GOP to attempt Affordable Care Act Repeal

The headline says it all, at least as far as the political elite and policy wonks are concerned. But what exactly does the GOP plan to overturn the 2008 electoral mandate for health reform mean?

Off the top of my head: the people who vote for this bill want to take away vouchers from millions of Americans to make health insurance affordable. They want to let health insurance companies refuse to insure Americans with preexisting conditions, many of whom would be healthy and productive members of society if they had access to health insurance. Republicans want to force people to have only one health insurance option in their market, granting monopolies to HMOs. Those are things that everyone should care about (and be against, those who own enough HMO stocks to balance out insurance premium increases excepted). Oh- I forgot, and defunding the implementation of the Affordable Care Act will make it less likely that insurance companies will stop raising their premiums to enlarge already sky-high profits.

For social Republican voters, there's the fact that Republicans will be voting to allow federal funding for abortions by repealing the Stupak amendment. Forcing more employees onto employer-provided plans will also inhibit hiring and slow job growth.

So if you were a Democratic strategist, which message would you stick to in order to ensure that it survived a few news cycles? I would pick the "Takes millions of dollars out of the pockets of American families that would pay for health insurance" angle. It matches the recent GOP tax cuts for millionaires in showing that Republicans want to tax the poor in order to pay for the wealthy's excesses. Oh- and while we're at it, bring on financial reform repeal, where the GOP will be voting for more bonuses for Wall Street.