The anger over the administration’s health care legislation is real.
It is possibly the key animating force in this year’s midterm elections.
But I think that a lot of us have a nagging fear that politicians will sweep into office on a promise to repeal and replace it and then decide that this is just too difficult.
Independent Women’s Voice has launched a repeal pledge that is designed to ensure that politicians don’t come to Washington and renege on their promise. In an op-ed this morning on “holding politicians to their promise to replace ObamaCare,” the Wall Street Journal indicates that this pledge has the potential to do just that:
Launched a week ago by the nonprofit outfits Independent Women’s Voice and American Majority Action, the repeal pledge has been signed so far by 43 Republicans. Its sponsors are about to name a board of outside policy experts to evaluate all votes and let the public track how Members shake out on health care. The pledge applies beyond repeal per se to interim steps like discharge petitions to allow certain up-or-down votes in Congress on partial repeal, stripping funding from some ObamaCare subsidy or enforcement programs, and repealing certain regulations.
Dismembering ObamaCare limb by limb is probably the best, and perhaps the only, political strategy for at least the next two years. Meanwhile, many Republicans may figure that the path of least political resistance will be to hold a symbolic vote on repeal and claim victory, even if it is filibustered in the Senate or vetoed by President Obama. Republicans are also notoriously fractious on health policy and will need outside pressure if they ever do get around to the “replace” part.