With Obamacare repeal, Republicans are trying to accomplish something that's never been done

By James Hohmann March 13 at 10:04 AM

THE BIG IDEA: Congress has never reversed a major program of social benefits once it has taken effect and reached millions of Americans. Many have tried, but no precedent or roadmap exists for Republicans as they press ahead with the effort to repeal and replace Obamacare.

The Affordable Care Act, which passed with not a single Republican vote in either chamber, ushered in the most significant expansion of insurance coverage since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid. Eleven million additional people joined the Medicaid rolls after the ACA allowed states to expand their programs to cover people with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, which means the system now covers 68 million people.

Conservatives fought so hard to stop the ACA from getting through in the first place because they understood just how hard it would be to claw back, no matter how problematic or expensive the law turned out to be. Their fears are now coming to fruition, as the debate over Medicaid’s future increasingly threatens to imperil the House GOP bill.

-- Republicans have been in similar positions before. After Franklin Roosevelt created Social Security, leading Republicans ran on repealing the system, which they saw as an un-American redistribution of wealth. In 1952, Dwight Eisenhower finally brought the GOP out of the wilderness after two decades by embracing the idea of Social Security and promising to keep other New Deal programs intact. Barry Goldwater famously attacked Eisenhower for offering “a dime store New Deal” when he proposed government medical care for the elderly.

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