Week ahead: GOP renews assault on healthcare law

{mosads}The GOP message was somewhat muddled during the past week’s recess, but House Republicans will come back to Washington with a simple mantra: Repeal the law.

The House is scheduled to vote on a bill repealing the Affordable Care Act that is certain to pass. Repealing healthcare reform was the first vote the House cast after Republicans took the majority in 2010.

Like the earlier version, this bill is a largely symbolic effort that is sure to die in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) had warned his troops not to “spike the football” if the court struck down the healthcare law, but the GOP doesn’t seem to be worried about spending too much time on the issue now that they lost at the court.

The Ways and Means Committee is holding a hearing Tuesday on the tax effects of the court’s decision. Republicans have tried to capitalize on the fact that the high court upheld the individual mandate as a tax, saying it’s one more in a series of tax increases contained in the law.

In addition to the Ways and Means hearing, Republicans are awaiting a new Congressional Budget Office score of the costs and revenue from the healthcare law, including its tax provisions.

Also on Tuesday, the Oversight and Government Reform Committee will hold two hearings on the reform law. The panel’s health subcommittee is meeting in the morning to assess the impact on patients and doctors. Later that day, the full committee, led by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), will stage a hearing on the law’s economic effects.

In the Senate, Democrats are keeping the focus elsewhere. The Finance Committee is holding a roundtable Wednesday on the way Medicare pays doctors. The American Medical Association and other doctors groups will discuss alternatives to the current system, including the “sustainable growth rate” formula that all parties want to see replaced.

Off the Hill, the Supreme Court is still dominating the healthcare debate. The American Enterprise Institute is holding a forum Monday with Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah.). The Alliance for Health Reform and the National Health Council also have events scheduled for Monday.