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WASHINGTON – The new House Republican majority made good on their mid-term election promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but most experts are predicting the action to be nothing more than political posturing.
Attendees of the National Congress on Health Insurance Reform in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 19-21 said they doubt the Republicans will be able to eliminate the ACA, despite a House vote to approve a repeal on Jan. 19.
Some said the repeal would do more damage than good for the American healthcare consumer.
Henry Aaron, senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution and chairman of the National Academy of Social Insurance, conceded the ACA is not perfect. “But it's a beginning,” he aid. “The ACA is the law of the land. Opponents have the right to try to win enough votes to repeal it. But what seems reprobate is to try and make the law of the land fail. It would be more advisable to support aspects of it.”
Stuart Butler, distinguished fellow and director at the Center for Policy Innovation at the Heritage Foundation, said the weaknesses in the ACA would trigger vigorous debate in “some very core areas.”
Over the next few years, he said, there will be serious debate over what should be included in a qualified health insurance package to satisfy the mandate.
Joseph Antos, a health advisor for the Congressional Budget Office, said the ACA’s mandate to require health insurance isn’t going to work.
“If you have to order someone to do something, then there is probably something wrong with what you're trying to make them do,” he said.
Christopher Jennings, the president of Jennings Policy Strategies, Inc., and former senior healthcare advisor to President William Clinton, said the Republicans are going to have a difficult time moving from rhetoric that rejects the ACA toward building support for their own reform concept.
“Fear beats hope every time,” he said of the Republican mid-term campaign against the ACA. Nonetheless, he noted, it’s “inconceivable” that the GOP will garner enough votes to override a presidential veto of a repeal.