law with. Representative Nan Hayworth, an ophthalmologist and a freshman Republican from New York, said she and others have a clear framework: bolstered health savings accounts, the option to purchase insurance across state lines, medical malpractice limits and a government-subsidized insurance pool for sick people who cannot buy insurance on their own. But those alternatives have not been broadly aired.

“We need to start expressing our principles promptly,” she said.

Such concerns are a sharp contrast to the first repeal vote, when a new, vigorous Republican majority was confident that they owed their triumph to voter anger over the health care law. Democrats were on the defensive, with all eyes on which survivors of the 2010 midterm tsunami would switch their votes for the law and embrace repeal. The House voted 245-to-189 to undo President Obama’s signature domestic achievement, with three Democrats joining in.

Representative Pete Sessions of Texas, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said the health care law was passed “with deception at its core” — a penalty for those who fail to purchase insurance has been unmasked by the Supreme Court as a tax on the middle class. He said he was still convinced that the issue would be “probably the biggest driver” ensuring Republican victory in November, outside of the tax increases that could come next year with the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts.

His deputy at the Republican Congressional Committee, Representative Greg Walden of Oregon, was more circumspect.

“We’re going to be talking about jobs and economy, but there are lots of elements to that discussion, one of them being health care,” Mr. Walden said.

Democrats, on the other hand, say they will be playing offense. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee started an advertising campaign Monday morning portraying Republicans as controlled by insurance companies and intent on taking away the popular consumer protections in the law. A series of news conferences are planned that will include real-life families whom Democrats say would be harmed by repeal.

But they will also frame the repeal vote as a political stunt, taking Congress’s time away from job-creating legislation. A video to be released Monday will use Speaker John A. Boehner’s oft-repeated phrase, “Mr. President, where are the jobs?” to mock the repeal exercise.

“There’s a strong sense that we don’t want to carry on this fight, over and over,” said former Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia, a Democrat who is running for the Senate. “Let’s move on.”

For Republicans in solidly conservative districts — a majority of Republicans in the House — the repeal vote is a no-cost way to energize the base and prove to angry constituents that the fight has not ended.

Representative Patrick McHenry, a Republican from western North Carolina, spoke of “fire and passion for repeal” still seething in his district.

“Activist and average folks regularly bring up full repeal,” he said. “They’re still keenly aware of it, demand it and understand this law is holding back economic growth.”

But Republican campaign consultants are more cautious. Those voters are already energized by the prospect of voting against Mr. Obama in November. How a rehashing of the health care debate will affect independent voters is less clear.

Democrats are driving the narrative that voters are ready to move on. Dan Maffei, a former House Democrat from upstate New York who is campaigning to get his seat back, is using the Supreme Court’s decision to push the debate toward improving the health care law he helped pass, not whether it should stay or go. To him, another vote — the 30th this Congress has held to repeal or partially repeal the law — is more evidence of the rut Washington is in.

“They’re stuck in this eternal recurrence, rerunning the debate on the bill over and over again instead of moving forward,” Mr. Maffei said.

View the original article here

Cracks Appear in Republican Unity on Health Law Repeal

Instead, the House on Wednesday will take up the repeal measure after the Affordable Care Act’s constitutionality was upheld, and amid growing misgivings that relitigating the issue now will make Republicans seem out of touch — especially when party leaders are still without an alternative.

“Anytime Republicans are debating taxes and the economy, we’re winning,” said a veteran Republican campaign consultant who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid publicly crossing his party’s leadership. “Anytime we’re debating health care, they’re winning.”

The tally on Wednesday may be largely unchanged from the first full-repeal vote in February 2011, but the run-up to the vote is shaping up as far different. Republicans will keep fanfare to a minimum, while Democrats try to mount the attacks.

No doctors in white lab coats will be paraded before the television cameras pleading for repeal. The rhetoric is likely to be less about socialized medicine and government takeovers of health care and more about the health care law’s impact on the real issue driving the election — jobs and the economy.

Moreover, divisions are emerging over the wisdom of pulling the law out, root and branch. Some Republicans, facing re-election in swing districts, are openly suggesting that some measures should remain.

Others worry that the Republican leadership has yet to detail what the party would replace the health care law with. Representative Nan Hayworth, an ophthalmologist and a freshman Republican from New York, said she and others have a clear framework: bolstered health savings accounts, the option to purchase insurance across state lines, medical malpractice limits and a government-subsidized insurance pool for sick people who cannot buy insurance on their own. But those alternatives have not been broadly aired.

