Which Americans would be most affected by a repeal of health reform?

Well, most immediately people like the 2 million people with Medicare coverage who hit the gap in the prescription drug benefit each year. They will lose the discounts in prescription drugs that help make those medicines more affordable to them. Other people who will lose in the short term include the folks who hit a lifetime limit, people with cancer and other serious illnesses who hit a lifetime limit on their policy. There are about 11,000 people who do that every year, but there are 102 million people with lifetime limits on their policies who have to hope that they don't get seriously ill. Other folks who will be hit immediately are children with preexisting conditions who insurance companies would be able to deny coverage again, and other folks with preexisting conditions who won't be able to get coverage through high-risk pools today and through any insurance plan that they will apply to in 2014. But the long-range number of people who are going to be affected by repealing the new health care law is the 32 million people who are unemployed today who would receive coverage once it's fully implemented.

How would repeal affect the economy?

There are different ways that repealing the new health care law will affect the economy, certainly in terms of reducing productivity and efficiency and where we see that is in how we won't be able to change how we deliver and finance health care in this country. The concrete effects of repealing the new health care law on our economy are that we will slow job creation. As many as 400,000 new jobs will no longer be created each year if we repeal the health care reform bill and families will be paying more for their health insurance. The estimate that the Center for American Progress has developed is that premiums will go up by $2,000 per year, per family. Those new economic costs are also a sign of the reduced productivity and reduced efficiency in the health care system. The kind of changes that are in the new health care law that won't be implemented are going to be driving up those costs and ultimately reducing employment.

Are conservatives likely to succeed in repealing reform?

The House of Representatives is likely to vote on and approve a repeal of the new health care reform law in the next few days. After that it would go to the Senate and potentially to President Obama. In all likelihood it won't end up being enacted. It either won't pass the Senate or President Obama would veto repeal if it were to get to his desk. But what is important to know is that this is really the first of many efforts to unravel the new health care reform law, and the new protections that it provides Americans in terms of their health insurance coverage and the improvements that it makes in health care delivery. If full repeal doesn't end up being enacted, the conservatives in Congress have promised to come back, whether through the appropriation process or in smaller bills, to chip away at the new health reform bill and take the really most important parts out of it.