Good news on the Obamacare repeal front. First, a key centrist Democratic Congressman wants to repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a matter of urgent concern about which I have raised the alarm. From the story:
Republicans have new a Democratic ally in their attempts to repeal a part of Obamacare as a new, higher-profile member from the other side of the aisle signed onto a bill to eliminate a board that would set Medicare reimbursement rates. Rep. Allyson Schwartz, Pennsylvania Democrat and vice-chair of the New Democrat Coalition, has asked her colleagues to support legislation that would repeal Obamacare’s Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB)...
Schwartz is the biggest Democrat pickup for Roe’s plans to repeal IPAB because of her position in the pro-free trade, moderate New Democrat Coalition and because she was a major champion of healthcare reform. Roe’s already got Democratic Reps. Shelley Berkley of Nevada, Michael Capuano of Massachusetts and Larry Kissell of North Carolina. In a letter to her congressional colleagues on Friday, Schwartz said she does, “embrace the goal of reducing costs,” but that she cannot condone the implementation of a flawed policy that will risk beneficiary access to care...Repeal of IPAB will allow us to focus our efforts on the promotion of thoughtful innovations that will achieve cost savings by incentivizing efficient, high quality care for all Americans,” Schwartz wrote to colleagues.
Second, the Democratic Missouri Attorney General has supported the so far successful lawsuit to have the law tossed as unconstitutional in an amicus brief. From the story:
After sitting for months on the sidelines, Missouri’s Democratic attorney general has thrown his support behind a landmark multi-state lawsuit challenging the federal health care overhaul. Chris Koster — the top attorney in the state which last year passed the first-in-the-nation ballot measure against the law — on Monday filed what’s known as a friend-of-the-court brief in the case before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. The action involved a bit of hedging. In filing the brief, he did not formally join the other 26 states in the suit. He also expressed support for the health care law’s goal of expanding health coverage and argued that most of the language should be upheld. But Koster said the so-called individual mandate requiring most Americans to buy health insurance runs afoul of the Constitution, as well as his state’s referendum, and should be cleaved from the law.
Right now, I’d say the odds of Obamacare being substantially revised/dismantled are at least 60%, regardless of the 2012 election. If Obama loses in 2012, game over. Of course, that’s a big “if.”
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