Heritage Action is ready to wage another war over Obamacare repeal, insisting Republicans try to knock down all of the healthcare law instead of just its biggest parts.
There’s broad agreement that to repeal the Affordable Care Act once President-elect Donald Trump takes office, Republicans would have to use special budgeting rules requiring just a simple Senate majority to pass. And they’ve already done a dry-run, last year approving a repeal bill that President Obama ultimately vetoed.
But the influential group Heritage Action — known for pushing Republican lawmakers further to the right — disliked the bill, because it left untouched some of the healthcare law’s insurer regulations. Republicans left those out over broad concerns by policy experts that they weren’t closely enough tied to federal spending to qualify for a budget reconciliation bill.
Heritage Action said Thursday it’s going to continue pressuring lawmakers to pass only an Obamacare repeal bill that ditches every last part of the legislation.
“From our vantage point, because they are one of the primary drivers of cost, they fit into what reconciliation is meant to deal with,” the group’s spokesman Dan Holler told the Washington Examiner.
Other conservatives privately express concerns that by pushing for full repeal — something many congressional aides say is not possible — Heritage will put Republicans at odds with each other and unnecessarily complicate the process of repealing and replacing Obamacare, which already presents enough of its own challenges.
Holler dismissed those concerns, saying Republicans are obligated to voters to repeal all of the healthcare law since that’s what they promised on the campaign trail.
“Donald Trump, Republicans in the House, Republicans in the Senate ran on repealing Obamacare,” Holler said. “They have a mandate to repeal this law. The failure to do so would be incredible and damage the Republican Party in the eyes of its voters.”
