Boehner: Republican majority would refuse to fund healthcare reform

A potential Republican majority may not be able to repeal healthcare reform, but they'd probably refuse to fund it, Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said today.

Appearing on Fox News, Boehner acknowledged that if the GOP wins control of Congress in 2010, they may not be able to repeal the healthcare bill President Obama signed into law yesterday. Obama would be able to veto a repeal, and Republicans would probably not have the two-thirds majority necessary to override that veto.

"With a Democrat president for the next two and a half years, even if we gained the majority it's going to be very difficult to repeal this bill outright," Boehner said.

Nevertheless, Boehner said Congress could simply refuse to approrpriate the funds needed to execute reform.

"It's going to take appropriated funds to actually come through the process to fund the hiring of new employees to create these new bureacuracies," Boehner said. "I can't imagine that a Republican Congress is going to give this president the money to begin this process."