GOP presses to undo health law as Dems gear up advocacy strategy

News outlets report on Republican plans to stop the sweeping health overhaul — ranging from Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's push for the Supreme Court to "fast track" its consideration of legal challenges to congressional plans for defunding the law — as well as how Democrats are ginning up their message machines to counter these attacks.

Bloomberg: Cuccinelli Makes Long-Shot Court Bid To Overturn Obama's Health Care Law
Ken Cuccinelli, the Virginia attorney general challenging President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, is quick to agree that his request for fast-track review by the U.S. Supreme Court is a long shot. "It is," Cuccinelli said. "But there's so much money at stake for the states and for the private sector and there's so much uncertainty produced in the economy because of this legislation that it was worth the ask." Cuccinelli's bid, which asks the justices to consider the law's constitutionality without waiting for an appeals court to rule, marks the first time a state challenge to the law has reached the nation's highest court. The justices may act on the request as early as today (Stohr, 4/18).

National Journal: Chipping Away At The Health Care Law
After three months of unrelenting attack, Republicans have succeeded in chipping away small pieces of the health care law.
The unpopular 1099 tax provision is officially gone, with the president's signature on H.R. 4 on Thursday, and the 2011 continuing resolution stripped $2 billion from a co-op insurance program in the health law. But Republicans are not finished yet, says House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee Vice Chairman Michael Burgess of Texas. Just ask him if the 2011 continuing resolution ended efforts to defund or repeal the health law. "I would say 'au contraire,'" Burgess told National Journal in an interview (McCarthy, 4/16).

Roll Call: Shop Talk: Democrats Gear Up To Sell Health Care, Again
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D), former Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle (D) and Center for American Progress Chief Operating Officer Neera Tanden formally announced the formation of an education and "grass-roots lobbying" group to advocate for the health care reform law. ... At a Thursday press conference on the top floor of the Hay-Adams Hotel overlooking the White House, Patrick, Doyle, Tanden and Anzalone insisted the group was nonpolitical in nature. Its intent, they said, is to assist in the challenging effort of balancing the conversation about the law while informing the public about something that will not fully go into effect for another few years (Trygstad, 4/18).

Politico: Deval Patrick Extols Mitt Romney's Health Care Law
Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney doesn't dwell on the health care law enacted in Massachusetts when he was governor, but Deval Patrick, the state's current governor, is more than happy to talk about it (4/17).