Obamacare Repeal

    David Frum has a really good article about future Republican attempts to repeal Health-care Reform that I liked.  One of the points that he mentions at the end of the article is that by furiously drawing attention to unpopular provisions and attempting to defund key provisions will actually increase the popularity of Republicans.  In some areas, it might work though that remains to be seen.  I fail to see how defunding oversight to make sure that insurance companies are offering a standard level of health-care would endear them to the masses.  Furthermore, they'd really piss off their base (Seniors) by not funding the prescription drug program that was also part of the complete bill.  Another area which would greatly upset businesses and workers who don't get employer supplied insurance, would be the fact that defunding the program would likely entail eliminating the subsidies that the government would supply these groups when it comes to buying  health insurance. Republicans would protect the American people from having to buy cheaper insurance and seniors from having to pay less for prescription drugs?  

    Admittedly, I think the Democrats in Congress and Obama are going to somehow fail to raise these points because they have demonstrated a remarkable lack of showmanship, gamesmanship, and political savvy when it comes to branding their goals and ideas.  One can look at how they've handled the tax cut issue, it's really popular to raise taxes on the wealthy and yet they still continue to hem and haw about the issue when they could easily decouple them, pass the popular issue of extending tax cuts on the rest of the country, and let Republicans catch flack for being obsessed with the wealthy at the expense of others.  They haven't done that, they probably won't do that, because Democrats are bad at this kind of stuff.  And I just ranted, which I apologize for.

    I want to add my agreement to David Frum that there is very little chance the repeal is going through, even in 2012 if there were to be an increased Republican presence.  Even were Republicans to gain the Presidency, keep the House, and gain control of Senate, they're unlikely to get the full 60 seats there and I'm pretty sure Democrats will be in the mood to return the filibuster favor that Republicans have been giving so far.