Is This How Obamacare Compromise Happens in GOP?

Obamacare compromise is one of the big things that conservatives need to watch for in this new Senate. Dr. Milton Wolf ran for the Senate seat in Kansas but Republican Pat Roberts won. I went to Roberts’ senatorial website and thought he had some good ideas (and some not so good) about healthcare.

But is Roberts the Senator planning on being the conservative that Roberts the threatened candidate sounded like. On his twitter account, Wolf posted an image of Roberts own claim while he was running and someone else’s tweet for him after he had won his seat:

I don’t think this absolutely proves that Roberts is going to be a turncoat on Obamacare. But it does show us how easily a politician could flip to the dark side if that’s where the incentives line up. That’s why it is important to keep up the pressure by phone calls and letters and showing up at any of the “town meetings” that Senators and Representatives hold for PR and photo op purposes.

John Boehner has made some promising statements about Obamacare repeal (though I think he’s leaving the door open to the possibility of doing less than we might hope). It shouldn’t surprise any of us that the kind of people who succeed in politics are those who are firm in their convictions that they must navigate according to the political winds. The only thing we can do is try to generate as much political wind as possible. Those in office now must be reminded that, they might be once again facing a conservative challenger when it comes time to run again. If they act right while in office they can neutralize a growing groundswell of discontent.

I think there is some room for legitimate debate within the conservative movement about the best way to roll back ObamaCare.

Certainly within the first few weeks of the next Congress, the House should pass a bill to overturn the entire Affordable Healthcare Act, and the Senate should take that up. By then the Republicans should have a 54-46 majority, and they may be able to find 6 vulnerable Democrats to get to cloture (Manchin of WV comes to mind as one). If not, they should zot the old rules the way Reid did and make a special rule for this instance to close debate and pass with 51 votes. At that point, every Senator is on the record and the bill goes to Obama’s desk. He will veto it and there are not 67 votes in the Senate to overide a veto - then what?

Among the options:
(1) Wait until 2016 and hope we have Republican President and Republican Senate to repeal it completely, while letting the chaos continue and the law become entrenched for another 2 years?

(2) Hope the Supreme Court gets it right this time with the lawsuit about the Federal Exchange subsidies?

(3) Try to de-fund parts of ObamaCare through zeroing out items in appropriation bills (again this will draw vetos which cannot be overriden) and threats of government shutdowns. Republicans should try to de-fang the government shutdown boogey man by going to back to the old, lawful method of passing individual appropriation bills and passing them early, so it is clear which end of Pennsylvania Avenue is obstructing and forcing the shutdown, and its clear that the shutdown is limited to the Health & Human Services appropriation.

(4) Since none of these first three options will fully kill the ObamaCare monster immediately, the place where there is room for debate is whether to make chnges to the existing law, in an effort to make it less burdensome to the American people. For example, there are probably the votes to eliminate the tx on gross revenue for medical equipment providers. There might be votes for provisions that would force the administration to grandfather/restore all policies that were in effect in 2010 (so people could keep their policies and doctors). There might be votes to force administrators to accept much lower cost insurance plans. All of those might provide relief to the American people. But at the same time they would lessen the pressure for a total repeal. I think that is where the hard choices lie.

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