Now that Republicans have regained control of the House, is health reform doomed?
In a poll conducted online at the Wall Street Journal, 84 percent of respondents said that the health care overhaul was a factor in their Nov. 2 vote. With Republicans winning a majority of House seats relatively easily, the public has clearly made their feelings on fiscal policy and health care reform heard.
House and Senate Republicans already have written at least 30 bills to scale back provisions in the law. But while conservatives are eager to start slicing and dicing, political experts say that not much may happen in the next two years.
It will be a big political battle, and bills will have to originate in the House. But Democrats still control the Senate, so once the bills are ushered over there for debate, they're likely to get stalled. Which means that a full-on repeal of reform is out of the question – if the Senate didn't strike it down, the president most certainly would.
