Health Care Repeal Debate Starts Today

After a week-long delay in the wake of the mass shooting in Tucson, Ariz., Republicans in the House are getting their shot at repealing the Democrats' health care overhaul. Debate on a Republican bill to repeal the reforms will start -- and likely end -- this week. But today also marks the beginning of a long, renewed debate over health care that is expected to extend through the 2012 elections.

House Speaker John Boehner kicked off a few hours of debate today on a repeal bill, and a vote on the measure will likely take place Wednesday afternoon.

A blog post on the Speaker's website says that tomorrow, "the House will vote on legislation to repeal the job-destroying health care law, giving Congress a 'clean sheet of paper' to develop real health care solutions that will lower costs and protect American jobs, as recommended by these economists and experts." (Note that in the wake of Tucson, the description of the bill has been tweaked from "job killing" to "job destroying.")

The repeal bill is expected to die in the Democrat-led Senate, but the vote gives House Republicans an opportunity to fulfill their campaign pledge to work to undo health care reform legislation. And by instructing House committees to draft a "replace" bill, Republicans can argue they are working to maintain the bill's most popular provisions even as they overturn the bill as a whole.

Yet the renewed health care battle has also put Democrats on the offensive, as they see a new opportunity to sell their reform package to the public.

Democrats organized a series of news conferences today to promote the popular provisions in the health care laws. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius held a news conference this morning on her department's new study showing that as many as 129 million Americans under age 65 have some pre-existing medical condition.

"Prior to the enactment of the Affordable Care Act, your insurance company can decide what is a pre-existing condition and refuse to sell you a policy, charge you two or three times more, or limit your benefits so that your condition is excluded," HHS official Richard Sorian wrote in a blog post. "Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, we have already prohibited these practices for children and by 2014 that will be the law of the land for all Americans. But if efforts in Congress to repeal the health law succeed, all those freedoms will be wiped away."

Meanwhile, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi held a hearing today with the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee on the impact the Republicans' repeal plan would have on regular Americans. At the start of the hearing, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) noted that the Democratic hearing was the only hearing held before the start of floor debate on the repeal bill, in contrast to the "thousands of hours" of hearings Democrats held before passing their reform package.

She lamented that each minute spent debating the repeal bill amounted to "one less minute we are spending creating jobs, focusing on getting people back to work."

"Why we are dong this other than playing to the vanity of the conservative, right-wing of the Republican party, is beyond me," she said.

Republicans launched their own press assault, scheduling a conference this afternoon with Tea Party and conservative grassroots organizers to accept hundreds of thousands of letters from Americans calling for the repeal of "Obamacare."

"I want to make sure that members of Congress on the Hill here and across the country understand how deeply and how broadly Americans have rejected Obamacare," Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who will accept the anti-health care letters at today's press conference, told conservative news outlet Newsmax.

While no one expects Democrats in the Senate to even consider voting on the repeal bill, Republicans could win support from some Senate Democrats to support some modifications to the health care reforms. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) is already supporting legislation that would allow states to get an exemption for their residents from the individual mandate, the Wall Street Journal points out. Most lawmakers support repealing a certain provision of the bill that requires more paperwork from businesses.

"We have said no law is perfect," Wasserman Schultz said in a conference call today.

Just how imperfect the law is remains up for debate. Republicans are claiming the health care reforms will cost the economy 650,000 jobs, but that figure amounts to fuzzy math, the Associated Press reports.

Democrats, meanwhile are citing Congressional Budget Office numbers that say the repeal bill will cost the government $230 billion over 10 years. Yet those figures rely on projections and estimates that may not come to bear. The most significant parts of the Democrats' plan, such as the individual mandate, have yet to be implemented.

If Republicans do draw up a "replacement" bill as promised, it will likely resemble the legislation they put forward in 2009 as an alternative to the Democratic plan, the Los Angeles Times reports, focusing on lowering premium costs, assuring access to coverage for people with preexisting conditions and increasing the number of insured Americans without raising taxes.

The White House, however, has argued that real health care reform must be comprehensive in order to be effective. Given the challenge of drawing up a bill -- and the fact that the Republican-led committees have no deadline for producing one -- it's possible Republicans could sideline the replacement bill indefinitely.

Still, the GOP plans to keep the Democrats' reforms in the spotlight. The latest polls show Americans are split on the repeal. But there is enough opposition to the new health care laws that Republicans appear to see a political upside in holding hearings on the issue, trying to withhold funding for the reforms, supporting court efforts against them, and attempting to dismantle them piece by piece.

[Cattzen]

The Mandate is to create a (very) large pool of group insurance members that would add something like 30 million new customers to the Private Insurance Industry. If, you would like to opt out of the Government Mandate you will be assessed a small tax penalty imposed on your return (if, you have a tax return coming).

Lawsuits, delays, and defunding are all GOP tactics to Kill (uninsured Americans) the Obama Healthcare Reform Act Bill without regard to the eventual ramifications on our economy and the health of Americans.

[noloyalisti]

Health care should NOT be for profit at all. Why do humans have to pay health insurance companies for deciding if they will let us live? This is not a debate, this is a scam by giant corporations and the filthy rich slime bags who run them.

