NPR
But there are two big questions there. First of all, could a President Romney actually stop the health law in its tracks? And if he did try, what would happen?
First, it turns out that stopping the law may be harder than the law's opponents realize. For one thing, if he's elected, Romney can't just grant waivers letting states ignore the law on his first day as president.
"There are waivers under the law, but not an across-the-board waiver," said Tom Miller, a lawyer with the conservative American Enterprise Institute. For the record, Miller is an avid opponent of the health law. But he's also a veteran of Capitol Hill and knows what can and can't happen.
"You can try anything under the law," he said. But in many cases, "a federal court will usually step in and say, 'You've gone a little bit too far.' "
In this case, the part of the law that allows the president to grant states waivers doesn't actually kick in until 2017. And even the waivers that are allowed require states to cover as many uninsured people as would be covered by the Affordable Care Act.
Health industry consultant Robert Laszewski — also no big fan of the law — says federal courts would likely block a lot of things Romney might try to do unilaterally, like simply cut off funding or tell his staff to stop enforcing it.
"Sure, he can rewrite the regulations for example ... but fundamentally, he can't change the law," he said.
And even rewriting regulations would take months, at best.
