Repeal The Deal

As I predicted (as everyone predicted), a major plank in the Republican party's hope for the 2010 elections is running against health care reform. It'll nationalize quite a few local campaigns.

Could health care reform be repealed? Sure, but there are so many hoops to jump through it won't be easy. It's pretty rare a major law is overturned, but then it's pretty rare a major law is passed against the will of the public. Indeed, the single biggest factor is will the public remain as angry about this bill as they are now. Not for the next six months, but for years. It's true that, to the surprise of many, passing the bill didn't especially help its popularity, or Obama's for that matter. But it's hard to concentrate on any issue, no matter how big, for that long. People move on--who knows what will happen tomorrow--and whatever has been passed can easily be forgotten, or even worse (for Republicans), forgiven.

So the mood is out there, the numbers are out there, but those hoops!

First, the Republicans have to do well enough this year that it sends a very clear message. How well? I'd guess they've got to take back the House, or come awfully close, and take at least 5 Senate seats (which is halfway to gaining control). Imagine if, after the dust cleared, Harry Reid was gone and Nancy Pelosi no longer in charge. Two of the top three people who forced through the bill were over. That's a powerful signal.

But it would just be the start. Obviously any hint at repeal would be vetoed by the President, so that's the next step. He'd have to be defeated in 2012. It's simply impossible to predict where his polls will be in two and a half years, and it's questionable that health care will be the biggest issue. The basic economy will probably matter more.

But if he did lose (I take it as a given his opponent will support repeal), the Republicans would have to take the House (again) and take more Senate seats--enough to gain control.

Then they need the political will to face a fight from powerful, entrenched interests. But the real question is how many votes will they need in the Senate. A lot of people say it's 60, to get around a filibuster. Maybe, maybe not. Most bills are not filibustered, and only require a simple majority. You may think something this big will be, but perhaps after two elections where they got murdered, the Dems might figure time to leave this alone. Or perhaps the Republicans will come up with some fancy procedural maneuver, not unlike what the Democrats did.

Or there's always old-fashioned compromise. Maybe they'll work with the Dems, do a little horse trading, and come up with a bill that repeals a lot of the original law, but also keeps certain things. After all, even today, Repubs aren't running on a simple "repeal" campaign, but "repeal and replace."

There's no single step that's too unlikely, it's simply that the Repubs have to hit them all. Combined, I'd put the odds of a serious repeal at around 10%.

PS Some have suggested if the Repubs take back the House this fall they can simply cut off the purse strings and refuse to fund certain onerous parts of the bill, such as extra IRS agents to enforce its provisions. That's a kind of back door solution that I don't think will work.