If Republicans sweep '14 and '16...

[Person Man]

Really...what can and will they do about the Affordable Care Act? Its kind of a 4 legged stool between the subsidies, the exchanges, the bans of caps and preexisting conditions and the mandate. Further, by the time there is a Republican president by 2017, we would have had three more enrollment period and maybe another 22 million people signed up. At that rate, a majority of the uninsured will be signed up. 

Then question is then- How will the Republican sell cancelling the insurance of 30 million people and how will they sell the continuation of then almost a decade of regulatory uncertainty?  This is very similar to the Iraq War debate. Most people in principle wanted it, the President acted with most of his political capital and then was stuck defending it for most of the rest of his time support of it went from 60% in principle to 40% in reality as it become protracted. Bush at first was politically immune from the attacks in the 2004 election while they were able to slowly chip away at Obama's power.  However, by the start of year 7, both of their policies and their parties were unpopular. The main issue forward was an "exit strategy", do we "pull the troops"? Or do they just skirt by and implement their own policies such as tort immunity, allowing pharmacists and nurses to practice limited forms of medicine and allow insurance companies to sell the same policies nation-wide?

 Obama eventually did pull the troops but eventually half the void got filled with a powerful pretender. Will the Republican Senate and President have issues with "pulling the troops" on Obmacare? And if so, would this make future democrats lame ducks on health care for the remainder of the first half of the 21st century, would they push to implement or would they push for some sort of full measure?

[King]

Pretend that they did something and take credit for it.

[Maistre]

Repeal and replace it with Romneycare.

[Antonio the Sixth]

If this happens (which I highly doubt), Senate Democrats had better fight tooth and nail to filibuster any attempt at repeal/watering-down.

[Franzl]

If this happens (which I highly doubt), Senate Democrats had better fight tooth and nail to filibuster any attempt at repeal/watering-down.

At which point Republicans will become so annoyed that the filibuster will be history.

Which would be a wonderful thing....although with a catastrophic effect in this particular case.

[pbrower2a]

Repeal it and let profits-first medicine take over as we have had. That's a cost-loading, service-cutting method that does extremely well for shareholders and executives but badly for everyone else.

[Negusa Nagast 🚀]

They will probably make some brief alternations and claim that they have enacted sweeping reform. If the Democrats are unlucky the electorate will believe the Republicans and bolster their support.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

The Patient CARE Act that was proposed by Richard Burr, Tom Coburn, and Orin Hatch back in January to be the "Republican healthcare plan, adjusted for Obamacare taking effect".

For those who gained coverage under Obamacare, it would not touch those benefits (that would be politically devastating).  It promotes mainly your classic Republican healthcare plan: tax credits, more employer coverage, reform Medicaid, tort reform, state deregulation of competition, tax-free health savings accounts, and more flexibility with insurance plans. They could also change the mandate to be at minimum catastrophic care (most likely), or maybe get away with repealing the mandate entirely (less likely). They could repeal the medical device tax, and change the definition of a full workweek back to 40 hours (these both could prove very popular).

But it does recognize the popularity of many parts of Obamacare, like protecting people with pre-existing conditions, preventing premium increases when one develops an illness, and curbs "Cadillac" plans.

[AggregateDemand]

Difficult to say. Repeal and replace is unlikely because the political risk is immense, but Democrats will accuse them of repealing the bill and killing people, which will probably work. At that point, what incentive will Republicans have to keep the ACA in tact at all? Only vulnerable Congressional Republicans will stand in the way of complete repeal. If few Republicans are vulnerable, repeal may happen.

The most likely scenario, imo, Republicans will gut the wealth redistribution aspects, reduce the comprehensive coverage threshold to make ACA more like catastrophic coverage, and repeal the onerous business taxes.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf53oFb4IKA

[memphis]

The ACA is like abortion. The Republicans would never end it because they need it as a boogeyman to stir up the dumbs and and the sociopaths, whose votes are necessary to enable the perverse fantasies of our nation's owners.

[IceSpear]

If this happens (which I highly doubt), Senate Democrats had better fight tooth and nail to filibuster any attempt at repeal/watering-down.

At which point Republicans will become so annoyed that the filibuster will be history.

Which would be a wonderful thing....although with a catastrophic effect in this particular case.

Yeah, it's pretty obvious that the Republicans are going to abolish the filibuster the second the Democrats try to use it for anything important, which is why the Democrats should just beat them to the punch and do it now.

Also, I'm not convinced the GOP will fear political backlash if they control the trifecta in 2017. They already constantly screw over many members of their base by doing things such as denying the Medicaid expansion and refusing to set up exchanges, and they don't seem to mind. Remember that West Virginia story about how poor whites there wouldn't sign up for Obamacare because they feared death panels and national ID microchips being implanted into them? It's not like these people are going to care if Obamacare is repealed, in fact they will celebrate it as a victory for muh freedom.

This is why it's imperative to have a Democrat win the 2016 election. By 2020, it may be too ingrained to remove, but even that's not certain.

[IceSpear]

The ACA is like abortion. The Republicans would never end it because they need it as a boogeyman to stir up the dumbs and and the sociopaths, whose votes are necessary to enable the perverse fantasies of our nation's owners.

The difference is that their corporate masters don't give a crap about abortion, but they certainly care about repealing the ACA.

[Cory]

Yeah, it's pretty obvious that the Republicans are going to abolish the filibuster the second the Democrats try to use it for anything important, which is why the Democrats should just beat them to the punch and do it now.

The Democrats should've nuked the filibuster in 2009/10 and pushed through the Public Option to begin with.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Republicans can only be ultraconservative nuts that play to the base when they're out of power. As soon as they can actually start following through on the crazy stuff they talk about doing, the public will turn hard against them.

A GOP-led government will be a lot less conservative than you all think it will.

[IceSpear]

Republicans can only be ultraconservative nuts that play to the base when they're out of power. As soon as they can actually start following through on the crazy stuff they talk about doing, the public will turn hard against them.

A GOP-led government will be a lot less conservative than you all think it will.

[King]

It's political suicide. There is nothing more permanent than a government program. It's here to stay. Insurance companies will continue to profit.

Making health insurance more profitable lowers the cost of health insurance.

[badgate]

This is actually interesting because I've been thinking lately about the fact that enrollment will begin a month before midterm election day. It will suddenly be an issue again, but in a vastly different way than last October because [hopefully] the websites will be working smoothly. High enrollment numbers for that first month could even effect a few races.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

It's amazing how many Republicans want to repeal the ACA but voted for Medicare Part D .

[Mechaman]

It's amazing how many Republicans want to repeal the ACA but voted for Medicare Part D .

Yes, and only one of these was actually paid for in some way.  Guess which one.

[MyRescueKittehRocks]

It's amazing how many Republicans want to repeal the ACA but voted for Medicare Part D .

Yeah. I'd not be one of them. If I had any say they'd both be gone in an Indiana minute.

[7,052,770]

They won't. They'll pivot back to how Obamacare was inspired by a Republican plan and take credit for its successes.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Repeal and replace it with Romneycare.

I look forward to abortions being covered.

[Mr. Illini]

They would not repeal it if it gets to that point. They would defect to changing smaller pieces of the law that they don't like, preceding to claim they "saved" Obamacare.

[pbrower2a]

They will keep the mandate but load costs to crreate the most expensive system in the world. Such would fit the overall plan to make America a cheap-labor, high-price economy.

Of course it is highly unlikely that the Republicans hold the Senate in 2017. There are just too many Hard Right R Senators in D-leaning states up for election in 2016.