Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said Sunday the Trump administration will send “principles” to Congress for crafting a replacement plan for Obamacare.
Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Mulvaney pushed back on the notion that Republicans lack a clear path forward should the courts rule the entirety of Obamacare is unconstitutional. He said the White House would be sending guidance to Congress with principles to help guide it in crafting legislation.
“We’re doing the same thing on this that we did with taxes. Remember, when we started with taxes, people criticized us for not giving enough details. What did we do? We sent principles to the Hill,” Mulvaney said. “ … From that, following the proper legislative progress we had a tremendous tax bill that passed into law.”
“We’re going to do the same thing on health care. As to pre-existing conditions, I know a lot of folks raised that. Keep in mind every single plan this administration has ever come out with has covered pre-existing conditions,” Mulvaney added.
The comments come as Trump has begun to talk more about healthcare and on replacing Obamacare. The Trump Justice Department told a federal appeals court it favored striking Obamacare in its entirety, and last week Trump told reporters that if Obamacare is ended Republicans would have a better plan in place.
“If the Supreme Court rules that Obamacare is out, we’ll have a plan that is far better than Obamacare,” Trump said last week.
There have been very few details to emerge from the White House over what it is looking to do. During the discussion on a renewed push for an Obamacare replacement plan, there was reportedly pushback from some in Trump’s Cabinet, including Vice President Mike Pence, who worried about the political fallout of moving forward without a plan should the law be ruled unconstitutional.
Mulvaney, who is one of the members of Trump’s team leading the charge on repealing Obamacare, said Sunday that Trump and Pence actually agree on the issue.
“There’s absolutely zero daylight between the president and vice president on this issue.”
Despite the White House assertion that Congress would be taking the lead in the healthcare debate, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has pushed back on the notion that Republicans in Congress would be taking the lead. He said he was more focused combating Democrats’ “Medicare for All” ideas.
