Health-care bill not yet a law, but Republicans already organizing to repeal it

By Perry Bacon Jr.

Can Republicans win election this fall by campaigning to repeal the health-care legislation now nearing passage in Congress?

Even as House Democrats search for the votes to send the bill to President Obama, dozens of Republican lawmakers and candidates have signed a pledge to back an effort to repeal the bill, should the GOP take control of either house of Congress after this fall's elections.

Started by the conservative activist group Club for Growth, the "Repeal It" movement first won the backing in January of some of the most conservative Republicans in Congress, such as "tea party" favorite Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.). It has since expanded to include some of the party's Senate candidates in liberal-leaning states such as New Hampshire and Illinois.

Congressional Republicans are currently battling the Democrats over the House procedures they could use to pass the health-care bill. But they are promising this fall to continue the spirited debate over the substance of the bill that has dominated the last year on Capitol Hill. And the repeal will likely be a key issue, even as lawmakers on both sides acknowledge any repeal would be highly unlikely as long as President Obama remains in office, as he could veto any such legislation.

While the GOP still awaits the outcome of competitive primaries in many states to pick its candidates, all of the major Senate hopefuls in Kentucky, Nevada, Kansas and Missouri have pledged "sponsor and support legislation to repeal any federal health care-takeover passed in 2010, and replace it with real reforms that lower health care costs without growing government."

Republican leaders have played down the largely grassroots pledge, saying they want to focus on making sure the health-care reform bill is stopped from passing. But Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), a favorite of the tea party movement, said "this would be smart politically and it's the right thing to do."

Some Democrats view this development with glee. They say the health-care bill will become more popular as soon as it's signed, particularly since some of the provisions most favored by the public start this year, such as allowing young adults to stay covered by their parents' health-care plans up to age 26. Like many other parts of the legislation, that provision would become effective six months after the law is signed -- right around election time if the overall bill passes this week.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is already calling on its candidates to demand their GOP opponents take a stand on the pledge. Asked about the GOP idea, David Axelrod, a senior White House adviser, said Sunday, "Let's have that fight." He added of GOP threats to call for the law's repeal: "Make my day."

And other Democrats say it's very difficult to run on a platform of taking away new rights for Americans.

"When it comes to health care and insurance, once reform passes, the tangible benefits Americans will realize will trump the fear-mongering rhetoric opponents are stoking today," Obama pollster Joel Benenson wrote in a recent piece in The Post. "And when that reality kicks in, the political burden will shift... there is every reason to believe that for Republicans, the negative consequences will be their own."



In what has become a intra-party pollster battle, other Democrats dispute the idea that the bill will help the party in the fall. Pollsters Patrick H. Caddell and Douglas E. Schoen have written Democrats "will be punished severely at the polls" unless they turn around the current negative perceptions of the health-care bill.

Republicans say the bill won't be that popular by November, because the public has already soured on the bill and the modest changes it makes by November won't change the overall perception of it.

"Democrats think by passing the bill they'll be able to get it behind them and change the subject to something else, like jobs," said Senator John Cornyn (R-Tex.), head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. "But this will do the opposite. This will make sure health care is the number one issue that the election is won or lost on in November."

But some analysts say a debate over dumping the health care bill or keeping it may not affect voters who do not already have strong views on the reform effort, if only because its effects may not be felt by November.

"Republicans have been saying this is the end of America as we know it and it will bring socialism," said Norman Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "If it passes and not much happens, it's not as if there's going to be a huge backfire [on the Republicans], but in the overall argument they have not done themselves much political good."