Republican lawmakers may have a tougher time passing their version of the Affordable Care Act than they originally anticipated.
By Tuesday afternoon, just hours after GOP leaders rolled out their plans to “repeal and replace” Obamacare, a growing number of prominent right-leaning groups and voices had announced their opposition to the proposed legislation.
In situations like this, where one party wants to pass a major and controversial bill, the drafting lawmakers normally build a broad outside coalition before introducing their bill, not afterwards. Lesson here is don’t write this stuff in secret.
Here are the right-leaning groups and voices that have so far come out against the GOP Obamacare bill:
Americans for Prosperity:
“Koch group AFP’s Tim Phillips says at an event that Republicans will have the shortest lived majority if they fail to FULLY repeal Obamacare,” BuzzFeed’s Tarini Parti reported Tuesday. “AFP will oppose the House bill replace ACA because it “breaks promises” — not a full repeal. AFP has activists on the hill today from different states to lobby Republicans to fully repeal Obamacare.”
“Message from Koch network is GOP has passed full Obamacare repeal several times. Why not do it again?” she added.
Club For Growth:
The group, which scores legislation based on whether it adheres to conservative ideas and principles, announced it opposes the legislation.
“[T]he problems with this bill are not just what’s in it, but also what’s missing: namely, the critical free-market solution of selling health insurance across state lines,” Club for Growth president David McIntosh said in a statement that referred to the new legislation as “Ryancare,” named for House Speaker Paul Ryan.
“Such an injection of competition would lead to hundreds of billions of dollars in savings, nullifying any argument by Congressional Republicans that this provision cannot be included in the current bill,” the statement added. “If this warmed-over substitute for government-run health care remains unchanged, the Club for Growth will key vote against it.”
McIntosh concluded, “Republicans should be offering a full and immediate repeal of Obamacare’s taxes, regulations, and mandates, an end to the Medicaid expansion, and inclusion of free-market reforms, like interstate competition.”
The problem with eh new GOP bill is that it expands on the original health care law’s “flawed progressive premises,” Heritage Action CEO Michael Needham said.
“Many Americans seeking health insurance on the individual market will notice no significant difference between the Affordable Care Act (i.e., Obamacare) and the American Health Care Act,” he added. “That is bad politics and, more importantly, bad policy.”
Heritage Action is the political arm of the Heritage Foundation, a long-standing Washington, D.C., conservative think tank.
Freedomworks:
FreedomWorks was quick to denounce the new bill, referring to it as “Obamacare-lite.”
“It creates a new entitlement through the refundable tax credits,” FreedomWorks’ Jason Pye said in a statement. “It allows insurance companies to assess a 30 percent penalty on those who don’t keep continuous coverage for 63 days, which is an individual mandate by another name.”
The Cato Institute’s Michael Cannon:
“Flubbing ObamaCare would at once united and embolden Democrats while dividing the GOP base, driving the former to the polls in 2018 and 2020 while causing the latter to stay home,” Cannon wrote Tuesday.
“If ObamaCare is not doing well, and Republicans take the blame, it will create the potential for the sort of wave election Democrats experienced in 2008, when they captured not just the House and the presidency, but a filibuster-proof, 60-vote supermajority in the Senate. If that happens, and ObamaCare is not doing well, Democrats will be less interested in rescuing ObamaCare than repealing and replacing it themselves—with a single-payer system.”
Talk Radio:
So far talk radio seems very skeptical of the bill.
— andrew kaczynski? (@KFILE) March 7, 2017
The House Freedom Caucus:
Members of the House Freedom Caucus were quick Tuesday evening to state their opposition to the new bill.
“It doesn’t matter who comes to us and asks us to go along with this devastating program,” Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., told the Washington Examiner. “The answer will be no.”
Republican Senators:
Several GOP senators have come out to say they’re not interested in seeing the law passed. These Republican senators include Mike Lee of Utah, Ted Cruz of Texas and Ran Paul of Kentucky
Members of the Republican Study Committee:
Members of the Committee have called on party leaders to take another crack at undoing Obamacare.
“Instead of continuing to spin our wheels, we need a starting place. What the Senate passed in October 2015 is the best starting place,” said Republican Study Committee Chairman Mark Walker, R-N.C. “Let’s get that on the books, then we can move quickly after that to put in replacement components.”
A House analysis of the new bill, which was prepared specifically for the committee, referred to the refundable tax credits in the new GOP plan as “a Republican welfare entitlement.”
“Writing checks to individuals to purchase insurance is, in principle, Obamacare,” the memo, which was obtained by Bloomberg News, goes on to say.
