From Grace-Marie Turner:
If Republicans take control of the Senate on Tuesday, the new Congress will need a three-part strategy on ObamaCare – the one they follow after they take the repeal “show” vote.
President Obama still retains veto power, and no one believes that there will be two-thirds majorities in both houses to override his certain veto of any full repeal bill.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell spoke with Neil Cavuto on News yesterday about the possibilities of full repeal:
MCCONNELL: Well, it would take 60 votes in the Senate. No one thinks we’re going to have 60 Republicans.
CAVUTO: Right. Right.
MCCONNELL: And it would take a president — presidential signature. And no one thinks we’re going to get that.
So the question is, what can you do about it? Well, I would like to put the Senate Democrats in the position of voting on the most unpopular parts of this law and see if we can put it on the president’s desk and make him take real ownership of this highly destructive Obamacare, which has done so much damage to the country, the lost jobs, the higher premiums, the higher co-payments, the higher deductibles.
Yes, we will be voting on that sort of thing. But he is the president of the United States until January of 2017, and people need to understand that that constrains our ability to do for this law what we’d like to do, which is to get rid of it.
In response to the expected firestorm from conservatives following his remarks, McConnell spokesman Brian McGuire assured reporters the Leader “is and has always been committed to the full repeal of Obamacare.”
The House, too, will take a full repeal vote when it convenes in January. The reality is that the president will veto the bill.
Then the Congress will need to begin a serious legislative and oversight strategy to:
- Halt provisions of the law that are doing the most harm to our health sector and economy
- Demonstrate their positive vision of free-market reform that includes a safety net for those receiving coverage now
- Conduct oversight of the many unlawful changes and blank checks the administration has been writing in implementing ObamaCare.
Read more: Forbes.com
