The polls show that a majority of Americans want to repeal and replace the administration’s healthcare legislation. But there is one American who doesn’t: President Obama. Does his veto power mean the citizenry is helpless, even if Republicans, many elected on a repeal promise, control the House?
Grace-Marie Turner, who has emerged as a major thinker on healthcare, has a good piece today in the Wall Street Journal. She acknowledges that mustering the votes to overturn a veto is unlikely. So what to do?
Information is the key weapon. Republicans can use congressional hearings to explain what ObamaCare is doing to the economy and the health sector. Their strongest cases would be built around jobs, the cost of health care, and the rising deficit.
If evidence shows that looming mandates on employers are crippling job-creation, they should be repealed. If health costs are rising, as they inevitably will be, Congress needs to hold hearings to investigate the causes and explain why the offending taxes and regulations must be repealed
Turner offers strategies for coping with the period before the bill can be repealed: defund it, dismantle it, delay it, disapprove regulations, direct oversight, and delegation to states. All of this sounds difficult but it delights me that Turner is developing a strategy. Message to the House: Do it.
Final word from Turner:
The real wallop of ObamaCare will come in 2014, when most of the spending begins and businesses and individuals are hit with intrusive and expensive mandates. The main job of Republicans, should they capture Congress, will be to slow down implementation of the law and explain to the American people the damage it will do-and already is doing-to our economy. If the White House changes hands in 2012, they can be ready to start with a clean slate and begin a step-by-step approach to sensible reform.