The Senate next week is poised to pass the first step in repealing the Affordable Care Act, an effort that would send the measure to the House and ensure it will be swiftly cleared after Inauguration Day and gain newly sworn-in President Donald Trump’s signature.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s move upholds a pledge to make the elimination of Obamacare the chamber’s first order of business.
Senators began debating a budget resolution enabling the repeal measure Wednesday as Vice President-elect Mike Pence met privately with GOP lawmakers to discuss Obamacare’s elimination and its eventual replacement.
“The American people have sent a decisive message to Washington, D.C., that they want Obamacare to be repealed and replaced with healthcare reform that will lower the cost of health insurance without growing the size of government,” Pence said after leaving the meeting.
Pence told reporters the incoming Trump administration is working “very closely” with Senate leaders on a repeal, which will include, he added, “a framework for a replacement going forward.”
Debate and a final Senate vote to rescind Obamacare are expected to conclude by late next week, after which the House will debate and pass it. The resolution is the first step in a repeal process that could take until February. Lawmakers will take the next few weeks formulating the legislation’s language.
“The Senate’s going to be acting first next week then the [House] will follow,” House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Wednesday.
The repeal is embedded in a fiscal 2017 budget resolution GOP lawmakers are utilizing as a parliamentary tool that allows them to avoid an otherwise guaranteed Democratic filibuster in the Senate. The resolution requires 50 votes to pass. Sixty votes are needed to end a filibuster.
With only a simple majority in both GOP-led chambers now needed to pass the repeal, there is nothing Democrats can do to stop the elimination of President Obama’s signature domestic achievement, even though most in the party oppose the move.
Obamacare will be phased out over time with the help of executive actions signed by Donald Trump, Pence said Wednesday, which will “ensure that there is an orderly transition” to a system.
During the phase-out period, which some lawmakers said could last several years, Republicans will write new legislation aimed at making health insurance easier to purchase and affordable. Some of those ideas include tax credits for individual health insurance purchases and allowing people to buy insurance across state lines.
“The architecture of the replacement of Obamacare will come together, as it should, through the legislative process in the weeks and months ahead,” Pence said.
