Boehner Takes Credit For Ideas In Health Law, Then Calls For Its Repeal

Earlier this year, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) took credit for parts of the health care law he opposes and today, during an interview with NPR, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) also highlighted the Republican ideas in the bill, while promising to repeal it:

INSKEEP: As you know, Democrats are already pointing to things that are changing in America because of this bill. They will point to the fact that college seniors, who would have been kicked off their families’ insurance plans when they graduated, will get to stay on. Insurance companies are now saying they’re going to end the practice of “rescission,” where they take, or at least modify…
BOEHNER: Both of those ideas, by the way, came from Republicans, and are part of the common sense ideas that we ought to have in the law.
INSKEEP: Well, are you going to repeal those two specific things?
BOEHNER Uh, what I want to repeal are the other 158 mandates, commissions, boards that set up all the infrastructure for the government to take control of our health care system.

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If Boehner is unwilling to repeal the Republican ideas in the health care law, he’ll have to preserve a good deal of the legislation, which at its core is built on the Republican principles of personal responsibility and managed competition.
His refusal to call for a full repeal, moreover, could cause a rift with the more conservative members of the Republican party. Last week, for instance, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) — who has proposed a bill calling for complete repeal — warned leadership that “if we leave any component of it in there, it has, it’s just become a malignant tumor that’s attacking our liberty and our freedom and it’s diminishing our aspirations and it saps our overall productivity as a nation,” King said. “If we can’t come to that conclusion, then I want some new people to come help me.”
Currently, repeal legislation has has no more than 62 co-sponsors in the House and 20 in the Senate.