begin quote from:
Republicans
moved one step closer to repealing Obamacare after the House passed a
measure this afternoon directing committees to begin working on
legislation to repeal major pieces of the law. The resolution cleared
the …
House Takes First Step to Repeal Obamacare
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Republicans moved one step closer to repealing Obamacare after the House
passed a measure this afternoon directing committees to begin working
on legislation to repeal major pieces of the law.
The resolution cleared the House 227-198. Ten members didn't vote.
Similar legislation passed in the Senate Thursday morning largely along
party lines.
A group of nine moderate and conservative House Republicans voted
against the bill with concerns that Republicans would end up repealing
the law without clearly laying out and presenting their replacement.
"The only thing I've ever asked for is that the replacement plan be
fully developed before we take on the repeal issue," Rep. Charlie Dent,
R-Pennsylvania, a leading moderate who voted against the measure, said
in an interview.
“I want to make [sure] people who have pre-existing conditions don’t get
frozen out of the market,” Tom MacArthur, R-New Jersey, said after
voting against the resolution. “I am getting a lot of calls. People are
concerned about fixing health care. They are much more concerned about
the substance of the fix than the timing of the fix.”
Republican leaders expect to enact a repeal as early as next month;
House Speaker Paul Ryan said it would "definitely" come in the first 100
days.
Democrats criticized the vote and accused the GOP of playing politics.
"It's being done for political reasons," said Rep. John Delaney, D-Maryland, on the House floor.
Next Steps
Ryan has emphasized that the House would move any legislation repealing the law through the committee process.
“We are not going to swap one 2700-page monstrosity for another … we are
going to do this the right way. We are going to do this the way it was
designed through the congressional committee system,” he said during his
press conference earlier today.
Democrats say they will counter Republicans' efforts by bringing
Americans whose lives have been positively affected by the law to these
hearings. Several members are holding rallies in their districts this
weekend to tout the law's benefits.
Democrats will also make the argument that that Republicans cannot
realistically “repeal” parts of the law without excluding popular
provisions like protections for people with pre-existing conditions.
“Here is the problem that they have,” Congresswomen Jan Schakowsky,
D-Illinois, said during a press conference today with Democratic House
members. “All of the parts are like a puzzle that was carefully crafted
and put together and you take a piece out and it no longer works. And
that is what they are coming to realize. They have had six years to come
up with something and they have come up with exactly nothing."
Ryan and his office remain unwilling to talk policy details. According
to Ryan, proposals and legislative strategy will be discussed at the
retreat for Republican lawmakers later this month. But Republican
leadership acknowledges that the longer it waits to offer a replacement,
the more scrutiny it will face from Americans and lawmakers alike.
No comments:
Post a Comment