By Richard E. Cohen, CQ Staff

Republican leaders are now casting the health care overhaul as a damaging tax hike in a weak economy, sharpening their line of attack against the Obama administration’s top legislative achievement as the House prepares to vote on repeal.

The pivot comes in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling largely upholding the law as constitutional under Congress’ taxation authority, an opinion that has allowed Republicans to keep their focus on the economy and avoid walking into a fractious debate over health policy.

The new strategy pushes any GOP effort to legislate an alternative to the health care law — something some politically vulnerable Republican lawmakers would like to see — past the elections. It also leaves the ground open for presidential candidate Mitt Romney to figure out the best way to square his opposition to the federal law with his earlier support for a health care overhaul as governor of Massachusetts.

The maneuvering demonstrates that both parties have moved into election mode and that legislative strategy is closely linked to planning for the upcoming nominating conventions and fall campaign. The GOP’s rhetorical shift also shows how economic themes are likely to dominate the elections.

Republican leaders have left no doubt that they are committed to repealing the health care law (PL 111-148, PL 111-152), and that they expect the issue to be a political winner for them.

“We are resolved to have this law go away,” House Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, said Tuesday.

Republicans expect their latest repeal bill (HR 6079) to win the same unified Republican support as the similar legislation (HR 2) the House passed in January 2011. Then, three Democrats voted to repeal the law.

“It’s not just Republicans working to repeal Obamacare,” Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said Tuesday. “It will be a bipartisan vote. . . . Members are hearing from back home.”

But the passage of time — and a public increasingly weary of the divisive health care arguments, according to recent polls — also helps explain the Republicans’ new approach. “There is little appetite to revisit this debate,” said Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg.

The Republicans’ focus on the penalties the law would impose on individuals and employers reluctant to purchase insurance coverage helps the party sidestep voter dismay while energizing the GOP’s conservative base. Georgia Republican Tom Price, chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, said the prospect of new fees on business is “harming the health of the American economy” and creating health care job losses. “There is a better way,” he said, that involves more local decision-making.

The new focus led David Schweikert, R-Ariz., to introduce a bill (HR 6088) this week that would repeal a dozen penalties in the law. Describing his plan to abolish the “dirty dozen,” he said, “Arizona’s families, entrepreneurs and small businesses cannot afford to have this income taxed away from them in a struggling economy; it is simply unsustainable.”

Contraceptives Also Under Fire

Republicans also reformulated their opposition to an Obama administration rule that requires religiously affiliated groups to provide free contraceptive services as part of the law’s preventive-care coverage. Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-Wis., introduced a bill this week that would bar penalties for non-compliance to that provision based on religious and moral convictions.