Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) shut the door Tuesday on any possibility that the Senate would move legislation to replace the Affordable Care Act before the 2020 election.
McConnell rejected a request from President Trump last week that Republican lawmakers prepare a comprehensive package, ending the debate and attempting to protect GOP senators up for reelection next year.
McConnell delivered the message to Trump in a phone conversation Monday afternoon.
“We had a good conversation yesterday afternoon, and I pointed out to him the Senate Republicans’ view on dealing with comprehensive health care reform with a Democratic House of Representatives,” McConnell told reporters on Tuesday.
“I made clear to him that we were not going to be doing that in the Senate,” McConnell said. “He did say, as he later tweeted, that he accepted that and he would be developing a plan that he would take to the American people during the 2020 campaign.”
McConnell has privately told GOP colleagues that he would prefer to play offense by attacking Democrats’ ambitious “Medicare for all” proposals, which he says would gut the program, instead of playing defense on whatever comprehensive plan GOP lawmakers might come up with.
After speaking to McConnell, Trump tweeted Monday night that he now expects Republicans to take up comprehensive health care reform in 2021, when he predicts the GOP will control both chambers of Congress and the White House.
Trump triggered a crisis for Republicans just a week ago when, fresh off a victory from the end of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, the Justice Department filed legal papers calling for a court to strike down all of ObamaCare.
The decision immediately gave Democrats an election-year talking point that changed the subject from Mueller and caught Republicans flat-footed, putting them on defense. Democrats had seen GOP attacks on ObamaCare as instrumental to their winning the House majority last fall.
Senate Republicans told The Hill last week that they were privately rooting for the courts to uphold the law and spare them from the political chaos that would ensue if it were struck down.
Instead, Senate Republicans said Tuesday that they will focus on smaller-scale legislation to reduce the cost of prescription drugs and promote association health plans, under which small businesses join together to provide more affordable health plans to employees.
Both parties face challenges on health care, with some Democrats worried that a push by liberals for a single-payer Medicare for all proposal could harm their party in next year’s elections.
………
- Discussion
-
GOP shuts down Trump health push https://t.co/Qnnka0SRwS pic.twitter.com/oaDhtNxdYM
— The Hill (@thehill) April 3, 2019
Republicans never intended to repeal Obamacare – just as they never intended to fix the problem of illegal immigration, address the ever-growing national debt and the deficit, institute real tax reform, and all the other promises they have been making since at least 2010. Now, it’s, well, maybe after the 2020 elections when Trump gets another term as president…
None of the Republicans, including Trump, want to repeal or fix Obamacare because they, like the Democrats, want full-on, government-run health care. Thy want it because nothing is more heady than having control over the peasants’ very lives. They want the power to decide who should live and who should die. This is what Obamacare was meant to lead to.
Republicans had two years, during which time they controlled both houses of congress and the presidency, to fulfill all of their promises. Yet, they made one or two half-hearted attempts at repealing Obamacare, passed a tax tweak instead of real reform (but promised more “reform” would be coming which never did), and for the rest, they sat on their fat fannies and did nothing. Now that Trump wants another term as president, suddenly, he is making noises about the promises he made in 2016. Well, the Dems now control the House. Even if Trump wins the presidency again, nothing will be done because it can’t be done. The time to keep campaign promises was when the Republicans held the trifecta. That time is now gone and it’s not coming back.
Anyone who believes Republican promises on any issue now is a fool.
Trump now says he never wanted Congress to vote on ObamaCare replacement https://t.co/MpZD9299j5 pic.twitter.com/kcU6uApJWE
— The Hill (@thehill) April 3, 2019
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.