Wonk Wire: Republicans finally have a plan to replace Obamacare.

Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL) told constituents at a town hall event that a provision in Obamacare imposing a 10% tax on tanning bed use was a “racist tax” that discriminates “because of the color of my skin,” Roll Call reports.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and his senior aides “are unleashing a barrage of attacks on their fellow Republicans for refusing to support their plan to choke off Obamacare as a condition for funding the government,” Politico reports.

“The results have sparked something of a GOP civil war over an issue that, ironically, the GOP is united behind — repealing Obamacare. Cruz’s strategy is a departure from the usually clubby chamber, as he’s grown increasingly alienated from his caucus.”

“Defund it, or own it. If you fund it, you’re for it.”

— Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), quoted by TPM, urging his colleagues to cut funding for the implementation of Obamacare.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) blamed his fellow Republicans for not being willing to use the resolution that funds the government to cripple the president’s health-care law, NBC News reports.

Said Cruz: “The problem right now is we don’t have Republicans willing to stand up and do this. We need 41 Republicans in the Senate or 218 Republicans in the House, to stand together, to join me, to join Mike Lee, to join Marco Rubio, all of whom have said, we will not vote for a single continuing resolution that funds even a penny of ObamaCare.”

He added: “The current continuing resolution, which funds the government, expires Sept. 30. So now is the window: if we’re going to defund Obamacare, now is the time we can actually get it done.”

“There’s no reason to be threatening to bring down the government, lets make this work get spending cuts we need but the American people get turned off with the threat of terror politics.”

— Rep. Peter King (R-NY), on CNN, rejecting the GOP plan to shutdown the government over Obamacare funding.

Ramesh Ponnuru: “Conservatives on Capitol Hill think they have a chance to strike a mortal blow against President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul this fall. If their plan goes forward, however, it will backfire.”

“The chance that Democrats would go along — would give up on their signature legislative initiative of the last decade soon after having won the presidential election and gained Senate and House seats — approaches zero percent. So if Republicans stay firm in this demand, the result will be either a government shutdown or a partial shutdown combined with a debt default.”

Byron York: “Tensions inside the Republican Party about a proposal to defund Obamacare reached a new level Friday when Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), a lawmaker with unsurpassed credibility in the field of cutting federal spending and limiting the size of government, called the defunding plan ‘dishonest’ and ‘hype.'”

Said Coburn: “I’d love to defund it. I’d be leading the charge if I thought this would work. But it will not work.”

Norm Ornstein: “When a law is enacted, representatives who opposed it have some choices (which are not mutually exclusive). They can try to repeal it, which is perfectly acceptable–unless it becomes an effort at grandstanding so overdone that it detracts from other basic responsibilities of governing. They can try to amend it to make it work better–not just perfectly acceptable but desirable, if the goal is to improve a cumbersome law to work better for the betterment of the society and its people. They can strive to make sure that the law does the most for Americans it is intended to serve, including their own constituents, while doing the least damage to the society and the economy. Or they can step aside and leave the burden of implementation to those who supported the law and got it enacted in the first place.”

“But to do everything possible to undercut and destroy its implementation–which in this case means finding ways to deny coverage to many who lack any health insurance; to keep millions who might be able to get better and cheaper coverage in the dark about their new options; to create disruption for the health providers who are trying to implement the law, including insurers, hospitals, and physicians; to threaten the even greater disruption via a government shutdown or breach of the debt limit in order to blackmail the president into abandoning the law; and to hope to benefit politically from all the resulting turmoil–is simply unacceptable, even contemptible.”

“With the Obama administration poised for a huge public education campaign on healthcare reform, Republicans and their allies are mobilizing a counter-offensive including town hall meetings, protests and media promotions to dissuade uninsured Americans from obtaining health coverage,” Reuters reports.

“Party officials, political analysts and lobbyists say the coming showdown will mark a new phase in the years-old battle over healthcare reform by shifting the focus from political ideology to specific examples of how ‘Obamacare’ allegedly falls short, just as the administration presses the public on its benefits.”

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) declared that he and other congressional Republicans “would be willing to shut down the federal government in order to block further implementation of President Obama’s health care reform law,” the Huffington Post reports.

Said Lee: “Congress of course has to pass a law to continue funding government — lately we’ve been doing that through a funding mechanism called a continuing resolution. If Republicans in both houses simply refuse to vote for any continuing resolution that contains further funding for further enforcement of Obamacare, we can stop it. We can stop the individual mandate from going into effect.”

“We’re going to do everything we can to make sure it never happens.”

— Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), in a CBS News interview, vowing to thwart the implementation of Obamacare.

“Today, President Obama makes another attempt at what has become his greatest domestic challenge: selling the health-care law to the American public,” First Read reports.

“Yes, it’s a complex subject. Yes, an entire political party remains adamantly opposed to it. And, yes, the media’s coverage has often emphasized what’s not working rather than what is. But here’s the P.R. reality for the Obama White House: Since health care’s passage in 2010, one side has been lobbing grenades on a daily basis (see yesterday’s symbolic House votes to delay the individual mandate), while the other side has been mostly quiet.”

Wonk Blog: Inside the White House campaign to sell Obamacare.

Historians will look back on today’s House votes to repeal employer mandate and individual mandate as beginning of the end for Obamacare.

— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) July 17, 2013

House Republicans, “politically emboldened” by President Obama’s
delay of a key requirement of his health care law, “are taking another
run at scrapping his signature domestic policy,” the AP reports.

“The House has scheduled votes Wednesday to delay the law’s
individual and employer mandates, the 38th time the GOP majority has
tried to eliminate, defund or scale back the program since Republicans
took control of the House in January 2011.”

However, there’s good news for the White House in the New York Times: “Individuals buying health
insurance on their own will see their premiums tumble next year in New
York State as changes under the federal health care law take effect.”

“Boy, I’ll tell you. I hate to see a dictatorship come into this country, but it sure looks like that’s what’s happening with health care.”

— Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX), quoted by the Washington Post.

New Hampshire state Sen. Andy Sanborn (R), who is running for governor next year, said he is sorry for comparing Obamacare to the plane crash at the San Francisco airport that killed two people and injured dozens more, WMUR-TV reports.

National Journal reports the White House has known for months that it will not be able to implement the massive health care reform law as designed.

“The struggles with technology and administrative complexity have not come as a recent surprise to administration officials; they’ve been negotiating them for months already. By eliminating non-essential tasks, they may be violating the letter of the health reform law, with its rigorous timetables and multiple requirements, but they may be more likely to get the core functions right. And whatever the bad politics of the recent announcements, a failure of crucial systems next year would be much worse for the president and Democrats running in 2014.”

Wonk Wire: Is Obamacare unraveling?