Time is running out for diehard foes of the health care reform law. Obamacare foes mount final stand

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — A last-ditch effort to derail Obamacare started in a barn here Monday night — because it’s not going to start in Washington, advocates told a packed crowd at the opening night of Heritage Action’s August defunding tour.

Heritage Action, trying to fuel an effort to defund the president’s health care law on the cusp of its launch, offered a bleak assessment of a Republican Party that’s held 40 anti-Obamacare votes: They don’t have the guts to do everything necessary to stop the law, and that’s where the Heritage faithful step in.


“The real act of courage is if they get back in September and [lawmakers] pass a bill that funds all operations of the government except Obamacare,” said Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint, issuing a call to action.

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Most Republicans, despite their universal opposition to the health law, aren’t so eager to sign on.

Tea party-affiliated groups and lawmakers are lining up behind an effort to defund Obamacare when Congress returns in September. If carried out, the strategy could lead to a standoff with Democrats resulting in a government shutdown. The Republican establishment doesn’t have much appetite for a shutdown, though. No matter how unpopular they believe Obamacare to be, they think history proves that a shutdown would be worse for the party.

And even though Arkansas is home to one of the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents in the country, Sen. Mark Pryor, Heritage trained its fire on reluctant Republicans in an hourlong session Monday night.

For the diehard Obamacare foes, time’s running out. The defunding battle is the tea party’s last major offensive on Obamacare before it takes effect this fall. People can start signing up for coverage in October, with benefits kicking in Jan 1.

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“This may be the last, best chance to stop this bill,” said DeMint, who appeared with Heritage Action CEO Michael Needham and Sen. Ted Cruz’s father, Rafael.

The heated defunding debate is about more than just whether Obamacare will get off the ground or whether Republicans will risk a shutdown to stop it. It has far-reaching implications for the 2016 presidential election and possibly control of the Senate.

Sens. Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio, all tea party favorites considered 2016 presidential contenders, have embraced Obamacare defunding. Their stance has been met with skepticism from another 2016 contender, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, and silence from a several Republicans thought to be weighing presidential bids.

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Unlike most Obamacare fights, this is pitting Republicans against one another. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, facing a tea party challenger in 2014, is catching flak from the right for refusing to endorse the defunding effort. A staunch conservative like Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) is a target of FreedomWorks because he condemned the defunding strategy.

The fact that Heritage’s push for a hard-line stance against Obamacare starts in Arkansas is somewhat ironic. With a Democratic governor and Republican Legislature, Arkansas is one of the rare states that found cross-party compromise this year to carry out the health care law. The state will expand Medicaid through a pioneering plan requiring new enrollees to purchase private coverage with federal dollars.

The Heritage tour ventures on through the end of August, hitting Tampa, Pittsburgh and Columbus, Ohio, among other cities. It stops in Dallas on Tuesday, where Cruz is the headlining act — underscoring the presidential subtext surrounding the far right’s defunding push.

President Barack Obama isn’t about to turn his back on his signature health care law, especially not this close to the goal line. Obama even seemed to relish the discussion about a possible shutdown in his White House press conference earlier this month, clearly believing his party would be the winner if that’s what it came to.

And a number of Republican pollsters, strategists and lawmakers agree with Obama.

“Shutting down the government is the one way that Republicans can turn Obamacare from a political advantage to a political disadvantage in 2014,” GOP pollster Whit Ayres told POLITICO last week. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) offered a starker warning in a town hall last week, arguing that a shutdown would cost the GOP its House majority next year.

Republican-on-Republican battles are nothing new to Obamacare. The party has fought within itself on how to implement the law in the states, and most recently on whether to provide a temporary infusion of cash to Obamacare’s high-risk pools for some of the neediest patients.

The stakes feel higher this time, though. Past fights were over how strongly to resist the law’s implementation — now, it’s about whether the massive health care overhaul will actually take effect on Oct. 1 as planned.

It all comes down to messaging, DeMint assured the Arkansas crowd. By passing a government spending measure that chokes off Obamacare funding Republicans can claim higher ground, he argued.

“This idea that we hear from some Republicans and strategists, that let’s let this be implemented and Americans will see just how bad it is and that’ll help them win the next election — that’s gotta be the worst strategy I’ve ever heard,” DeMint told a small gathering of reporters before the rally.

No one knows yet how the defunding strategy will play out, but Democrats are enjoying the Republican infighting for now.

“Whenever the other side looks craven, political and like they are over-reaching, the public turns on them, independents flee and we are strengthened,” said Brad Woodhouse, president of Americans United for Change. “If we had the money, we’d pay for [Heritage] to go to every state in the union.”

Americans United for Change and Protect Your Care are the uninvited guests along the Heritage tour, holding their own pro-Obamacare events in each city where Heritage is touching down. On Monday, about 100 Obamacare supporters rallied against GOP efforts to undo the law.

State Rep. David Whitaker of Fayetteville, addressing the crowd, echoed a message that Obama offered in his August press conference.

“They want to repeal it,” Whitaker said, “but they have no intention of replacing it.”