Emboldened congressional Republicans are predicting a rocky couple of years ahead for the health-care overhaul that they disparagingly call “Obamacare” _ as they hatch plans to scuttle the law by holding up funding for key elements.But they had better act quickly. Millions of Americans already are enjoying tangible benefits from the health-care law, and they’re not likely to look kindly on having those benefits weakened, much less revoked.

The list of benefits so far includes: required coverage of preventive services such as childhood immunizations and cancer screenings for women; a ban on denying coverage for youngsters with preexisting medical conditions; letting young adults still at home remain on their parents’ health plan; barring insurers from setting lifetime limits on coverage; and a $250 rebate for seniors facing the Medicare “doughnut hole” in drug coverage.

As of January, there will be added incentives for family doctors who work in underserved areas, and cost controls on insurers to assure premiums are used for health care rather than executives’ salaries.

A year from now, additional funding will be provided for community health centers (the centers that Republicans have offered as their solution to the problem of 50 million uninsured.)

So the GOP’s guerilla-style tactics to slow and even reverse health reform could well prove unpopular with growing numbers of citizens as the benefits of the

Affordable Care Act (its official name) take hold.

That, of course, is the message President Obama’s aides should, and will, try to get out in the months ahead. One of the other problems with the GOP strategy is that it does not appear to offer anything to replace the health-care reforms.

Granted, more could be done to find ways to reduce costs. Even Obama admits the law isn’t perfect and will require adjustments over time.

But the Republicans’ focus so far is solely on upending the law’s implementation in an effort to force Obama to agree to changes. So much for all that GOP talk on the campaign trail about simultaneously repealing and replacing the supposedly objectionable aspects of the law, right? If the strategy proves to be merely more party-of-no maneuvers that do nothing to improve Americans’ access to affordable, quality health care, that’s bound to make people really sick.

• MCT Campus