Health Care Access and Payment–November 2012
A good question posed: What really happens to healthcare when the election dust settles? The continued implementation or the repeal of Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act, is proposed as a difference that turns on the tally of the votes for president for 2013 to 2017. I think the answer is yes, but for reasons not included in the rhetoric of party platforms.
The chances of outright repeal are slim to none, because the math doesn’t work. The votes for repeal have split along party lines. The House with its Republican majority has voted repeatedly for repeal but can’t effect it. The votes needed must be found in the Senate. A supermajority of 60 out of 100 senators is needed to repeal a law. There are 47 Republican senators, and 51 Democrats plus two independents with Democratic-leaning views. Thirty-three seats are at issue in the election and a Republican majority is possible, but a change of views by voters will not produce sixty Republican-leaning senators.
A procedural option theoretically can reduce the votes needed for repeal to 51, an ordinary majority.