Thwarting Obama care

Stephen Moore:

If the GOP takes control of the House after November, several leading GOPers are vowing that H.R. 1 in the next Congress will be an ObamaCare repeal bill. In the Senate, Republican Jim DeMint of South Carolina has already introduced a bill. Meanwhile, the Club for Growth is calling on Republican challengers around the country to make repeal a central plank of their campaigns, and several dozen GOP candidates trying to oust incumbent House Democrats reportedly have fired off emails to their donors pledging repeal efforts. Even the perennially cautious Mitt Romney has suggested that repeal might be in order.

For all the prairie-fire enthusiasm, though, some GOP strategists say the effort is unwise. Republicans would be promising voters something they can't deliver. Even if they sweep the House and Senate, President Obama could still veto any repeal bill with little chance of being overridden.

That's why some conservatives are looking at alternative tactics, such as working the legislative levers to deny funding to agencies that would implement the new law. As Michael Franc, congressional analyst at the Heritage Foundation, puts it: "The appropriations process will become a bloody legislative battleground where lawmakers who support the repeal movement seek to limit funds to agencies tasked with hiring the tens of thousands of new bureaucrats to write the regulations and otherwise implement health reform."

If Republicans take control of even one chamber of Congress, they'd be able to block spending bills, since it takes both houses to approve new spending. Republicans and conservatives also can be expected to lead the fight against ObamaCare in the courts.

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I think that voters want the GOP to continue opposing the Obama care monstrosity. We will also have time to pick away at it to reinforce that opposition. The supposed benefits of the bill will be no more apparent on election day than they are now.