Still, the federal subsidies face another danger. While Republicans have given up trying to rescind the law, they’re targeting it in budget negotiations over the so-called fiscal cliff, the combination of automatic spending cuts and tax increases scheduled to begin taking effect in January.

Easy Target

Cutting the overhaul’s cost could yield savings that most people wouldn’t notice because the overhaul doesn’t begin in earnest until 2014. Yet it would force the uninsured to shoulder an even greater share of health-care costs.

Republicans are willing to consider tax increases in the form of closing individual breaks, yet House Speaker John Boehner signaled they aren’t yielding on cuts to so-called Obamacare.

“The tactics of our repeal efforts will have to change,” Boehner wrote last week in the Cincinnati Enquirer. “The law has to stay on the table as both parties discuss ways to solve our nation’s massive debt challenge” because “we can’t afford to leave it intact.”

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