Standalone repeal?
McConnell works phones; senators make TV rounds
Senators float idea if replacement deal can’t be reached,
A top White House official and several Republican senators said on Sunday that Congress should consider a stand-alone bill to repeal Obamacare if the Senate cannot agree on an alternative to replace the 2010 health care law.
“If the replacement part is too difficult for Republicans to come together, then let’s go back and take care of the first step and repeal,” Marc Short, the White House’s legislative affairs director, said on Fox News Sunday.
Short’s comments could undermine efforts by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to pull together an agreement during Congress’ Fourth of July recess. Senators left Washington last week after failing to meet their deadline to pass a bill that repeals and replaces the Affordable Care Act.
McConnell has vowed to keep working over the break to negotiate a deal, but his task is more difficult with lawmakers dispersed to their home states, where they’re under pressure from some constituents and activists who are vehemently opposed to the GOP’s draft bill. That draft would scale back the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion and cut future spending on that safety-net program.
The draft stalled last week amid opposition from within the Senate GOP conference. Moderate Republicans have balked at those proposed cuts, while conservatives say the draft measure does not go far enough.
McConnell is “working the phones” and trying to put a deal together that balances those conflicting concerns, Scott Jennings, a Republican consultant and onetime McConnell adviser, said Sunday on CNN’s State of the
Union. Still, Jennings acknowledged the delay would make McConnell’s task more difficult, giving opponents time to rally and ratchet up public pressure.
The idea of doing a stand-alone bill to repeal the ACA gained steam Friday, when Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., made the suggestion in a Fox News appearance. Within minutes of Sasse’s comments, President Trump tweeted an endorsement of that approach.
“If Republican Senators are unable to pass what they are working on now, they should immediately REPEAL, and then REPLACE at a later date!” the president tweeted.
But lawmakers voted “yes” on repealing Obamacare in 2015, when they knew it would be vetoed by President Obama. Now that Trump is in the Oval Office and would sign such a measure, they might be more reticent because of the potential political fallout and economic uncertainty.
“You just can’t get rid of this, because you can’t leave people without what they need,” said Ohio’s GOP Gov. John Kasich on ABC’s This Week.
“That idea is an absurd idea,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent. “You will throw 32 million Americans off health insurance, 10% of the population.”