Less than 24 hours after Republicans won control of the House, soon-to-be-speaker John Boehner denounced the new health care law, saying it would “kill jobs in America, ruin the best health care system in the world, and bankrupt our country” — and renewed his vow to try to repeal it. Kaiser Health News asked people around the country to answer the following question: “If you ended up in an elevator with Rep. Boehner, what single thing would you urge him to do about health care in this country?”
Grace-Marie Turner:
Republicans would be well advised to take a step-by-step approach to reform. They should target the most unpopular parts of the law for immediate repeal. For example, Mr. Obama acknowledged in his news conference that the provision in the health law that requires businesses to report all of their transactions totaling $600 more to the IRS is highly unpopular. And House leaders should look to conservative Democrats who survived Tuesday’s tidal wave to forge coalitions that could garner enough votes to override a likely presidential veto on other unpopular provisions, such as the individual mandate. The House could pass legislation calling for its repeal and include in the same legislation a replacement plan for targeted tax credits for the uninsured and revised rules for high-risk pools to give states more flexibility to actually make them work.
Posted on Kaiser Health News, November 3, 2010.