Sen. Alexander says GOP will campaign on repealing healthcare reform

Republicans will campaign on repealing Democrats' healthcare bill this year, a member of the Senate GOP leadership said Monday.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the third-ranking Senate Republican and chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, said his party would head into this year's midterm elections with a pledge to repeal the healthcare bill before Congress.

"I think that's exactly right," Alexander said during an interview on Fox News when asked if Republicans would spend all of 2010 on a campaign to repeal healthcare reform.

Alexander said the healthcare bill "is going to define every Democratic candidate for every public office in November and Republicans are going to try to elect the majority who'll come in here and try to provide a check and a balance to more taxes and more spending and more takeovers."

Democrats have sought to make GOP threats to repeal healthcare reform a political issue, as well, by looking to press some evasive Republican lawmakers into committing to repealing the legislation, if it is passed.

"Once these reforms become law, Republicans who opposed it will have to look voters in the eye and pledge to repeal historic reforms which will have afforded coverage to hundreds of thousands constituents, brought down costs for families and small businesses, ended appalling insurance practices, and lowered the deficit," Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) Chairman Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) said in December.

Healthcare legislation still is before Congress, though, while Democrats figure out how to proceed with it, as well as whether or not they have the votes to do so.

Alexander said he's not sure what Republicans' campaign to repeal healthcare reform would look like, but he said he was confident it would emerge.

"I don't think I've ever seen one, to tell you the truth, but I'm sure it's coming, because the American people don't want the bill," he said.

---