A Republican win in November could put health law in center of political tug-of-war

The Associated Press looks at whether a Republican takeover of Congress would lead to an impasse with the White House over funding for implementation of the health law. "Republicans could still fall back on the congressional power of the purse, denying the administration billions of dollars to carry out the most far-reaching social legislation since Medicare and Medicaid. 'The endgame is a fight over funding,' said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. Faced with an opposition Congress 'defunding' his health care plan, would Obama make a stand? Would he risk shutting down the Health and Human Services department, the IRS, or perhaps even the whole government? 'At that point, does he let everything else go?' asked former Rep. Tom Davis, a Virginia Republican elected in the GOP wave of 1994." But Rep. Steny Hoyer, the second ranking Democrat in the House, doubts the GOP will take over Congress. But if they do, he says,  "I think they would have second thoughts about repealing health care" because of the cost and because some of the provisions would be too popular to overturn (Alonso-Zaldivar, 9/8).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.