Could conservatives reverse health reform in 2013?

Source: About.com, Daniel Kurtzman

Maggie Mahar raises a disturbing point about implementing health care reform once a bill makes it through both branches of Congress. In the House version of the bill, the provisions — the public plan, the Exchanges, regulation of private insurers, subsidies — take effect on January 1, 2013. The Senate version, on the other hand, has all this scheduled for 2014.
What if, in the 2012 elections, conservatives took control of both the White House and Congress? In the House version, they would have only a few months to overturn the legislation and prevent it from happening. But with the Senate version, they would have a whole year.

As Mahar says, “In a year, determined politicians could repeal and dismantle most if not all of the reform plan. Could they do such a thing? Yes, particularly if, during the 2012 election, they continued to fuel voters’ fears about the upcoming overhaul of the U.S. health care system.”
There is an advantage to waiting until 2014: It provides more time to locate the funds needed to improve health care and more time for reformers to find ways to lower costs. But the wait may be too risky. Mahar: “[M]uch as I hate to say it, we can’t afford to ignore the possibility that the conservatives return in 2012 — even if only for one term. In a single term, they could undo everything that reformers had achieved.”
Something else to worry about.
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