The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
GOP House members irked ACA still around
Conservatives call for swifter action on Obamacare repeal.
House Republicans voiced frustrations Tuesday about slow-moving efforts to unwind the Affordable Care Act, urging their leaders to pick up the pace on a top campaign promise.
“Let’s get rid of it,” Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio told reporters at a forum for House conservatives. “That’s what we told the voters we’d do.” He wasn’t alone. “I, too, am frustrated with the pace,” said Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania. “America needs to know what we stand for. We should vote on something.”
The frustrations reflect the dilemma facing Republican leaders caught between years-long promises to smash the Affordable Care Act and the political reality of upending the health care system in a way that could cause millions of Americans to lose their health insurance.
Party members emerged from a closed-door retreat in Philadelphia last week frustrated at the lack of progress in uniting around a plan to repeal and replace so-called “Obamacare.”
Numerous health-care alternatives have been offered by Republicans, but none has won consensus in the party. GOP leaders and committee chairmen have yet to get behind a legislative alternative, although House Speaker Paul Ryan has put forward a series of broad ideas in a blueprint released last year, including refundable tax credits and high-risk pools.
Rep. Raul Labrador of Idaho offered a terse response when asked Monday whether any progress had been made in the healthcare meeting at the retreat. “No,” he said. Perry suggested Republicans were too complacent ahead of the election because they didn’t expect to win full control of the White House and Congress.
“Many here in Washington, D.C., didn’t think there was going to be a Republican-controlled House, Senate and executive branch and now it’s happened and we’re scurrying around and that’s unfortunate,” he said. “Because I think the time was there and we should have stood for something. And that puts us behind right now and gives some advantage to the other arguments.”
On Tuesday, Labrador said it’s “frustrating” that many Republicans are privately calling for a more government-centered approach than promised.
“I’m hearing a lot of members say that they want Obamacare Lite. And that’s not what we promised the American people,” Labrador said.
The budget resolution adopted by Congress earlier this month set a Jan. 27 deadline for the budget committees to receive and act on recommendations for a repeal bill. It came and went without legislation.
But Ryan said to expect progress soon on health care.
“First, our committees are set to begin holding legislative hearings on bills to deliver relief for Americans struggling under Obamacare,” Ryan told reporters Tuesday. “This is the next step in a step-by-step approach to repealing and replacing Obamacare with an affordable, patient-centered system.”
Labrador, Perry and Jordan agreed that any plan must fully repeal the health law: taxes, subsidies, mandates and regulations.
“Heck yes — if it’s a full repeal,” Jordan said when asked if he’d back a repeal without a replacement.
Labrador agreed, but added, “I’m not hearing a plan for full repeal.”