The anti-Obamacare bills are part of the midterm strategy for House Republicans. Week 1: House back to ACA votes

House Republicans are back in town — and immediately getting back to the business of anti-Obamacare votes.

It’s a notable change from the opening week of Congress in the past two years, when Republicans had somewhat relaxed their Obamacare game. In 2012, they were waiting for the Supreme Court to rule on the law and in early 2013 they’d just watched President Barack Obama win reelection — after which Speaker John Boehner temporarily declared the Affordable Care Act “the law of the land.” The repeal vote last year didn’t come until May, and only after freshman Republicans clamored for it.


There’s no waiting around this year, now that the law is in full effect, and Republicans are finding plenty of flaws to point out after the rocky rollout. But they aren’t embarking on another full-fledged repeal effort, at least not this week.

( Also on POLITICO: Full health care policy coverage)

“Now that January 2014 is here, Obamacare has become a reality for all Americans and their families,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said Wednesday. “The House this week is going to be approaching that issue in a very deliberate and appropriate manner.”

The House is rounding out its first week back after the holidays with a pair of votes Friday aimed at the security and functionality of HealthCare.gov. It’s a jab at the Obama administration after the website launch fiasco and follows repeated Republican criticisms about what they say was inadequate testing of the website security. It’s a strategy that’s likely to play out from now right up until the midterm elections.

One bill offered by Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) would require the Department of Health and Human Services to notify Americans within two days if their personal information has been compromised on the new insurance exchanges. The other, sponsored by Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.), would require the administration to publicize weekly reports detailing the performance of the federal website.

( Also on POLITICO: Darrell Issa accuses Sebelius of ‘false’ testimony)

Republicans’ new year’s Obamacare energy is reminiscent of 2011, when they kicked off the year by voting to ditch the whole law. But the tone is different this year, now that the law is a reality and not just an impending change.

Republicans say now they can respond to specific problems with the law — instead of just trying to scrap it all. The votes this week, for instance, don’t repeal or defund all or part of the health law, as a few dozen prior House votes did.

“Bah humbug, those days are past us,” House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (R-Texas) told Rep. Frank Pallone after the New Jersey Democrat remarked on the fact that the bills this week didn’t aim to kill the whole thing.

PHOTOS: 12 Democrats criticizing the Obamacare rollout)

Republicans say they are focused on the problems that Americans have been able to see over the past few months.

“Most of us on the Republican side were concerned about this from the beginning — seeing a lot of areas we thought were going to be problematic — so we were trying to take it out all at once,” said Rep. James Lankford (R-Okla.). “Now we’re dealing with things as the American people bring it up, and it’s been overwhelming that they’re very concerned about the security.”

The administration wouldn’t say Wednesday whether Obama would support the legislation if it reached his desk, although Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will not bring up the bill in his chamber, his spokesman said.

Instead, HHS released a fact sheet saying there have not been any successful security attacks on the website — which is what administration officials have maintained amid allegations by House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa that the security systems were insufficiently tested. Issa wrote to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Wednesday, accusing her of misleading Congress about the security risks.

Still, the latest round of GOP-led votes whacking Obamacare could — again — put some vulnerable Democrats on the spot in an election year.

Lawmakers and aides said Wednesday that they are still reviewing the pair of bills, and so House Democrats have yet to develop a strategy on how they’ll respond when the legislation comes up for a vote on Friday.

Democratic lawmakers may be more inclined to vote in favor of the Pitts notification bill that specifically targets privacy issues, although several members repeatedly emphasized Wednesday that there is no evidence that information submitted to the Obamacare exchanges has been compromised.

Privacy issues could especially resonate after the Target security breach that affected up to 40 million shoppers during the holiday season. Cantor, a Virginia Republican, invoked Target in a memo last week that detailed his plans to put the security bill on the floor.

The second bill that would require weekly reports on the website is seen by Democrats as a way to burden the administration while it’s implementing the health care law.

Rep. Tim Walz (D-Minn.), a moderate, said he was “seriously considering” the bills, noting that they had “some good stuff” in them but warning that Republicans could turn it into a political punching bag.

”I think they’re discussing a real issue here,” Walz said. “Now my question is, what will they do to poison pill this? What will they do to try and make it a campaign issue instead of trying to fix it?”

House Democratic Caucus Chairman Xavier Becerra of California said lawmakers were taking a “close look” at the two bills and would not rule out his members supporting them when they hit the floor.

“We’re willing to do anything to continue to make the Affordable Care Act work well [and] these exchanges work well,” he said. “But we’re not interested in gumming up the process and shutting down what has now helped over 9 million Americans have health security.”

Strategists say the Republicans between now and November will try to play into Americans’ fears about the health care law while putting Democrats on the hook.

“There were so many concerns through the holiday season with Target and other high-profile breaches of security, it links something that’s already in the back of voters’ minds with the law,” said John Ullyot, a former aide to Sens. John Warner and Arlen Specter and a strategist at High Lantern Group.

“Democrats want to stand just as much as Republicans for information security, but if you link it to the health care vote, it places them in a tough position,” he said.

It’s easier to figure out where to target Obamacare, now that it’s in effect, said Brock McCleary, a GOP pollster. At the same time, he said House Republicans should keep their plan fluid to respond if more health law problems appear throughout the year.

“It remains to be seen what additional problems will come to light, so the legislative agenda should be nimble,” he said.

Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) dismissed the notion that the security issues were a major problem, arguing that Republicans had put forward the legislation “basically to scare people.”

“These particular bills that they put up don’t seem to be moving the ball forward,” he said Wednesday, referring to Republicans. “They’re sort of peripheral issues. It’s an imaginary issue that they’re making up that somehow, your information is going to get spread all over the world.”

Republicans started off their Obamacare legislative endeavors much more slowly the past two years.

After they failed to seize the Senate and the White House in November 2012, there seemed to be a momentary acceptance that the law was on the books to stay. But freshman members clamored for a chance to vote to repeal the whole law and leadership gave it to them. That kicked off a flood of legislation digging into the law — the House passed seven more bills repealing or delaying parts of it over the rest of the year.