The GOPs ObamaCare Moment - WSJ Editorial
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The GOP’s current two-stage strategy is first to repeal most of the law using budget “reconciliation,” which allows fiscal, deficit-reducing measures to bypass the Senate filibuster with 51 votes. Republicans wrote a repeal test bill in 2015 that cut the deficit by $474 billion even while repealing all of ObamaCare’s tax increases. President Obama vetoed it, but under Senate rules a similar bill could pass by mid-February.
The repeal bill would set a two- or three-year sunset for the law’s subsidies, which would then give Congress time to ensure a smooth and orderly transition to a new system. Congress will hold hearings, and the idea is to form coalitions about discrete replacement provisions that can attract 60 Senate votes.
This strategy is fraught with political risk, as any strategy would be. If Republicans don’t repeal ObamaCare immediately, the danger is that the natural inertia of Congress takes over and nothing changes. But the more time they put between repeal and replace, the more the danger will grow.
The biggest risk is that the two-stage maneuver will hand leverage to the most extreme wings of both parties. On the right, the incentive will be to denounce any replacement as ObamaCare Lite, and the leadership will have given up the leverage of “repeal” as an incentive to vote for a replacement. Conservatives from safe seats could kill reform if they attack as imperfect anything not designed by Ayn Rand.
Meanwhile, the incentive for Democrats will be to oppose any negotiations and let the GOP twist in the wind. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has already signaled this strategy, telling reporters that “if they repeal without a replacement, they will own it. Democrats will not then step up to the plate and come up with a half-baked solution that we will partially own. It’s all theirs.”
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Political capital ebbs with each day beyond Jan. 20. GOP leaders will have to maintain their resolve against the status quo constituencies on the left and right, and the rank and file may have to vote for some form of tax-credit subsidy to avoid the spectacle of millions losing their insurance.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-gops-obamacare-moment-1482882766