Note to the New Yorker: The GOP can use reconciliation to repeal ObamaCare

A line in a bill that says “PPACA is repealed” would have budgetary effects and a CBO score. Over the last two years I’ve talked to plenty of Republicans who have experience with reconciliation, and they do not think this is an impossible mission. CBO, as Lizza notes, has in the past found Obamacare to be a money-saver for the government, but it may not so find it in 2013. Even if it does, a reconciliation bill could just find a small amount of offsetting savings to make a repeal bill deficit-reducing and thus, under the current rules, eligible for reconciliation.

I don’t think Lizza is right about the individual mandate, either, assuming that individual items in Obamacare had to be repealed one by one. The Supreme Court just said the bill has a tax on being uninsured rather than a mandate. Taxes can be changed through reconciliation.