President Trump doesn’t regret trying to tackle repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act as his first legislative goal because passing the American Healthcare Act would maximize other legislative goals, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Friday.
Spicer said repealing Obamacare and the taxes associated with it had to be the first thing tackled by Trump to promote the rest of his legislative agenda. He suggested not doing passing the AHCA could hurt the administration’s expected push for tax reform down the road.
“In order to maximize tax reform … doing this in that way maximizes the amount of savings you can use,” Spicer said.
The AHCA is estimated to cut taxes by about $1 trillion overall, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Trump has promised to further cut taxes in a reform of the tax code following healthcare.
However, it appears that plan is in serious jeopardy as it’s not clear the House GOP has the votes to pass the bill. The White House has emphasized the bill is the first step in a three-step plan to fully repeal and replace Obamacare, and the only legislative step that wouldn’t need 60 votes in the Senate.
The piecemeal nature of the replacement plan has made it hard for people to get behind the first bill. Spicer said it’s much more typical to do everything in one bill, but spacing out the plan “makes it very complicated.” However, it was the only way to do it, he said.
Spicer said tax reform would still be on the table if the bill dies, but it won’t cut as much money as it otherwise would.
“If you don’t do it first, you do lose some of the potential and savings you could achieve,” he said.
