GOP Is Taking Political Risks in Health Care Fight

WASHINGTON (March 18) -- As the House moves toward passing sweeping health care reform, the threats from Senate Republicans keep coming. The latest is a promise to force a battle royal in the Senate over legislative fixes that House Democrats have demanded in exchange for their vote.

But what will be left for the GOP to fight? The brewing showdown could turn the political tables upside down, forcing Republicans to defend backroom deals and tax hikes they have spent weeks criticizing.

If the House passes the health care bill this weekend, the Senate version approved in December will immediately be signed into law. And then a package of revisions will go to the Senate for consideration as part of a budget reconciliation process, meaning it would only need a simple majority of 51 votes instead of a filibuster-proof 60.

That second piece of legislation is crucial, since many House Democrats are refusing to vote for the broader measure without a firm agreement from their Senate colleagues to pass those so-called fixes. That's where the Republicans come in.

"My message to them is, don't plan on having it happen in the Senate. You're not going to get what you vote for," Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., told AOL News, echoing the party leadership's vow to oppose the follow-on piece of legislation when it comes to the Senate.

The GOP plans to flood the reconciliation package with amendments, objections and points of order, with the goal of gutting the legislation and forcing the bill back to the House, perhaps for several more votes.

Yet the political reality for Republicans is considerably more complicated.

While some of the provisions of the reconciliation bill would expand policies the GOP already opposes, a significant portion of the measure is aimed at removing the most unpopular pieces of the Senate legislation, most notably the special deal for Nebraska now widely known as the "Cornhusker Kickback." The revisions would also soften a tax on expensive health insurance plans and reduce cuts to Medicare and Medicaid that Republicans have criticized. And the bill adds a few GOP ideas targeting waste and fraud in the health care system.

So by preventing Democrats from changing the new law, Republicans could find themselves in the position of ensuring that the most disputed elements of health care reform remain intact.

A spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee, Brandi Hoffine, said Republicans were "tying themselves in knots" in their opposition to the reconciliation changes.

"They will resort to anything -- scare-tactics, outright lies and desperate procedural tricks -- to delay and obstruct health insurance reform even if that means supporting provisions that they opposed just weeks earlier," Hoffine said. "Even if we inserted a provision to abolish the Democratic Party into this bill, they'd still do everything they could to oppose it. That's all they know how to do. "

Senate Republicans insisted they would make a principled stand, even if the health care bill is already law by the time the second bill reaches the Senate floor.

"The principle is wrong," Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said at a GOP news conference Thursday at the Capitol. "This isn't partisan with us at all. This is policy and principle."

In a brief interview after the joint news conference, Barrasso kept the focus on the broader legislation. "It's a bad bill," he said. "It's going to be a bad bill no matter which way you look at it."

Barrasso said he wasn't worried about the appearance of being on the wrong side of the reconciliation fixes. "I'm going to be on the right side of the American people who don't want this bill," he said.

Coburn, a practicing doctor known for his staunch opposition to government spending, also said he would be looking for ways beyond the reconciliation battle to punish House Democrats for their vote in favor of health care reform. He pledged to hold up the nominations of any lawmakers who seek a government job if they lose in the fall election because of their health care vote.

And he said his office would scrutinize future funding requests for Democrats who switch their vote from "no" to "yes," hoping to sniff out any backroom deals. "Be prepared to defend selling your vote in the House," Coburn warned.

While Democrats will try to tar Republicans who block the reconciliation bill with the hypocrite label, the distinctions over which provisions they opposed and when are likely to get lost in the broader health care argument, said Sarah Binder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

The big risk for Democrats, she said, is that the GOP succeeds in dragging on a process that has already gone on for more than a year and prevents Democrats from shifting the focus to job-creating legislation. "Anything that slows that down makes things harder for Democrats," Binder said.