Having failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act outright, congressional Republicans are moving ahead with plans to dismantle it piece by piece.

Earlier this month, the House passed a bill that would undermine the so-called employer mandate, which requires certain employers to provide insurance or pay a penalty. In all, 240 Republicans and 12 Democrats voted for the bill while 172 Democrats voted against it. In the Senate, two Democrats recently joined dozens of Republicans to sponsor a similar measure.

Like other attempts to weaken health care reform, the bill, named the Save American Workers Act, is based on false premises and offers false promises. But its bipartisan patina makes it a threat, as do the catchy if misleading assertions of its supporters to win public support.

At issue is the threshold at which the employer mandate kicks in. The law requires employers with 50 or more employees to provide insurance to those who work more than 30 hours a week, or pay a penalty of $2,000 to $3,000 per worker. Most of the roughly 230,000 companies with 50 or more workers already provide health insurance, while about 11,500 of such companies do not.