Yep, Senate Republicans are really going to . . .
do something about Obamacare this time. For reals. They might have even figured out how, using budget reconciliation.
But it would also introduce complications to the GOP’s already thorny prospect of moving a budget bill. Budgets are always controversial, and a plan that includes fixes to ObamaCare but does not fully repeal the law could draw opposition from some Republicans.
The GOP is already coming under conflicting pressures.
Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin (R) called Monday for Congress to provide transitional aid to people in danger of losing their subsidies. But Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a prospective GOP candidate for the White House, has criticized fixes that would allow ObamaCare to stand. […]
"Republicans are considering a number of options for repairing the damage of Obamacare. Budget reconciliation is certainly one option," [Sen. John] Barrasso spokeswoman Emily Schillinger wrote in an email. Barrasso told reporters last fall that he planned to "use every tool that is out there, including reconciliation," to torpedo ObamaCare.
That would be the same Barrasso who
wrote about a "plan" he's working on with two other Republicans to ease the problem of lost subsidies while, in the same week,
promised the CPAC crowd that Congress wasn't going to pass anything to fix it.
There would be one advantage to them deciding to use reconciliation to do whatever they might decide—or not!—to do. It buys them time to figure it out. All they have to do is come up with some budget number for how much it would save—they could put Paul Ryan in charge of that, he's good at making up numbers—a deadline for writing some kind of legislation, and the committee that would have to do it. Of course, it would also mean they had committed themselves to doing something, but that's never stopped them before. They've been promising to come up with some kind of alternative for years. What's one more unfulfilled promise?