McConnell: Will Be Hard to Undo Obamacare

(Newsroom America) -- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says he wants to repeal President Obama's signature health reform law, but the odds are against actually getting it accomplished.

"If you thought it was a good idea for the federal government to go in this direction, I'd say the odds are still on your side," the Kentucky Republican said Monday, referring to the 2,700-page law, much of which has been implemented already. "Because it's a lot harder to undo something than it is to stop it in the first place."

McConnell made his comments to around 50 people at Hardin Memorial Hospital in Elizabethtown, WHAS-TV reported. The state's senior Republican senator is making stops at several hospitals around Kentucky to discuss what is next following the U.S. Supreme Court's upholding of the law on constitutional grounds last week.

The court upheld the law's individual mandate, which will require most Americans to purchase health insurance or face a penalty starting in 2014.

Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the court's liberal wing in crafting the majority 5-4 opinion.

Despite his prediction, McConnell said he will do whatever he can to ensure the law is repealed.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has vowed that, if elected, he will repeal the law. He'll need help to do that; Republicans will need to maintain control over the House and win back control of the Senate, for him to have any chance of scuttling the law.

If the GOP wins control of the Senate, McConnell said he would be amenable to using budget reconciliation rules to repeal it. That would prohibit Senate filibusters and require only a simple majority of 51 votes to repeal.

Democrats used those same rules to pass the health care law in 2010.

"I'm confident they're going to give us the votes to repeal it," McConnell said of the American people.

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