If Boehner really cared about deficits, here's what he'd do about Obamacare

Desperately seeking excuses As Joan McCarter noted, the Great Orange Speaker John Boehner now wants to use deficit reduction as the latest Republican excuse to attempt to gut Obamacare:

We can't afford it, and we can't afford to leave it intact. That's why I've been clear that the law has to stay on the table as both parties discuss ways to solve our nation's massive debt challenge.

Because they have nothing else to do, Republicans have voted 33 times to repeal Obamacare. And failed 33 times. But now Boehner wants to use the false fiscal crisis. Not that one expects honesty or intellectual coherence from Republicans, but there's just one problem:

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is out with a new estimate of the costs of repealing the Affordable Care Act, the national health care legislation signed into law in 2010. According to the CBO, if Mitt Romney and his fellow Republicans are successful in repealing the law, it would increase the federal budget deficit by an estimated $109 billion between 2013 and 2022.

"Specifically, we estimate that H.R. 6079 would reduce direct spending by $890 billion and reduce revenues by $1 trillion between 2013 and 2022, thus adding $109 billion to federal budget deficits over that period," the CBO and Joint Committee on Taxation said.

Death panels. Socialism. Unconstitutional. The Republicans won't ever stop trying. Apparently, they just can't stand the idea of millions of people who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford it having access to medical care.

The Republicans have no credibility on deficits, so Boehner using deficits as yet the latest excuse to attempt to repeal Obamacare is no great surprise. But if Boehner really wanted to use Obamacare to do something about deficits, there is something he could do: He could leave Obamacare alone.