Republicans have been working towards this moment for well over half a decade. Donald Trump will take office this month and the battle to defeat Obamacare is no longer on a pedestal. With that said, this will certainly be a tough fight for the GOP.
Politico reports, “An early look at the GOP’s plans shows that they will be pushing the idea that “universal access” to health insurance is better than mandatory “universal coverage,” which has been the foundation of Obamacare.
It sounds like a subtle rhetorical distinction, but reflects a critical difference in the Republican vision of health care that emphasizes less generous coverage to drive down insurance costs. If they can’t sell voters on the concept, the repeal and overhaul of Obamacare could become a damaging episode for the new administration.”
For this repeal to come to fruition, the people will have to foresee the benefits and support the move.
“With less regulation, no individual or employer mandates, and a free market approach to health insurance, the Republican Congress and President-elect Donald Trump believe more people will be able to buy cheaper health care. That is, if Republicans can get their Obamacare “replacement” plan passed, which could take as much as two or three years.”
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington D.C., has laid out a “road map” for the GOP to ensure a “smooth transition” from the law. They recommend several steps be taken to minimize the friction repeal will receive in congress, to involving the states to make sure they are ready to have “replacement market rules ready to take effect upon repeal.”
The Weekly Standard reported Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, and Vice President-elect Mike Pence plan to lean heavily on the Heritage Foundation’s recommendations:
“The plan might be summed up as: repeal, delay, replace. More precisely, Republicans plan to repeal most of the law, delay the implementation of most of that repeal for at least two years—and figure out what to replace it with in the interim.
It’s a legislative strategy adopted largely from the Heritage Foundation’s recommendations. The think tank’s health care experts Nina Owcharenko and Edmund F. Haislmaier authored a brief in November that advocated a four-step process that begins: “Maximize the reconciliation process for repeal.” According to Mitch McConnell, this will come in the form of an “Obamacare repeal resolution” on January 3, the first day of the new Congress.
Why start here and not a straightforward repeal bill? While such a repeal could pass the House of Representatives with a party-line vote, the small majority Republicans hold in the Senate (likely 52 to the Democrats’ 48) means there’s no supermajority of 60 to override an almost-certain Democratic filibuster. So the GOP plans to repeal Obamacare the same way Democrats passed it: through budget reconciliation, because Senate rules limit debate (and thereby avoid the filibuster threat) on budget legislation.”
