Ah, those compassionate conservatives and their culture of life. A memo marked "confidential" from Dick Armey's FreedomWorks, obtained by Politico and ThinkProgress tells GOP lawmakers to “improve” the law “so long as the improvements don’t significantly increase its support.” ThinkProgress:

Similarly, the group warns the GOP against collaborating with health care groups to eliminate that IPAB board or other provisions “unless the affected industries endorse full repeal.” A more effective strategy is to “Highlight the special interest deals and corrupt bargains. Scrutinize the hundreds of waivers and thousands of pages of regulations issuing from HHS. Publicize the premium cost increases and coverage losses. Keep Dr. Berwick talking,” the memo says. Republicans should reject some of the most popular elements of reform and offer legislation that embraces the existing individual market, Armey writes. He dismisses reforms like “the unnecessary small-business tax credits” and describes caps on annual limits, the ban on lifetime limits, the adult children coverage provision, and the caps on insurance company profits as “cost insurance mandates.” The memo argues that “[b]anning preex condition clauses is counterproductive, because it raises premiums and causes coverage to be dropped.” “It’s also unnecessary because federal and state laws already offer significant protections,” it says, ignoring the fact that more than 40 states and the District of Columbia don’t have laws protecting individuals with pre-existing conditions from being denied coverage. Instead, Republicans must focus on expanding the unregulated individual health insurance market, without paying too much attention to “how many people are covered,” the memo states. [emphasis mine]

In other words, try to make the popular parts of the Affordable Care Act unpopular by calling them mandates. It all depends on perspective, I suppose. From FreedomWorks corporate overlords' perspective, actually providing insurance coverage to paying customers would be a mandate. Armey also pushes Rep. Paul Ryan's Roadmap to turn Medicare into a voucher program, gut Medicaid by turning it into block grants, and recommends defunding.

Defund implementation and eliminate egregious provisions. Unfortunately, much of the money required to implement Obamacare has already been appropriated as open-ended mandatory spending and is therefore not easily brought under congressional control. This seriously complicates the defunding effort, because it shifts much of the advantage to the Executive Branch. Nevertheless, Republicans should try to put Congress back in the driver’s seat by defunding Obamacare as much as it can, in every passing bill it can — and especially on must-pass bills like a continuing resolution or a debt ceiling increase. Among our top priorities should be defunding aid to states for Obamacare exchanges and defunding the obscure Office of Multi-State Qualified Health Plans, which provides the infrastructure for a future “public option,” meaning single-payer.

Because, by all means, helping cash-strapped states provide more coverage to citizens is an abomination. Despite increasing polling evidence that the American public wants the Affordable Care Act to succeed and is opposed to efforts to defund it, the die-hard teahadists won't relent from their (extremely well-funded) crusade against a healthier American populace.