WASHINGTON (AP) – Congress may vote to repeal President Barack Obama’s health care law before coming up with a replacement, GOP leaders said Tuesday.
The approach could allow congressional Republicans to take swift action on one of President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign promises, while putting off the hard part. And while repealing the law could be done with GOP votes alone, any replacement plan would likely require the cooperation of minority Democrats in the Senate, something that will not be easy to come by.
“Nothing’s been decided yet but I would move through and repeal and then go to work on replacing,” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters at the Capitol. “I think once it’s repealed you will have hopefully fewer people playing politics, and then everybody coming to the table to find the best policy.”
“We will get started on this right way,” the California Republican added. Without specifying a timeline, McCarthy suggested Congress could vote on a repeal quickly, while putting off the date for it to take effect. As that date neared, McCarthy predicted, there would be political pressure for all parties to come together around a replacement.
Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican, outlined a similar process, with a repeal vote followed by “a multiyear transition into the replacement.”