Why Efforts to Repeal Health Care Will Backfire

With the GOP in control of the House of Representatives, there is a constant drum beat for repealing the Affordable Care Act. The fact that repeal -- whether comprehensive or piecemeal -- has no chance of passing the Senate or getting past President Obama's veto pen clearly escapes the leaders of this legislative distraction, but there will nonetheless be much activity in the House on rolling back reform.

The Tea Party has demanded the GOP focus on repealing "Obamacare," and the Republicans are desperate to show their obedience. The staunchest opponents of health care reform -- Michele Bachmann, Eric Cantor, Mike Pence, Jim DeMint -- have drawn a line in the sand and declared that nothing less than full repeal will be acceptable.

But in all the talk about repealing health care reform, the numerous benefits that the law creates have become more publicized than they ever were before the November elections. The sunlight on those benefits -- i.e. reducing costs for preventive care, increasing insurance access for children, ending caps on insurance payouts for patients with chronic diseases -- has forced advocates of repeal to say they actually support those provisions and will work to make sure they are once again made the law of the land.

In other words, the GOP is admitting that its predictions that America would fall into a socialist dystopia if health care reform were allowed to become law are completely bogus. More importantly, they must argue that the best path forward is to end the law's protections for the American people so they can turn around and try to re-implement them.

For people who are hyper sensitive about cutting the cost of government, it's interesting that they are endorsing the definition of inefficient government work.

The fact of the matter is that the Affordable Care Act is a net positive for America, in particular the working class folks who have struggled to obtain health insurance. Even the Act's most fervent supporters would admit that the law is not perfect, which is why there is a bipartisan effort, for example, to end the costly 1099 filing requirement for small businesses.

Repeal was always an exercise in political expedience instead of an attempt to pass a better national policy on health care. There are areas that need reformed, but the central planks of the law are both necessary and popular. Necessary because they help fix an inherently broken health care system, and popular for the same reason.

Moreover, repeal efforts have already backfired. There is now a risk of a government shutdown due to the GOP's out of touch priorities, and the ability of health care advocates to expose the hypocrisy of repeal has likely doomed the push for repeal (although the Republicans will continue to press forward with that losing effort.)

It's important, though, to recognize the benefits that the repeal effort has reaped. It's clear that enhancing the Affordable Care Act is a worthy enterprise, but ironically Americans support a stronger law, not a weaker one. Working to get a public option, for instance, should thus be the focus of all reform-minded health advocates, as only a public option will guarantee that all Americans have access to the health care that they need.

Oddly, supporters of health care reform should thank the GOP, as their radical efforts to reduce access to affordable health care will provide an enormous boost to the cause of expanding health coverage for all Americans.