Ben Armbuster notes that Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) is now denying reports that he told a group of donors that Republicans weren’t serious about repealing the entirety of the Affordable Care Act. According to the Davis Intelligence Reports, Corker “told the gathering of donors not to worry about the incoming class of ‘crazier Republicans’ because the majority of Senate Republicans, especially minority leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), had no intention of repealing the president’s health care bill“:

They instead planned to fix only the “bad parts” of the law, Corker reportedly told the group. Several attendees, including a very senior Republican official, appeared visibly shocked by Corker’s comments.

Sen. Corker’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

“Sen. McConnell has been unambiguous [...] on the need to repeal the bill and replace it with commonsense reforms that actually reduce costs,” McConnell spokesman Don Stewart told DIG.

Corker’s denial aside, this isn’t the first time the senator has had to backtrack from pouring cold water on the GOP strategy of full repeal. “I know this is probably not the company line, but the [health care] bill is passed. The president now has in his hands a completed bill,” Corker said in March as Obama prepared to sign the legislation into law. Shortly thereafter, during a speech at Vanderbilt University, Corker admitted, “The fact is that’s [repeal] not going to happen, OK?” but later backtracked from his remarks by saying that it won’t happen before 2012.

Indeed, after promising their base the moon and the stars, Republican senators and candidates have tried to temper expectations for what they will be able to achieve if they do win back the House. On Monday, outgoing Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) also backpedaled from the full repeal pledge, reverting back to the GOP’s original strategy of only changing parts of the law law. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) has similarly said, “I think, we need to keep expectations, again, fairly modest as far as what we can do over the next two years.”

Ezra Klein notes that the GOP’s problem with the individual mandate isn’t so much its constitutionality as it is the fact that it “was passed by President Obama and the Democrats.” You know this is true because when Republicans are pressed about why they supported the individual mandate before they opposed it, they give an answer that sounds something like this:

HATCH ON WHY HE SUPPORTED THE MANDATE IN 1993: We were fighting Hillarycare at that time. And I don’t think anyone centered on it, I certainly didn’t. That was 17 years ago. But since then, and with the advent of this particular bill, really seeing how much they’re depending on an unconstitutional approach to it, yea, naturally I got into it, got into it on this issue. [MSNBC, 3/26/2010]

GRASSLEY ON WHY HE SUPPORTED THE MANDATE IN 2007, 1993: If it was unconstitutional today, it was unconstitutional in 1993, but I don’t think anybody gave it much thought until three or four months ago when you start looking at what constitutional lawyers say about it because constitutional lawyers wouldn’t have been looking at the mandate for health insurance until it became an issue and it just became a issue lately. And so I think that’s the legitimacy of it being considered unconstitutional. [MSNBC, 3/25/2010]

The point, of course, is that the opposition to the mandate is driven by the political need to unravel the Democrats’ crowning social achievement, not about a serious policy disagreement. As Merill Goozner asked recently, “where were these tea-baggers when a Republican Congress passed the prescription drug benefit for seniors in 2003? That insurance program (Part D charges an average premium of $35 a month, taken directly out of senior citizens Social Security checks) is “voluntary,” but you can opt out only if you agree to pay a penalty when you decide you want to get coverage. The penalty is one percentage point increase in the premium for every year the senior stays out of the program.”

“So what is the takeaway lesson from this little bit of hypocrisy?” he asks. “Republicans back mandates that charge higher prices later as the penalty, while Democrats prefer mandates that charge penalties up front. I’ll leave it to you to decide who has the greater claim on political genius.”

This morning’s Wall Street Journal editorial is just another reminder that Republicans won’t stop criticizing the health law no matter how much Democrats bend over backwards to avoid politically controversial provisions or regulations. As we saw during the legislative debate — Democrats will be damned if they do and damned if they don’t and so they may as well do.

Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) picked up on this meme several days ago on local radio, when he criticized the law for over-regulating employers, but also attacked the administration for loosening the regulations to prevent coverage erosion. The Journal is doing the same here. On October 2nd, the paper criticized the law’s regulatory efforts to eliminate mini-med — subprime insurance offered to hourly workers that restricts the number of covered doctor visits or imposes a relatively low maximum on payouts — and now, just 18 days later, it’s disappointed with the administration is granting wavers to prevent employers from dumping this kind of coverage:

OCTOBER 2: “But McDonald’s didn’t deny that the new rules will wipe out its existing plans. And that’s precisely the point…. Democrats hate mini-med and other skinny-benefit plans, calling them “underinsurance.” ObamaCare is meant to run them out of the market by mandating benefits, eliminating coverage caps and certain technical rules about how premiums must be spent. This despite the fact that Arkansas, Connecticut and Tennessee sponsor their own mini-med plans for state residents as better than having no insurance at all. In other words, the choice is between relatively affordable coverage that isn’t as generous as Democrats think it should be and dumping coverage entirely.

OCTOBER 20: “And is it really better that HHS will impose destructive regulations and then decide on ad hoc basis who they’ll hit? This is an invitation to play favorites, exact political retribution and pursue whatever arbitrary goals HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and her successors happen to hold. ObamaCare amnesty shouldn’t go merely to the CEOs who can get White House aide Valerie Jarrett on the horn.”

There is certainly an argument to be made for applying the regulations to mini med plans, but one can’t make that case and then also criticize the outcome — leaving thousands of beneficiaries uninsured and nowhere to turn. The administration is using the waivers as a bridge to 2014, hoping to protect existing coverage and avoid unfavorable headlines. But the latter seems nearly impossible — no matter what they decide to do.