Health-care reform is now law. The Republicans’ strategy of mortally wounding the Obama presidency by killing the bill — making defeat of the legislation the president’s Waterloo — has failed, and yet they just can’t stop lying.

In the long list of agitprop prevarications — that reforms would create death panels, lead to rationing, constitute a government takeover, put government bureaucrats between patients and doctors, cover illegal aliens, use taxpayer funds to pay for abortions and the rest — their claim now that they’ll “repeal and replace” the reforms if they win control of Congress may be the most ridiculous yet.

A more likely scenario is that independent voters will realize that the Armageddon Republicans promised is not coming, and never was. Worse, these voters may even find there’s much to like about the tax breaks, regulations on insurance companies and other goodies coming online and so be more likely to vote for Democrats in November than they say they are now, eight months out.

If public opinion turns around, Republicans will have an even harder time getting the two-thirds majorities in the House and Senate required to override the president’s veto of their repeal legislation. But even if it doesn’t, the odds that Republicans can get to two-thirds majorities, especially in the House, lie somewhere between slim and none — and they know it.

Kevin Osborne at Citybeat Cincinnati runs the numbers:

In the House of Representatives, there currently are 253 Democrats and 178 Republicans, with four vacant seats.

In the Senate, there currently are 57 Democrats, 41 Republicans and two independents.

Because it’s highly doubtful that the GOP will convince any Democrats who supported the bill to change their votes, that means Republicans would need to win 40 House seats and 10 Senate seats in this fall’s election to gain simple majorities to pass the bill. But to repeal some of the reforms — like the individual insurance mandate — they would need 60 votes in the Senate, meaning the GOP would have to gain 19 seats.

Even then, it wouldn’t be signed into law because there’s no doubt President Obama would veto it. To override a veto, Republicans would need two-thirds of each house.

That means 67 senators and 290 House members. To achieve that goal, Republicans would need to gain 26 seats in the Senate and 112 in the House.

Pres. Obama is says he hopes Republicans pursue repeal:

“This is the reform that some folks in Washington are still hollering about, still shouting about. Now that we passed it, they’re already promising to repeal it. They’re actually going to run on a platform of repeal in November,” Obama told a loud and friendly crowd of 3,000 in the University of Iowa Field House.

“And my attitude is: Go for it.”

Current projections by Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com show Democrats holding a 54 to 46 seat margin after the elections in November. Silver gives the Republicans a 10 percent chance of taking a majority in the Senate.

However, in February, Silver said the “general consensus” is that Dems will lose as many as 40 seats, which would put them in range of a slim — but nowhere near veto-proof — majority.

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