U.S. Chamber of Commerce: Repealing Health Care Reform 'Is Not a Realistic Option'

[jefferson_dem]

U.S. Chamber of Commerce: Repealing Health Care Reform 'Is Not a Realistic Option'
April 01, 2010 4:36 PM

In a letter to members of its board of directors obtained by ABC News, US Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Tom Donohue describes a desire to change aspects of the health care reform law President Obama signed last week, but says “epealing the bill outright is not realistic.”

That conclusion, from an organization largely perceived as conservative on economic issues and allied with the Republican Party, is at odds with the call from myriad Republicans to repeal the bill.

“I think the slogan will be 'Repeal and Replace,’” said Senate Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, in one such example.

“We are going to try to repeal this,” said . Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in another.

“The act should be repealed,” said former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney after the bill passed. “That campaign begins today."

(President Obama, it should be noted, told NBC’s Matt Lauer earlier this week that “a lot of commentators have said, you know, this is this is similar to the bill that Mitt Romney, the Republican governor and now presidential candidate, passed in Massachusetts.”)

The Chamber, as reported yesterday by the Wall Street Journal, is planning on spending at least $50 million -- more than it spend on the 2008 presidential election -- to defeat Democrats who voted for the bill.

Donohue also writes in his March 29 letter that the Chamber will “assign a team of our most skilled and experienced staff to participate in the years-long process of writing the thousands of pages of federal regulations that will implement the many provisions in this legislation” by “submitting comments, proposing language, and seeking changes in an effort to minimize the potentially harmful impacts of this bill on our members and the country.”

-- jpt

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/04/us-chamber-of-commerce-repealing-health-care-reform-is-not-a-realistic-option.html