[hhandyman]

Return to the FDR tax era and watch the republicans scream at 98% income taxes for the people over 100,ooo. Now that would pay off the deficit and get us back out of the Red that the Bush give aways cost the nation. ghee woulnt the ceos be happy with thier million dollar bounus paying off the Govermnent for the Lobby expences that twisted ledislation for the past 20 years..

[hhandyman]

Start with any coverage for DickCheneys heart installment. since it looks like it woudl be his first one rather than a replacement thats what id say if i wanted to be as vengfull as lots of the Republicans its time they saw the Death pannel they accused the democatic party as having in the Medical reform.. they want to cut heathcare for the middle and lower income class people its time congress paid for thier own health care from an annual salery of 25.0000 total from thier high income job. let them know how easy it is to live as a middle claass American. thier income should not be higher than a sargent at war since they risk life and limb for such low income. they are NO BETTER than PFC but they do get fed.and somewhat housed.

[endurorob_5]

dinkydog1 January 19, 2011 8:20 AM EST
The "frivolous lawsuits" crisis was proven to be just another GOP sham to appease the Insurance Industry, Almost every country in europe has better healthcare for less $ and nowhere on earth wants anything like the US health care system.

Why do you guys make up this stuff to get angry about?
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Frivolous lawsuits are not a sham. Doctors over evaluate and over prescribe inorder to avoid lawsuits. That adds greatly to costs. Health care in Europe does technically cost less because the vast majority of research and development is done here because European Socialized health care does not lend itself to research and development. And how do you define "better" health care?

[endurorob_5]

By the way the Europeans are cutting back drastically on services and recomending that people get a supplementary (private) insurance plan to cover what the government won't.

[jimbom121]

25 states have tort reform in place...it has done nothing to curb healthcare costs. And there is tort reform in the current law.

[endurorob_5]

The fact is the Health Care "Reform" bill does absolutley nothing to control the cost of health care. All it does is force companies to subsidize employee health care insurance, force insurance compamies to provide insurance to people that are already sick, and in the case of those that are not elidgable for employer subsidized insurance the government (tax payers) subsidizes their insurance. It does nothing to control actual health care costs and does nothing about frivolous lawsuits. It is nothing more than a sham to pave the to the socialists dream of single payer (government/tax payer funded) health care that is proving to be a failure in Europe. You have to be a complete MORON to buy into this BS from Obama and his cronies.

[jimbom121]

There is tort reform in the bill. Also, it bends the curve by allowing everyone, including the healthiest people.

The law is a start, and much more needs to be done.

[obamadinajad]

I agree with you totally. For instance, if it's so wonderful why did our elitists in congress exempt themselves? Don't they feel like they deserve good Obamahealthcare like the rest of us? You can't add tens of millions of people to the system without it costing a lot, yet the dishonesty of dems pervades and they will not stop trying to deceive everyone about the price tag. But then, republicans might be doing the same thing, who knows? The party that is supposed to know is our "non politicized" CBO but they are not held accountable for the actual math it appears. All the numbers are massaged,etc. it's ridiculous, as Americans you are supposed to be able to rely on the CBO for this information if you want it. They likely need a house cleaning or at the very least a reprimand and demand to start over with real facts and real math.

[RobAla]

Please repeal it, and bring about a bipartisan plan. The only thing bipartisan about the passage of the health care law was the opposition to it.

[abbe91]

Only because it lacks the public option.

[jimbom121]

There is no bi-partisan plan. The Repubs do not want to address healthcare. They had their opportunity.

[duffyn]

You think Nancy Pelosi was bad?? john boner is 10X worse. Of course, he is out for big health ins companies. When the Dems went to vote on the bill, boner had a meeting w/his "constituents" - guess who?? Big nak execs, big health ins execs!! This guy is a disaster for the common people, but oh boy, the rich love him. Unbelievable that they choose a useless vote as their 1st move. What about jobs and the economy???? I thought that's why the Dems were in trouble. Working on health care with 10% unemploy???? We know what these are thinking though....

[noloyalisti]

What is there to debate? The Republicans represent the giant health insurance corporations who give them millions to write laws to let grandma die. The Republicans are simply lying POS low lifes.

[carolo43]

Anyone who can trust their insurance company is living in the clouds. They can't see yet what insurance companies did to homeowners after Hurricane Charley and Katrina? They literally dumped everyone who had a claim after paying them off a tiny fraction of what they were due. Same thing with health insurance. Pay your premiums for 50 years but don't get sick or you'll be targeted to be dropped.

Not sure why they don't just go with public option on this heathcare bill. Let those get it that want it and leave out those that don't.

[the74blaster]

Well, I guess combining the words socialism and healthcare tends to scare the god fearing RINOS into believing that for profit insurance companies really care. The public option was needed to force competition and reduce the costs of premiums.

However, you shpuld know that the GOPversion of government is to cave into business so they can profit by gouging the customer and never reulate anything.

After all, that is the new business model, "reduce the quality of service and increase the price because collusion prevents any competition".

[the74blaster]

by IL-Independent January 18, 2011 6:36 PM EST

So are you telling me that medical decisions should be made by an insurance companies willingness to cover it rather than letting the patient and doctor make it?

Are you also telling us that meaningful competition between providers would not drive the costs down for premiums and premote better service?

What economic school do you come from?

I thought supply and demand controls market prices...that is unless you have collusion between healthcare providers or a monopoly.

Your name says your independent. Well if you really are independent from the party of NO, lets hear your solution?