WASHINGTON -- House Republicans are not waiting for the Supreme Court verdict on the new health care law to plot their strategic response. If the measure is not thrown out entirely, House leaders plan to force a vote immediately to repeal the law to reinforce their deep opposition to the legislation, opposition that has become central to their political identity.
The emerging game plan for the Republicans who control the House is just one element of the coordinated planning by groups on both sides of the issue as the Supreme Court ruling approaches as early as this week. The Republican National Committee, in consultation with congressional campaign offices and Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, is readying a war room. The National Republican Congressional Campaign has mounted a petition drive for repeal, complete with a function to allow signers to watch over the Internet as their faxed petitions arrive.
At the White House, which has much riding on the case, top officials continue to project confidence that the court will rule in its favor and that the administration will move on from there to put the law into force. But White House allies and advocates of the new law do not necessarily share that view and are gearing up in the event of an unfavorable decision.
Representatives of groups favoring the law from political battlegrounds converged on Washington last week for two days of meetings to coordinate their political response at the behest of Families
House Democrats have been issued a "pocket card" to carry with them, spelling out how the law has already helped people: 86 million who have received free preventive care, 105 million who no longer face a lifetime cap on benefits and as many as 17 million children who can no longer be denied coverage because of pre-existing health conditions.
And the health insurance industry has started a lobbying and social media effort to drive home its contention that popular regulatory provisions in the law cannot survive if the Supreme Court strikes down the mandate that all Americans buy health insurance.
"Our focus is making people understand the inextricable link between the coverage mandate and the rest of the insurance regulations," said Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans, the insurance industry group behind a campaign known simply as "The Link."
The Supreme Court's decision is expected as early as this week but more likely the following week. Rarely in the court's history has a decision had so much riding on it, for the economy, for the vast health care industry and for the nation's body politic -- from the White House race to the 435 House campaigns.
Groups on both sides have fallen back into a state of nervous anticipation. No one is certain how the court will rule, or how the politics will shake out in the aftermath.
Lawmakers, strategists and activists are preparing for three contingencies:
-- the court upholds the law;
-- the court invalidates the insurance-purchasing mandate but preserves most of the law;
-- the court throws out the law, President Barack Obama's signature domestic achievement.
In the event that the law is crippled or eviscerated, the contest will be to ensure that the other party is held responsible, not only for the popular provisions that are lost but what comes next for the 46 million Americans still without health insurance.
A senior Republican House aide said it was up to the White House, not the GOP, to produce a contingency plan for those left behind by a court invalidation, like the thousands of sick people or consumers with pre-existing conditions in new federally backed high-risk pools.
On the other side of the issue, Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, said advocates of the law from the most politically important states are gathering to coordinate messages for the week of the decision. The most important task is to impress on voters that the court's ruling will likely have no impact on the heart of the health care law -- health coverage to the uninsured, started in 2014, through the expansion of Medicaid, the establishment of state-run health insurance exchanges and tax subsidies for the purchase of private insurance plans on those exchanges.
The Supreme Court may well toss out the mandate to purchase insurance, and without that mandate, two of the most popular regulations may have to go, the ban on denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions and an end to variable insurance rates for different populations.
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