Day -10: Promises to Repeal and Replace Obamacare Will Be Anchor Around Neck of GOP
The Republicans have vowed to repeal the Affordable Care Act since the day it was signed into law. In fact, the GOP-controlled Congress has passed bills repealing it, largely symbolically, because President Obama has vetoed each repeal attempt.
At some point, “repeal, repeal, repeal” became “repeal and replace.”
Now that the Republicans control both the legislative branch and the executive branch, repealing will be fairly easy, but replacing quite difficult.
After promising so vociferously for six years to do something, the GOP can’t exactly turn around and say, “Ya know, we looked at this thing and amending it would really be the better option for everyone.” It’s probably the best option, it would get bipartisan support, but is politically fraught on the right, so it won’t happen, especially with Donald Trump vowing repeal for two years.
To repeal Obamacare, Congress can avoid Senate filibuster rules by going through a budget reconciliation bill. The effect of the bill will be to defund Obamacare. To pass, only 50 senators (with the Vice President breaking ties) would have to be on board. However, Jonathan Chait reported last night that the GOP might not even have those 50 votes, as many of the more moderate Republican senators sensibly want to make sure that a replacement plan is in place before voting to repeal.
The bigger problem for Republicans is that a budget reconciliation bill won’t and can’t create a new health care reform system since they the bills are only to be implemented in matters effecting taxes and spending.
That puts the GOP between a rock and a hard place. There are likely many senators and egos who want to be the new architect for health care reform. There will be different groups of Republicans having different ideas for implementation and goals.
However, the Republicans will need to coalesce around a single plan and put it to a vote.
While the GOP won’t have a problem pushing the bill through the House of Representatives, since the GOP doesn’t have 60 seats in the Senate, they can’t prevent Democrats from filibustering the bill and having it die on the floor.
That leaves the Republicans with three less-than-ideal options:
- Repeal Obamacare without replacement;
- Leave Obamacare as is and work on amending the law;
- Invoking the nuclear rule to prevent filibustering (something the Democrats never did for bills when they controlled the Senate) and jam a replacement through without bipartisan support.
All of them have consequences, immediate and distant, and will affect citizens in all 50 states, to the tunes of millions of people. While the third option appears to be the least problematic, it will set a very dangerous precedent for the party in power moving forward, further eroding bipartisan protections.
The Republicans can no longer pass symbolic votes, and Obamacare — despite their protests — has been a lot more successful than they initially realized.
People rely on Obamacare — imperfect as it may be — and right now the GOP plan on what to do with health care reform is floundering in the water.
-10 days in, 1471 to go
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