Murkowski: GOP should focus on Economy and Jobs, not Health Care Repeal

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The Pubbies must be more careful than they are being so far on health care and what they invest their time in.  Congressional Republicans might end up spending lots of time on health care in the next two years.  The most recent repeal attempt is a vain-glorious dud and will quickly be forgotten.  But now, the House Republicans are intimating that they will attach amendments to most bills that move attempting to defund lots of the law's provisions.  It will be interesting to see what happens when they attach these amendments to various bills, because if they propose to get them through on every piece of legislation, very little will happen legislatively in the next two years, and they could attempt to stage a Mexican standoff over a budget bill this way, which in the end would do them about as much good as it did Gingrich and the gang in '95.

The Republicans telegraphed their strategy in the repeal bill; they want to tie health care reform to the economy by claiming that the current law is a job-killer, and they want to keep the issue alive for 2012.  But, if they adopt only the two-tiered strategy above, they will fail.  According to a recent Forbes report, large numbers of small businesses in many states have jumped onto the tax credits available for getting their employees covered.  In addition, the insurance companies, some big campaign contributors, don't want swaths of new customers to be barred from their doors.  And a number of the bill's provisions, as they are gradually enacted, will gain popularity.  The difference between the time the Dems spent on health care in '09 and the time the Pubbies will spend on it in '11 and '12 could very well be that the Dems passed a law whose popularity will increase over time, and the GOP's attempts to repeal and scale it back will hit the floor loudly.  Republican voters might not like the health care bill, but they won't like failed approaches to get rid of it either.

The GOP should not try to repeal healthcare outright or kill it with a thousand cuts over the next two years, because neither strategy will work.  Those who want full repeal and nothing else would best wait for the courts to decide the matter.  Those who want something else ought to propose a whole new bill that systematically lays out their solution to health care reform.  In the meantime, they should concentrate most of their efforts, if they want a legitimate shot in 2012, on their real goals, tax reform, budget deficit reduction and jobs growth.

If the GOP keeps walking down dead-end roads on the health care law at the expense of the stuff the country is most concerned about now, they'll paint themselves into a shrinking corner--hell, in 2012, Obama might even get AHIP's endorsement in this case.