Should the GOP Repeal Obama's Health Care Reform Bill?

Do Republicans want to repeal ObamaCare? Is Christine O’Donnell not a witch? You betcha!

We won’t know until Wednesday (or perhaps later) what the makeup of the next Congress will be and whether the GOP will have enough votes to implement a priority outlined in the 2010 Republican Agenda to “repeal and replace the government takeover of health care.”

Even if they stage the kind of takeover that has been suggested, The Washington Post noted that it could be difficult “if not impossible” to actually repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Why? Even if they take both houses of Congress, they would, ironically, not have enough votes to counter a Democratic filibuster, not to mention a presidential veto, which any repeal would most certainly face.

In other words, like it or not, ObamaCare is here to stay.

What weapons can the GOP deploy against the plan? The Post reported that even if Republicans only gain one house of Congress, they will have some control over appropriations, which the health plan has in spades. With over 115 appropriations that are vital to implementing the plan, the GOP could block crucial parts of it, or even refuse to give the staff of the Department of Health and Human Services time to set up the law.

They can also stymie it by refusing to pass any appropriations that would fund the law, or any alternatives. If President Obama then refuses to sign any appropriations bill that doesn’t fund health care we could be headed for the same kind of government shutdown that occurred in 1994 when Republican leader Newt Gingrich and Democratic President Bill Clinton faced off in a budget battle.

The tricky part for Republicans is that even though the health care bill is unpopular overall, there are elements of it – such as no lifetime limits on coverage, no discriminating against children with preexisting conditions and coverage for dependents up to age 26 – that they admit are well liked. They don’t want to get rid of those, but trying to wipe out the bill without wiping out the bill will be very tricky.

Then again, maybe they’ll just stall until 2012, when they think they could take back the White House and have a much stronger veto pen.

Do you think Republicans should try to repeal health care?