“We need to start expressing our principles promptly,” she said.

Such concerns are a sharp contrast to the first repeal vote, when a new, vigorous Republican majority was confident that they owed their triumph to voter anger over the health care law. Democrats were on the defensive, with all eyes on which survivors of the 2010 midterm tsunami would switch their votes for the law and embrace repeal. The House voted 245-to-189 to undo President Obama’s signature domestic achievement, with three Democrats joining in.

Representative Pete Sessions of Texas, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said the health care law was passed “with deception at its core” — a penalty for those who fail to purchase insurance has been unmasked by the Supreme Court as a tax on the middle class. He said he was still convinced that the issue would be “probably the biggest driver” ensuring Republican victory in November, outside of the tax increases that could come next year with the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts.

His deputy at the Republican Congressional Committee, Representative Greg Walden of Oregon, was more circumspect.

“We’re going to be talking about jobs and economy, but there are lots of elements to that discussion, one of them being health care,” Mr. Walden said.

Democrats, on the other hand, say they will be playing offense. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee started an advertising campaign Monday morning portraying Republicans as controlled by insurance companies and intent on taking away the popular consumer protections in the law. A series of news conferences are planned that will include real-life families whom Democrats say would be harmed by repeal.

But they will also frame the repeal vote as a political stunt, taking Congress’s time away from job-creating legislation. A video to be released Monday will use Speaker John A. Boehner’s oft-repeated phrase, “Mr. President, where are the jobs?” to mock the repeal exercise.

“There’s a strong sense that we don’t want to carry on this fight, over and over,” said former Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia, a Democrat who is running for the Senate. “Let’s move on.”

For Republicans in solidly conservative districts — a majority of Republicans in the House — the repeal vote is a no-cost way to energize the base and prove to angry constituents that the fight has not ended.

Representative Patrick McHenry, a Republican from western North Carolina, spoke of “fire and passion for repeal” still seething in his district.

“Activist and average folks regularly bring up full repeal,” he said. “They’re still keenly aware of it, demand it and understand this law is holding back economic growth.”

But Republican campaign consultants are more cautious. Those voters are already energized by the prospect of voting against Mr. Obama in November. How a rehashing of the health care debate will affect independent voters is less clear.

Democrats are driving the narrative that voters are ready to move on. Dan Maffei, a former House Democrat from upstate New York who is campaigning to get his seat back, is using the Supreme Court’s decision to push the debate toward improving the health care law he helped pass, not whether it should stay or go. To him, another vote — the 30th this Congress has held to repeal or partially repeal the law — is more evidence of the rut Washington is in.

“They’re stuck in this eternal recurrence, rerunning the debate on the bill over and over again instead of moving forward,” Mr. Maffei said.

View the original article here

Architect of Health Care Law Admits Republicans Could Repeal It

One of the main architects of President Obama's health care reform cautioned that Republicans could be successful in tearing it down if they won both chambers of Congress and the White House this fall.

"I think they could do it," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., on CSPAN's Newsmakers on Sunday.

"I think the American people have to understand that. If they vote for Romney and they vote for the Republicans to have control of the House and the Senate, there's a good chance the health care bill will be wiped out, and all of these benefits will be wiped out," he added.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., has said that the House will vote to overturn the law on July 11, a largely symbolic move as such a measure would never pass the Democratic-led Senate. Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney is also running on a repeal platform.

Waxman's comments come in contrast to statements made by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in a separate interview aired on Meet the Press on Sunday. She asserted that Republican attempts to repeal the law are "unrealistic."

"I think that that part of it is over," she said.

Though Waxman disagreed on the capacity of Republicans to repeal the law, he agreed with Pelosi on the idea that Democrats and Republicans alike should move past the fight over the law's validity, saying that Congress should be doing something to improve the economy, rather than "carping" about health care.

"When this bill is fully in effect in 2014, the American people are going to be very, very happy and they're gonna ask, what was the brouhaha all about?" he said.

He did, however, admit that Republicans had thus far won the messaging battle on health care, and that they were successful again in shifting the conversation in their favor with respect to packaging the penalty imposed upon those who don't buy health care as a tax. But he said that he wasn't sure how to change that dynamic, preferring instead to focus on crafting sound policy.

"Well, I'm going to elect some of the public relations experts to figure this out. That's not my strength," he said.

View the original article here