Less than a year after Congress passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a newly conservative House voted to repeal it. Aware that such a repeal was purely symbolic and would be blocked by the Senate and vetoed by President Obama, GOP leaders instead promised “death by a million cuts” and have introduced a steady series of bills that de-fund many of the health law’s provisions.

For the GOP, this goal of de-funding the health reform law has been increasingly intertwined with efforts to cut the federal deficit. The most recent conflation was House passage of Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budget plan that included privatizing Medicare and turning Medicaid into a block-grant program—ideas that provoked outcry among seniors and others in town hall meetings around the country. Yesterday, Rep. Dave Camp, (R-MI) who is chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, said that in the face of opposition from Democrats, he will not push forward with the Medicare privatization proposal. 

“I’m not interested in talking about whether the House is going to pass a bill that the Senate shows no interest in,” Mr. Camp said in an appearance at the National Press Club. “I’m not interested in laying down more markers. I am interested in solutions.”

That interest in solutions—or at least in regaining favor with the voting public—would be a welcome change. In recent months the GOP has chosen to lay down several clear markers on the path to under-cut health reform. In the last month alone the House voted to de-fund three provisions:

–On April 13 the House passed H.R. 1217, a bill “To Repeal the Prevention and Public Health Fund.” This bill was sponsored by Rep. Joe Pitts who referred to the $15 billion that would go to anti-obesity and tobacco programs, primary care and other prevention efforts aimed at underserved populations as “an ObamaCare slush fund.”

The real reason for this cut: to pay for the loss of revenue due to Congress’s repeal of stepped up tax reporting requirements for small business. Back in September, a bipartisan vote in Congress led to passage of an amendment blocking the requirement that small businesses file a 1099 form every time they spend more than $600 per year for goods and services from a company. This provision was expected to generate about $19 billion over ten years. At the time, the Wall Street Journal reported that cutting $11 billion from the Prevention and Public Health Fund was a likely offset.

–On May 3 the House passed H.R. 1213, a bill that repeals federal funding for states to help them establish insurance exchanges—the marketplaces where individuals and small businesses will be able to purchase affordable health coverage. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this would save $14 billion over the next decade, although instead of allowing states more flexibility in setting up their exchanges, this bill would basically force many of them to have the federal government set them up.

–On May 4 the House approved H.R. 1214  “To repeal mandatory funding for school-based health center construction.” The savings here add up to $100 million over 10 years—hardly a coup for those interested in budget cuts, but one more chip in the public health provisions of the ACA.

More de-funding legislation is on the way. The Energy and Commerce Committee has also approved a bill that changes the way “personal responsibility education programs” are funded and a measure that does the same with money for teaching health centers.

Will  these “thousand tiny cuts” matter in the long run?

Parents are often told that the best way to rid a child of annoying behavior is to ignore it. Turn a deaf ear to whining and unreasonable demands and eventually they will subside as it becomes clear this kind of behavior doesn’t merit attention. I feel like progressives have been using this tactic with the various bills and resolutions that have passed through the House in the last several months that are designed to undercut health reform.

So far, ignoring these purely symbolic gestures has been successful. None of these “cuts” have gone further than the GOP-heavy House; they are unlikely to pass the Senate and sure to receive President Obama’s veto. But it’s getting harder to keep the ignoring strategy going.

The problem is that as the House spends enormous amounts of time trying to undercut health reform and on other bills that further restrict abortion and women’s health care, they have avoided dealing with the real problems facing the nation.

As Nadeam Elshami, spokesman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tells the Washington Post, “They come back this week and instead of focusing on jobs they’re going to be voting to take away more Americans’ health care and do nothing to grow our economy.”

Cutting health reform funding will not lead to long-term budget savings—in fact, it will lead to just the opposite. Let’s hope that Rep. Camp’s decision to shelve Medicare privatization is a signal that he and other GOP House leaders are getting the message that the American public is tired of symbolic gestures.