Congressional Republicans will try to repeal President Barack Obama’s healthcare law next year but their leader in the Senate on Thursday acknowledged they will likely have to settle for far more modest changes.

Two days after Republicans scored major victories in congressional elections, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said, “We can and should propose and vote on straight repeal repeatedly” of the healthcare law.

McConnell’s prepared remarks, in a speech delivered to the conservative Heritage Foundation, acknowledged that Obama would veto such legislation, which probably would be blocked by the president’s fellow Democrats in the Senate anyway.

More realistically, McConnell said Republicans, who will hold a majority in next year’s House of Representatives, should aim to hobble the healthcare law by “denying funds for implementation” of the measure. Annual spending bills for agencies, including ones that implement the healthcare law, are normally written first in the House.

The healthcare law, enacted last year over Republican objections, provided the most sweeping reforms of the U.S. healthcare industry in decades. It aims to provide coverage to millions of people who have been going without insurance.

Repealing healthcare reform was one of the campaign promises of Republicans who staged an election rout on Tuesday that gave them control of the House and narrowed the Democratic majority in the Senate.

Republicans said the healthcare law would fail to achieve promised healthcare savings and was an overreach by government with provisions requiring all Americans to buy coverage starting in 2014 or face fines.

The Senate Republican leader said that he would attempt to stage votes in his chamber next year “against its most egregious provisions” of the law.

Those could include measures that penalize large employers if they do not offer health insurance to their workers and mandates on individuals to purchase health insurance.

On Wednesday, Obama said he would welcome Republican ideas for improving the healthcare reform, one of the president’s biggest accomplishments, but that it would be a mistake to have last year’s fight over again.

While Republicans can try to use annual funding bills to block implementation of the law, many of the provisions that are rolling into effect do not require government funding and will occur outside the federal appropriations process.

But withholding funds, say to the Department of Health and Human Services, could slow federal oversight of new regulations.

House Republicans, who will become heads of committees that oversee Obama administration agencies, could use their new majority next year to repeatedly haul officials to testify on Capitol Hill. That could take away some of the time these officials otherwise would use to implement the healthcare law.

Along those lines, McConnell said in his speech that “oversight will play a crucial role in Republican efforts going forward.”

McConnell was unapologetic for a recent statement that Republicans’ top priority over the next two years should be to work to deny Obama a second term as president.

“The fact is, if our primary legislative goals are to repeal and replace the health spending bill, to end the bailouts, cut spending and shrink the size and scope of government, the only way to do all these things is to put someone in the White House who won’t veto any of these things.”

“If the administration wants cooperation, it will have to begin to move in our direction,” McConnell said.
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By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON