Paul Ryan and Sean Spicer have been sharing notes for weeks, offering the same old School House Rock shtick to explain why Republicans couldn’t repeal more of Obamacare. For the first time, Spicer was forced off script today.
After the White House and congressional leadership promised they were abolishing as much of the law as possible under the Senate’s arcane parliamentary rules, Washington Examiner White House reporter Sarah Westwood wondered, how could GOP honchos change the bill in order to repeal more at the last minute? More specifically, where did the sudden surge of energy to ax Obamacare’s Essential Health Benefits come from?
What followed was unfortunate. In little more than a minute, Spicer spewed 94 words, strung together four run-on sentences, and offered absolutely no clarity or explanation. The most cogent part of his answer came when he blurted out that “a lot of smart people” were currently working on the problem. But of course that’s not what’s going on. Spicer just didn’t have a better answer.
Republicans have been hiding behind the rules, intentionally using complicated jargon to obscure what can and cannot be done. When Speaker Ryan rolled up his shirtsleeves during his PowerPoint presentation last week, he insisted that Senate rules prohibited Congress from stabbing the regulatory heart of Obamacare. And before Westwood stumped him, Spicer convinced the press corps that only partial repeal was possible.
But that reasoning recently collapsed as the GOP healthcare bill simultaneously burst into flames. The parliamentarian—the legislative referee who determines what follows and breaks Senate rules—reportedly hinted that killing regs might be kosher under reconciliation.
In an interview with the Washington Examiner’s Phil Klein, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, recounted a conversation with the parliamentarian that directly refutes leadership’s claims. Lee said the parliamentarian told him that Republicans hadn’t even asked her about what’s possible under a shortcut legislative measure called reconciliation.
“One of the things we’ve been told over and over again is the bill was no more aggressive than it has been… in part because of Senate rules,” Lee told Klein. “And the Senate rules are something those defending the bill have repeatedly pointed to in defense of why they wrote it the way they wrote it.”
That’s not the case though, Lee continued. “The parliamentarian said, there’s not necessarily any reason that would categorically preclude you from doing more, both on the repeal front and the replacement front, all sorts of things are possible.”
Had GOP leadership given an honest effort at repealing all of Obamacare, if they actually consulted with the Senate parliamentarian, maybe Spicer could’ve avoided his poor showing Thursday afternoon. They offered a half-baked package instead, one conservatives have turned their noses up at.
In the end though, Spicer’s epic non-answer spoke volumes. Stumbling over himself, the press secretary made clear that Republican brass is running out of excuses for failing to repeal Obamacare.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
