GOP’s Obamacare muddle: They want to repeal it, but can’t figure out how

The GOP banked on the Supreme Court to help along their Obamacare repeal scheme, and now they're kinda lost

SIMON MALOY

We’re a couple of weeks removed from the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in King v. Burwell upholding the legality of the Affordable Care Act’s insurance subsidies, and it’s growing increasingly clear just how much Republicans in Congress were banking on the court to do their dirty work for them. But now that the court has sided with the government, full responsibility for fulfilling the promise of repealing Obamacare falls to Republicans in Congress, and they’re having a hell of a time figuring out what to do.

Way back in March, Republican leaders in the House and Senate agreed upon a new strategy to try and repeal the healthcare law – they’d nuke it via budget reconciliation. It’s a one-shot tactic that would allow them to push a repeal measure through to passage without having to first overcome a Democratic filibuster. The GOP leadership had previously been wary about going down that road, since it would take away their best tool for getting important, non-symbolic legislation passed. But they figured that repeal-through-reconciliation would make their cranky conservative members happy, and it would finally force President Obama to veto a repeal measure, so it was worth it for the political benefit. They passed a budget resolution which instructed five committees spread across the House and Senate to come up with language repealing portions of the ACA by no later than July 24 – two weeks from today.

With that self-imposed deadline bearing down, one would think Republicans would be busily working to make good on their promise to force an Obamacare repeal to the president’s desk. But they’re not. In fact, as Politico reported yesterday, Republicans in the Senate are “downplaying expectations” that they’ll actually go through with a repeal via reconciliation, and won’t commit to meeting the July 24 deadline:

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http://www.salon.com/2015/07/10/gops_obamacare_muddle_they_want_to_repeal_it_but_cant_figure_out_how/