GOP still plans to ax Obamacare
President huddles with party to protect ACA
Donald Trump and Republican congressional leaders continued to insist Wednesday that their plan to dismantle Obamacare remains on a fast track with Trump poised to act on his first day in office in a little more than two weeks.
Yet after Vice President-elect Mike Pence met Wednesday with GOP congressional leaders to plot the demise of the Affordable Care Act, he and House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., offered few details about their plan of attack.
And even Trump offered some cautionary political advice to his own party to make sure Democrats retain blame for the problems with the law.
The GOP-controlled Senate, meanwhile, voted 51-48 Wednesday to move ahead with debate on a budget resolution for fiscal year 2017 that would include instructions for repealing the 2010 law. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul was the only Republican to vote no.
The Senate was expected to debate the resolution next week with the goal of approving it by Jan. 20, Inauguration Day.
While Pence was meeting with GOP leaders at one end of the Capitol, President Obama huddled with congressional Democrats to plot how to protect his signature legislation.
The two camps disagreed on the extent of the changes, but focused on what might come next — and on political blame.
“Now Republicans in Congress are like the dog who caught the bus,” Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said after meeting with Obama. “They can repeal, but they have nothing to put in its place.”
Republican leaders insisted they have a plan to replace Oba- macare but gave no details.
“We have plenty of ideas to replace it,” Ryan said.
Instead of detailing those ideas, which Ryan said would come in the “weeks and months ahead,” Republicans criticized Obama for “ruining ” the health care system.
And Trump tried to make sure any public dissatisfaction with the health care system is attached to Democrats.
“Republicans must be careful in that the Dems own the failed Obamacare disaster, with its poor coverage and massive premium increases,” Trump tweeted.
Pence said he stressed to Republicans in their closed-door session the importance of “reminding people” of Obama’s broken promises on health care.
“(Trump) admonished the Congress to be careful and I reiterated that. We’re talking about people’s lives,” Pence said. “But we’re also talking about a policy that has been a failure virtually since its inception. We intend to, over the course of the coming days and weeks, to be speaking directly to the American people about that failure.”
A record number of Americans, 6.4 million, had signed up for health insurance through Obamacare as of mid-December, according to White House officials, about 400,000 more than the previous record by that time.
“We’re also talking about a policy that has been a failure virtually since its inception.” Vice President-elect Mike Pence on the Affordable Care Act