Democratic Congressman: It Only Takes 51 Votes to Repeal Obamacare

Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman of California may have inadvertently handed Republicans their single greatest motivator for desiring control of the Senate come November. Waxman, in an interview with the CSPAN show "Newsmakers," disclosed that if Americans did vote for Romney and Republicans took control of the House and the Senate, Obamacare would be "wiped out."

This was evidently supposed to scare the viewers. We suspect that fear may have been the opposite of the message that people took away. Indeed, coming from Waxman, whose aversion to honesty is so strong that he had planned to hold "show trial" hearings that would've basically put companies on trial for explaining to their customers how much the health care would cost them in taxes, this is probably the most unexpected good news opponents of the health care law will hear all day.

Even more ironically, Waxman's arguments against Republicans taking control of the House sound like they were badly copy-pasted from the talking points disseminated by Republicans regarding the "death panels" provisions of Obamacare. The Washington Examiner reports:

“I think they could do it,” Waxman told Newsmakers when asked about reconciliation. “I think the American people have to understand that if they vote for Romney and they vote for Republicans to have control of the house and the senate, there’s a good chance that the health care bill will be wiped out and all these benefits will be wiped out.”[...]

“[T]he states will have to tell a lot of people at the very bottom — very poor people who are often disabled — that you’re not going to get care anymore in order to keep tax cuts for billionaires,” he said, citing Republican budget plans for Medicaid.

Waxman's persuasive powers notwithstanding, we'll take our chances with Paul Ryan over the Independent Payment Advisory Board. In any case, it's quite clear that this November is going to be an extraordinary decision point.