Promise keepers

Yesterday, House Republicans passed a bill that, if enacted,
would repeal last year's health-care reform bill. It won't be enacted; it'll
never get past the Senate or the president. But the GOP took the House back in
part because of its promises to repeal reform, so a symbolic effort was
required.

While the bill is called the "Repealing the Job-Killing Health
Care Law Act," the Republicans were sensitive enough to change "killing" to "destroying" when
discussing the bill in the wake of the Tucson shooting. Now that's some
visionary leadership--or rather, was. On the House floor yesterday, various GOP members spoke about how
health-care reform increases the deficit, raises taxes and cuts benefits. If
anyone can make heads or tails of that
formula, please let me know.

Democratic rhetoric hasn't been universally civil and serious-minded, either.
But by and large, reform supporters have effectively seized the opportunity for a second chance at
communicating their case to the public. This post by Suzy Khimm highlights the
millions of Americans whose health-care situation has been improved by the
provisions of reform already in effect, while this fact sheet from the Center on Budget
addresses a number of false claims made by proponents of repeal.

Health-care reform will survive this episode of political
theater; it may even benefit from it. But that won't be the end--as Jonathan Cohn argues, the real challenge
may well come from the Supreme Court.